The wind and rain blew my hair in my face as I stopped at the property line of the abandoned building. My fingers tightened around the gun I was holding, water running down and dripping onto the pavement. There was a single light in front of the property casting an eerie glow around the lot. I looked around to make sure I hadn’t been followed before proceeding.

I slowly approached the door and tried to open it. It was jammed. I stepped back and kicked it a few times before I got it to open, but the hinges were so rusted, the door fell in with a slam. The inside of the building was musty, dirty and dark, the only light coming from the light outside. It made the chilling feeling all the more noticable. There was a smell of rotting wood, along with years of collected dust, and a few spiders scuttling across the floor. When I stepped inside, I could tell someone had been there. I thought I heard the faint noise of scrambling.

I hummed, thinking how adorable it was that he thought he could hide from me. I slowly walked further into the building, looking for evidence of his movement or the place of his entrance. The floorboards creaked as I moved through the room. I checked the back room thoroughly before returning to the room where I had entered. Rain was falling in the doorway and there was a cold draft in the air, but it was conflicting with the draft from the door. I turned and noticed a window on one of the side walls was open as well, and smirked to myself.

“Ma-ax…”, I sang as I looked around. “You don't really think you can hide from me, do you?” I listened for any noise or movement, and grinned. He was trying to convince me he wasn't here. “C'mon, you don't think you can trick me again, right? Because if you come out now, I might make your death a little less… well, excruciating.”

My eyes scanned the floor before settling on a footprint in the dust. I walked in the direction of the footprint until I stood next to it, raising my gun. I fired off two shots and heard a whimper as some of the ceiling’s cracked plaster fell around me. I walked over and pulled him out of the corner. He had attempted to barricade himself with a few pieces of furniture. He looked pale and he was shaking under my grip, too scared to put up a fight. Coward.

I pushed him onto the ground and stood in front of him, one foot on his left shoulder. “You thought your little scheme would go unnoticed, with your attempted intervention of the plan. Thought you could fool me.”, I said, watching his reaction.

“H-how did you know about that?”, he asked, stuttering a bit. I chuckled, squatting in front of him.

“Let's just say I've been at this for a while. For three hundred and twenty years, actually.”, I said, as if making small talk. Confusion flashed in his face and I grabbed his jaw, forcing him to look me in the eye. “I know when people lie to me, Max.”

“I-I’m sorry! I'm sorry!”, he cried. I raised an eyebrow, standing back up and increasing the pressure on his shoulder until I heard the satisfying snap of his bones breaking and his pained wails.

“If you were sorry, you wouldn't have sent me on a wild chase, or even started this mess.”, I hissed, setting my gun down and pulling my knife out. I’d had this knife since the early 1900s, it always got the job done. It was silver, with a turquoise handle and admittedly, looked great when there was blood on it. He made a distressed noise when the blade broke the skin on his cheek. “We aren't even getting started yet.”

I dragged him up into a chair and tied him up with some dusty curtains I found nearby. I left him ungagged, though, for answering purposes. He stared at me with fearful eyes. The bloody knife might have contributed to that. “You know, truthfully, I just want answers.”, I said, twirling the knife in my hand, tugging his head back with my other hand. “What were you hoping to gain by telling Azzara about the plot to smuggle those vases to the black market? Did you think he’d intervene and redirect it? Or expose it, at the least?”

“N-no, I-I was trying to see if he knew anyone who would buy. He told me he had someone who would buy.”, he said. I hummed, swiping the knife across his chest. He screamed as the line of red appeared, slowly soaking into his shirt. I grinned, pressing the blade against his shattered shoulder.

“You know Azzara doesn’t like wasting time. Neither do I. How much time do you think I wasted trying to sort this out with him? We already had a buyer in Spain. Because he is an associate, any trade deals with clients go through me, unless I’ve assigned Serena to it, understand?”, I growled, leaning close to his face as I drove the knife into his arm, letting a waterfall of crimson drip onto the floor. “And now, I’m wasting more time with you. How much more of this do you want?”, I asked over his cries.

“P-please, I d-didn’t mean-”, he gasped through his tears once he stopped screaming. I rolled my eyes, tucking my hair back.

“Oh, I know you’ve been stealing from the trade. You don’t think Serena told me immediately when there was a few thousand dollars and one of the trade goods missing? And,”, I said, pulling the knife out and wiping it off on his pants. “We know it’s you because she traced it back to you, and because the client you were supposed to deliver to was the one who reported it missing. And, if you answer truthfully, I might not pull your eyes out with a corkscrew while we’re here.”

His head fell back, jaw clenched and eyes closed. His breathing was heavy and labored. “Fine. I was stealing. Have been for months.”, he ground out through gritted teeth, coughing at the end of his sentence. I smirked.

“And he speaks. We may be a criminal web, but greed will be punished. Were you planning on replacing them with counterfeits?”, I asked. He spit in my face. “May I remind you,”, I growled, wiping my face, “that I am easily one cut, stab, or shot away from ending your pathetic life.”

He seemed like he was debating defiance again, before he wisely decided not to. “Yes. I had a contact who said he would provide counterfeits.”

“Were you working alone?”, I asked, walking around. He glared at me and stayed silent. “Were you working alone?”, I asked, making sure the knife caught his eye. His gaze flickered to it briefly before he took a deep breath.

“Yes, I was working alone. I only had contact with the guy who’d make the counterfeits.”, he said, his voice shaking slightly at the end. He had started to go pale from blood loss and his clothes were so saturated in blood, there was now a consistent drip of blood from his cuts and shirt.

“And, I assume you were planning on taking the real vases to market, at a fixed price to profit personally from it? Is that why you got Azzara involved? He knew someone who would buy the fixed price?”, I questioned.

“Yeah. Fine, you got me. Need to rub it in?”, he grumbled, his voice sounding strained from screaming. I hummed, making a mental note to bring rock salt next time.

“Oh, now you’re just giving me ideas. See how easy it was to admit it? Now, I know exactly what to do with you.”, I hummed, slashing his shoulder again. I let him cry, not caring how much blood he lost or how much he lost his voice, because in the end, he was going to end up dead anyway. “Alright, I’ve got other plans and this isn’t really worth my time, so I’ll see you in hell.”, I said after a few minutes of watching my handiwork. I grabbed my gun again and putting a bullet between his eyes.

I dropped my arm and chuckled softly at the bleeding carcass. That taught them to not double cross, but if they were dead, they couldn’t cross either way. I put my knife and gun away and untied his body, letting it drop to the ground in the puddle of blood, and made a quick noose out of the bloody curtain. Stripping his body, I took a phone and wallet off his body, anything that would give away my operations. I dragged his body and the rope outside to a low tree branch near the property, slipping his body into the noose and tying it up in the tree. Before I left, I threw a couple of dice in his pocket, the two things I leave whenever I personally get involved, before throwing my hood up and walking away.

----------------------------------------

I sighed when I saw the tall building, a sense of calming washing over me. I owned it, as it was where our criminal operations were based. Yes, it was in the middle of downtown, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t stay a secret. I immediately stripped out of my coat once I got inside, shaking my hair and coat off. I walked slowly to the elevator and pressed the button for my office, leaning against the wall. I wiped my hands off with one of the wipes in the elevator, for this exact reason. I wiped off the button and cleaned myself and my knife up as much as I could.

When the door opened, I stepped out, looking at the soft glow the two lights on the walls gave off. It gave the office a calming mood as I hung up my coat. I walked behind my desk, opening one of the drawers and pulling out a bottle of whiskey and a glass. I poured a shot into the glass and walked towards the big windows, swirling the golden liquid around. Looking down on the city, I was able to collect my thoughts. 2 A.M, Wednesday morning, still so much life in this place, no caution and all oblivious.

I didn’t know how much time had passed before I pulled out my chair and sat down. I took a deep breath and opened my computer, thinking I might as well get started on answering any offers or contacts. Two hired hits within a 40 mile radius, forwarded from Raphael in D.C, a gun trade from another client I had yet to meet with, and a hack needed to break into a bank account and transfer money to create a fraud plot so the client could expose it and collect on it. I typed off a quick message saying I would send a representative to oversee the gun trade before leaning back and sipping my drink.

There were files on my desk of new targets to look at. I slid them across the desk and opened the first one. Hitman needed to stop her from testifying at a trial against her boss’s embezzlement of government funds for a bribery plot. I walked over to my board, tacking her file up next to a few ongoing plots.

The side door opened, letting a bit more light into the office. I looked up, setting my drink back down. “Have a drink with me?”, I asked, getting out another glass from the drawer. Serena nodded, walking in slowly.

“It’s two a.m, Raven.”, she said softly, perching on the desk next to me and rubbing her eyes. I nodded, handing her the glass. She took it, taking a sip.

“I’m sorry, I’m back late. Needed to clear my head.”, I said. She looked down, nodding. I sighed. “I got started on some of the requests. I’m putting Mason on the two hits nearby, and there’s a hacking job that needs to be done. Can you do it if I send you the information?”, I asked, looking up at her.

“Yeah, I’ll get started on it in a few hours. Did you get Max sorted out?”, she asked, playing with my fingers. I nodded, watching her hand. I intertwined our hands and looked back up at her.

“Why’re you still up?”, I asked. She shrugged, squeezing my hand.

“I was getting some work done. I finished a transaction for that Brazilian politician and set up a swap of some Mongolian pottery for counterfeits, per client’s request. I made sure that a museum worker would be paid generously for keeping it hushed up.”, she said, taking a sip of her whiskey. I smiled at her.

“You’re amazing, you know that?”, I chuckled. She grinned back at me and leaned down to kiss me. I smiled, cupping her jaw and kissing her whiskey flavored lips. “I’ll send you that information right now.”, I hummed, opening the computer again and forwarding the information. She smiled, sipping her whiskey and looking out the window.

I realized I still had Max’s phone on me. I took it out and looked it over before placing it on the desk. Serena looked back, walking over and placing her glass down.

“Give. We’ll see how far down this rabbit hole really goes.”, she said, taking the phone. I nodded, letting her take the phone, before taking her hand and following her to the armchairs at the back of the room. Serena waited for me to sit before she sat next to me in the same chair. I wrapped my arms around her waist as she started digging into the phone’s security.

After an hour or so, I noticed she was hesitating in typing. The only time she hesitated was when she was tired. I gently reached up and tugged the phone out of her grip, to which she whimpered softly, but didn’t resist.

“You’re tired, hon. It’s after three a.m.”, I said, rubbing her arm. I slid out from under her and walked back over, placing the phone in one of the drawers in my desk and locking it, slipping the key into my pocket. “We can revisit it tomorrow if we have a break.”

She nodded and I walked back over, pulling her up into my arms. She slowly grabbed my hand and rubbed her eyes. I pulled in the direction of the door she had come in through, which led to a hallway with a few doors on either side. Those were for the top members of my team, where they could organize their plots.

We walked to the end of the hall and turned right down another, shorter hall that ended after a few feet in a door that only me, Serena, and Mason had access to. I held up my keycard and typed in the pin and held the door open for her. I heard the door lock after it closed behind us, leaving us standing in the quiet hall.

She gently tugged me down the hall to our personal elevator. It only went between 2 floors, up to our penthouse one floor up, and the office here. As soon as we were in the elevator, she leaned against me. I gently ruffled her hair and kissed her forehead as we moved up.

I led her straight upstairs to our bedroom, settling her in bed before I got into the shower to clean off. The warm water was so relaxing and I sighed softly, the heat returning to my body and the water pulling the red off my skin. I let my head fall forward and watched the red swirl down the drain, dark at first but rapidly dissipating the more water continued to run. Even if the heat was returned, my mind was numb, pulled in all different directions.

My limbs almost felt heavier now that the adrenaline had worn off. I let the water run until it was clear before shutting it off and wrapping myself in a soft towel. I took care of hygiene before pulling on a pair of pajamas and walking out.

My eyes landed on Serena, snuggled under the blankets, asleep. I smiled softly. She was absolutely amazing. All previous pretenses left as I climbed into bed and wrapped an arm around her. I knew I could only give her what I could, but it seemed to have worked for the 5 years we had known each other. Life’s a gamble, so roll the dice.