Chapter 1
Mickey Tamerlane counted the money in the greasy wad that had been handed to him and found it wanting.
That was going to be a problem.
He looked to his partner, Duncan Gill, standing beside him and shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” Duncan asked.
“This isn’t enough,” Mickey said, narrowing his eyes as he put the money back on the table.
“No?” the man seated in front of them asked.
“Maybe you can’t count,” jeered another man standing behind Mickey. “Try again.”
“You got cancer or something?” the first man taunted. “Maybe all that chemo is messin’ up your brain.”
“He looks just like a buff Uncle Fester, right?” The jeering one laughed. “Isn’t it crazy?”
The two men were members of the Luchesi family, the criminal organization that ran all of Strassen Springs. Mickey had been hired by them to take out a local politician who was becoming a problem.
That’s what he did.
For the right price, he was a problem solver.
Thanks to several long summers out on his grandfather’s farm outside of the city, Mickey had discovered he had a unique affinity with firearms at a very young age. He’d set up targets along the fences out in the fields and run as fast as he could to see how far he could go and still be able to turn around and hit his marks.
He’d gone clear across the entire farm and never missed.
The summers ended when his grandfather’s health failed, and he had to sell the farm and move in with Mickey and his mother. Mickey had never known his father, and he lost his beloved mother to an unexpected aneurysm before he started high school.
Without her, his world began to unravel quickly.
Years in and out of juvie set him up for an unstable life, and his grandfather persuaded him to find structure in the military. Mickey received incredible training to enhance his already impressive proficiency, but his temper landed him a dishonorable discharge after only two years.
It didn’t take long for the city streets to reclaim him when he couldn’t find a job to pay for food or his grandfather’s medicine. He fell back on the one thing he was good at, taking his first life from over five hundred yards away before his twenty-first birthday.
He was quick, he was quiet, and he had rapidly gained a reputation as being a very dependable problem solver.
Duncan, a fellow delinquent who had also turned to crime to put food on the table, had helped with that. He was the one who found the jobs, arranged the meetings, and made sure everything went smoothly—especially getting paid.
Such a level of service came with a handsome price, and the Luchesi family had the coin to spare. This wasn’t the first time Mickey and Duncan had worked for them, but it was the first time there had been an issue with payment.
As far as Mickey was concerned, it had the potential to be the very last, with the way these bastards were behaving.
“This isn’t enough,” Mickey said again, clenching his teeth. He was being toyed with, and he hated it.
“This isn’t even half,” Duncan chimed in. “This is not acceptable.”
“Aw, come on,” the first man said. His name was Tony Luchesi. “I’m sure we can work something out. Why don’t I see if I can get you guys some coupons for Lucky’s?”
“Yeah,” the other one agreed, laughing nastily. He was Robert or Richard or something, another Luchesi. “Go get lucky at Lucky’s, right?” He snorted, eyeing Mickey. “But then again, I hearyouwouldn’t be into that kinda thing.”
“Oh? He’s one ofthosetypes,” Tony said, pulling a face. “Soft in his heels?”
Mickey worried he might be in danger of cracking a molar now.
“Now, now.” Duncan smiled nervously. “We don’t really need to talk about that, do we? That has nothing to do with Mickey’s quality work—”
