A different warehouse, and a different time of day, but the idea’s the same. I look out at the assembled group, this time a crew of ten. The danger levels are off the charts right now, but there’s a reason that Marcus and I picked these men to come with us. Every one of them has a personal reason to hate Jacob Waters but is also professional enough to do their job without fucking around on a personal vendetta.

“Remember, the idea is to cause carnage,” I brief, pointing to the chalkboard where I’ve drawn a diagram of the action. Again, another lesson I learned from studying successful armies. Brief your soldiers. Let them understand the mission, and then when the shit hits the fan, they’ll be better prepared to react to unexpected circumstances. Everyone has a role, and they need to know it. “Thankfully, the weather gods are in our favor,” I continue. “They’re calling for rain this afternoon, so long trench coats aren’t going to look out of place.”

“Damn shame to be ruining a suit like this in one day, I look like a million bucks,” someone quips, earning a few laughs. I shrug, while I’ve got better suits, I understand, I made sure that everyone had a suit that would let them walk into any bank and look right at home, with good labels. Spending an extra couple hundred dollars on suits is worth it if today’s mission works.

“Yeah well, I’ll buy you a spare if you want it,” I reply back, not wanting to add the morbid thought that I may be doing that anyway, for their own funerals. “Now, everyone, let me be very, very clear: Nobody is to take a shot at Jacob Waters. Today’s idea is to hit another of his lieutenants, and to snatch his wife.”

“Why not just put one in his head?” one of the guys asks, and I sit down on the table, relaxing. Marcus doesn’t look happy about it, but that’s okay. We’ve got a little bit of time.

“If we just cut the head off the beast, the remaining lieutenants are going to be strong enough to try and fight us. Hell, he’s still popular with the police. What do you think’s going to happen to our neighborhoods if the cops go rampant citywide because we shot one of their most popular crooks? No, we must remove his support, peel each group from him, and make his underlings recognize that he’s not strong enough to protect them anymore. We make them realize that the real power lies with us so that when we do take him down, he’s going to be friendless.”

“Now, let me wrap things up,” I say, glancing at my watch. There’s still time, but I can see Marcus is getting antsy. Better to keep him calm until it’s time. “The target that has to be taken down is this guy, Soo-Young Pak. He’s the connection Waters has with the Asian gangs overseas, so if we take him out, we take away his overseas drug and money operations. That leaves the wife, Sarah Waters. She’s mine, plain and simple. Nobody touches her. I’ll snag her. Is everyone clear?”

Nobody says anything, and I turn the rest of the briefing over to Marcus, pretending that I have to go take a piss. The reality is that I’ve got to get my head right. Last night, after Marcus had gone to bed, for some reason, I’d pulled up an old episode of Sarah’s television show. I can’t seem to wrap my ahead around the fact that the girl I was so fucking into back then was a fictional character, not the real-life woman who got my father killed. Even worse, I have a problem separating her from the woman that I met that one bright, sunny day, the one who’d looked at me with deep, sultry eyes and thanked me. That woman, who turned out to be a snake in the grass. Still, as I shake off and tuck myself back into my suit pants, I can’t get that old fantasy of fucking her in that schoolgirl outfit out of my head.

I come out, looking over the group. “Okay, any last comments, concerns, gripes, or bitches? Now’s the time.”

There are no more questions, so we split up, five vehicles this time, ranging from a pickup truck to the Caddy that Marcus and I are taking. As soon as we roll up the door on the warehouse, I see that the rain’s starting already, and by the color of the clouds, it’s just going to get worse. “Well, well, that’ll make things even easier.”

“It’ll be hard for folks to not want to take a shot at Waters,” Marcus warns me. “Is that why you went with pistols?”

“That and hiding a shotgun under a suit coat is really fucking hard,” I reply with a chuckle. “But I do want that fucker to die by my hand.”

When we get to the graveyard, I put on a dark, wide-brimmed fedora to match my coat and to keep the rain out of my eyes while Marcus peels off to approach the gravesite from another direction. We’re just in time as the main procession arrives minutes later and the first problem shows up. I’d expected there to be about ten cars in the burial party, but there are nearly twenty-five, which means a lot more people at the graveside. Getting close is going to be difficult.

As the crowd emerges, I see Jacob Waters getting out of a stretch limo, a better ride than even the deputy mayor, who at least had the humility to drive his own car to the graveyard. They follow behind the casket, which is carried in the old-fashioned way on the shoulders of six men who struggle a little in the now wet, slick grass.

I see my guys start to blend into the crowd, and I’m reassured when I see two of them get close to Pak. They’ll have the drop on him. But I have a problem with my position. Waters is being more careful than I thought he’d be. In addition to his wife and himself, he’s got a small entourage with him, three guys who are more muscle than brains, but they form a human wall behind Waters as everyone gathers around the gravesite for the final service.

The priest, his vestments already soaked from the rain despite someone trying to help him by holding an umbrella over his head, starts his speech, his voice carrying over the sound of the rain hitting the casket in an almost machine gun-like rattle. The sound is annoying, Sal Francisco was a millionaire. Why the hell he decided to get buried in a cheap, shitty, hollow aluminum casket is beyond me.

If I can’t get right behind Sarah Waters, then I’m forced to move. I put myself between them and the limo, as close as I can dare without drawing attention. Then, all I can do is wait for the signal, which comes from the priest himself.

“Ashes to ashes—” he says, and a pistol shot rips through the rain, Soo-Young Pak jerking as the first shot takes him down. Screams and pistol shots fill the air, with people diving for cover. Jacob Waters’ bodyguards form a human shield around him, and I make my move, expecting Sarah to head toward the car, but instead, she runs the opposite direction, surprising me.

The grass is slippery, and I need to shove three people out of the way before I see her. She’s most of the way up the rise that dominates the side of the graveyard and gives it the name Forest Hill before I’m clear. I have to trust that Marcus is organizing the rest of the action while I chase Sarah up the hill, wishing I could have worn something with more tread than dress shoes as I slip, my knee sliding in the mud. I’ve got my own pistol, but I don’t want to draw it unless I must.

We enter the trees that provide the other half of Forest Hill’s name, and Sarah’s running hard like she’s running for her life. I think about calling out her name for an instant, but I don’t, running harder. The fact is, she’s long-legged, and while she might be in heels, she’s on her toes and sprinting, her own coat billowing out behind her as she loses her hat and makes a turn around a tree.

She glances back, seeing me, her eyes going wide, but it’s a mistake as she doesn’t see the tree branch in front of her that catches her on the side of her head, knocking her to the ground. I close the gap, grabbing her just as she struggles to her feet, wrapping my arms around her from behind.

“No! Let me go!” she yells, twisting like a wet cat in my arms. “Let me go!”

“I don’t think so,” I growl, slipping my arm around her neck, feeling her body writhe against me. I hate that I’m doing this, but it’s necessary, and I’m still careful not to hurt her.

I’m not one to engage in violence against women—that’s part of my own personal code of honor—but this is for her own good, and I choke her out quickly, waiting until she’s unconscious to pull the syringe from my coat pocket and inject her with enough ketamine to keep her down for a good half hour. She’ll have a sore spot on her ass for a few days, but at least she’ll be alive. Ketamine doesn’t fuck with your breathing or heartbeat.

I sling Sarah over my shoulder and head over the hill, looking around to see if anyone’s following us. I reach for the earpiece that I put in for just this sort of clusterfuck. “Marcus, I need a pickup.”

“Where?” he says as I emerge from the forest, seeing the north entrance to Forest Hill in the distance.

“On the north-side road, closest to the hill. Hurry.”

“One minute,” Marcus says, and I squat down, making sure to stay in the shadows. It’s actually a minute and ten seconds by my count when Marcus comes around the corner and I rush down the hill, slamming the trunk closed on Sarah Waters’s knocked-out form before jumping in the back of the car. Marcus peels out, not slowing down until we’re a half-mile away and we’re approaching the freeway.

“What’s the count?” I ask, untying the belt on my coat. I don’t really want to know, but I need to.

Marcus knows exactly what I mean. “Two of our guys down, one wounded. We got our main target. Also . . .”

“Yeah?” I ask, worried that Marcus is about to say that an innocent bystander got shot.

“Jacob Waters is going to be walking with a limp,” Marcus says, looking up into the rearview mirror with a grin. “I put a round right in his ass.”

I can’t help it, I laugh. “Okay then. Let’s get to the house, and we can discuss what to do after we get a hot shower and some fresh clothes. That rain was icy.”