I pick a direction and start walking, keeping my pace measured even though every instinct screams at me to run. Running draws attention. Running makes people look twice.
And I can’t afford anyone remembering my face tonight.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Marco calling.
I let it ring. Can’t take my eyes off the streets for even a second. Can’t risk missing her in the maze of alleys and side streets.
Three blocks down I catch movement ahead. A flash of torn blue fabric disappearing around a corner.
There!
I speed up, hand moving to the gun under my jacket. She’s heading toward the club district where the streets get more crowded. If I don’t catch her before she reaches the crowds, this gets infinitely more complicated.
The phone buzzes again. Marco, persistent as always.
I answer this time, keeping my voice low and irritated at the interruption. “What.”
“Boss, the mansion’s torched. No bodies that can be identified, no evidence. It’s done,” Marco reports.
“Good.”
“We didn’t find the ledger. Tore that place apart before we lit it up. Antonio must have hidden it somewhere else or destroyed it like you said.”
Or it never existed in the first place. Or it’s buried so deep we’ll never find it.
“Doesn’t matter now. Job’s done,” I tell him.
“Understood. Anything else you need?”
“No.”
I hang up without waiting for a response and refocus on tracking her.
She’s moving through increasingly crowded streets now. We’re getting closer to the club district. More people on the sidewalks, more noise, more witnesses.
Too many witnesses to risk a public execution.
She’s limping badly, leaving small drops of blood on the pavement from the cut on her feet.
I follow at a distance, keeping her in sight but staying back far enough that she won’t spot me in the growing crowds. She keeps looking over her shoulder, checking for pursuit.
Then she stops in front of a club with a line of people waiting outside. I watch from across the street as she approaches the bouncer and dashes inside, ignoring the bewildered man.
I wait thirty seconds, then cross the street and approach the same bouncer. He looks me over, expensive suit, confident posture, the kind of presence that says I belong wherever I decide to stand.
“Cover’s twenty,” he says.
I hand him a fifty. “Keep it.”
He waves me through without another word.
The club is exactly what I expected. Dark, loud, packed with people wearing masks ranging from simple black eye coverings to elaborate Venetian designs. The perfect environment for someone trying to blend in and disappear.
Or for someone trying to kill without being identified.
I grab a simple black mask from an abandoned table near the bar and scan the crowd systematically. She’s here somewhere. Probably hiding in a corner, trying to stay invisible.
And there she is.
