I know exactly where I lost my wallet.
I barely manage to hear her as she tells me that it was in my mailbox, but I nod and thank her as I accept it.
When she’s gone, I look down at the wallet with an infuriating cocktail of emotions brimming inside me. I can’t make out asingle one of them, but at last I gather up the courage to open it and look inside.
All my cards and ID are there, and when I check... there’s about twenty extra bills that I know weren’t there before. I’m not a fan of cash.
And tucked in next to them, a piece of paper.
I hate that I have to breathe deeply before reaching for it. I used to keep a cool head in fucking war zones!
I was nicknamed Frosty Colby by my coworkers, and later, the public. I should be able to read a fucking note.
A note that the man with the gun and the terrifying smile probably tucked into my wallet along with what looks like half a grand.
“Sorry for the groceries,” it says, and I actually can’t believe my eyes.
I turn it and the back is blank.
A criminal with a conscience? Color me fucking surprised.
Again, the world around me shifts, and this time I’m the one opening my mail, and I find a box with no return address or stamps. My hand shakes as I reach for it, and when I look inside to find the burner phone, I have no idea my life is about to change.
I wake up breathing hard,and before I can even process all the memories from six months ago that filled my dreams, Maggie’s cries penetrate my skull and get me to move on autopilot. At nine months old, she’s only ever slept through the night two times, and I want nothing more than to have a repeat soon, but it’s clearly not happening tonight.
I can’t help reliving the dread and adrenaline rush of my dreams as I change her diaper and prepare her bottle. Two weeks after I got that burner phone, a delivery of groceries I didn’t order came to my apartment, and a few days after that,hisfirst text, asking for a favor—which for some unknown reason I agreed to doing and then got payment for.
And thus began my new business.
I have my suspicions about whoheis, and who he might work for.
There aren’t a lot of options.
He doesn’t work alone, there’s always violence, and he’s always planning some late-night nefarious shit.
My guess is he’s a hitman for the mob.
Which mob? Well now, that’s the question.
I think it would be a pretty spectacular coincidence if he worked for the Italians, since I got fired for investigating them, but it’s notimpossible. The area I live in now... allthe research I did into mafia culture in the city back then tells me this is mostly Irish territory, but the Italians have a lot of grasp here, and they’ve been battling it out for decades as far as I could tell.
Those are the only two organizations doing well enough, according to my research, from which someone who’s not at the top would be able to pay thousands of dollars to a nobody like me.
The Russians don’t really use freelancers; they control the guns in the city and on most of the East Coast. They have their seat of power well established, and no one would be stupid enough to go up against them since they’re everybody’s supplier.
The Chinese have always focused only on their niche—counterfeiting, forgeries, stolen goods—and they have a good business relationship with the Bratva, or as good as anyone in the mob is capable of, and they don’t deviate from their territory.
So eitherheworks for the Irish and targets the Italians, orheworks for the Italians and is targeting the Irish...
What I actually believe, what my gut is telling me—and it’s only failed me once—is that he’s part of the Irish Mob.
Everyone knows Eian Dempsey is the head of the Irish mafia, and everyone knows Venuti, Di Leo, and Ricci are the three remaining members of the Cosa Nostra—a.k.a. the Italian mafia.
They had a ridiculous rebrand when two of the families... well, they supposedly “disbanded.” That’s the official story in any case, but what really happened?
Well, no one is willing to talk, but the first to go were the Marianos around thirty-five years ago, and then the Taccones around thirty years ago.
There are rumors of course, I’m well versed in those, and they’re terrifying. The legends of how Eian Dempsey slaughtered the families are the stuff of nightmares for regular folks, but in the mafia mentality it all makes sense—twisted sense, but there issomelogic to it.
