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  He pulled a switchblade from his belt.

  Best to keep it quiet.

  He couldn’t risk a couple of gunshots in the Meatpacking District.

  He reached down in the dark and snatched a handful of the girl’s hair. He yanked her off the alley floor, suspending her from her scalp. She almost cried out, but thought better of it.

  ‘Good girl,’ Gianni said.

  He pressed the knife to her bruised throat, and another surge of something ran through him. He was going to kill her in front of her boyfriend, then finish him off too. There was something sick about that, but he loved it. He loved all of it.

  He bared his teeth and threw a glance over his shoulder to make sure his hired help were watching. That way, they could learn from him. They could understand the ruthlessness it took to get ahead in their game. They could see the reality of the path they’d all chosen.

  But they weren’t there.

  The mouth of the alleyway was empty.

  Gianni felt strangely naked. If they’d bitched out and retreated to the truck, he would never forgive them. He might kill the both of them, to set an example for the rest of his men. He couldn’t fathom their incompetence. He’d given them an order — Watch and learn — and they’d disobeyed it.

  They weren’t watching.

  They weren’t learning.

  They were nowhere to be seen.

  The surge of invigoration turned to a surge of rage. Gianni dropped the sobbing girl back into the puddle and grappled with indecision.

  Then he said, ‘I have a guy with a gun on you. If either of you move or make a sound, he’ll shoot you in the legs. Then I’ll come back and make it real painful. So don’t move. And don’t make a sound.’

  They didn’t confirm or deny his request.

  But he knew they would obey.

  They lay on their sides on the damp alleyway floor and moaned and sobbed and dribbled blood into the fetid water.

  Gianni strode hard for the mouth of the alleyway. He tried to contain his anger, but it was futile. His breath came in ragged gasps.

  ‘Where are you?’ he whispered under his breath. ‘Where are you, you cheap—’

  He reached the sidewalk, and weak light spilled over him.

  He looked left.

  Nothing.

  He looked right.

  Both his men were sprawled out on the concrete, deep in the throes of unconsciousness. One of them was violently twitching. The other had a face like a crimson mask. They were broken and bloody and dishevelled. They each looked like they’d been living on the streets for days. They’d been roughed up beyond comprehension.

  A cold chill ran down the back of Gianni’s neck.

  Now he felt naked.

  He turned back to the truck, but there was no sign of movement. The rest of his men were loyal. They were inside the hold, doing what they’d been told.

  Gianni needed them here with him.

  He was ashamed to admit he panicked. He figured it didn’t matter what happened to the two witnesses in the alley if he didn’t make it out of here alive. And there was foul play afoot. Whether it be a rival gang, or an old enemy come back to haunt him, or some new problem… it didn’t matter.

  What mattered was his own safety.

  He took off at a sprint for the truck.

  But he only made it a few steps.

  A hand seized him by the back of the collar and hauled him off his feet.

  4

  He wasn’t used to being on the back foot.

  Not at all.

  Not in the slightest.

  He landed on his rear and shot straight back up, overwhelmed by adrenaline. He thought he could take on an entire army with this much juice in his veins. He’d dropped the switchblade when the mystery assailant had jerked him by the collar, but he didn’t care in the slightest. He sprang up and turned around with his fists raised and his teeth clenched.

  He was a big guy, and no-one ever threw him around.

  When he laid eyes on his attacker, he bristled with confidence.

  The guy was roughly six feet tall, African-American, sporting a powerful build. He had the frame of an Olympic athlete. He was wearing jeans and an expensive sweater, but underneath the clothes his musculature rippled. He had a sharp handsome face and a shaved head and a strong jawline. And his eyes were ice.

  But Gianni was five inches taller, and probably fifty pounds heavier, and angry.

  And the guy didn’t have a gun or a knife.

  Big mistake, you fuckin’ punk.

  Gianni swung a fist with reckless abandon. He hit fast, and he hit hard. He had crisp technique from a lifetime of boxing in old school NYC gyms. And he’d never been pumped full of this much adrenaline in his life. He figured he could take the assailant’s head off with a single right hook. He sure wanted to. If he found even a moment’s advantage in the coming brawl, he’d drop elbows down on the guy’s face until his head was mashed to a pulp. And he’d savour every second of it.

  But the hook missed.

  Gianni got real worried.

  He never missed.

  The fist hit nothing but empty air, because the assailant simply wasn’t there anymore. The guy was inches away from the swing, still close to the action, but it didn’t matter whether you missed by an inch or a mile.

  A miss was a miss.

  Gianni stumbled one step forward, off-balance from overcommitting to the punch, and he thought, Oh, fuck.

  The guy crushed Gianni’s nose to pieces with a single well-placed elbow.

  Gianni had never felt pain like that.

  He’d been hit clean in the past, but it was usually a glancing blow off the side of his head, or a sucker punch from behind that put his lights out. The ones you didn’t see coming were the worst. Back in the day, he’d had his fair share of street fights. You didn’t grow up and thrive in a world like this without getting your hands dirty. As his reputation had grown, the violence steadily faded away, until he could intimidate based on his presence alone.

  So, he had to admit, he was rusty in the fight department.

  He could dish out a beating, but beatings didn’t require the act of pushing through adversity, pushing through pain and discomfort. He hadn’t acclimatised. He figured, if anyone in his path ever got physical, he’d wipe the floor with them without a problem.

  And now his nose was completely shattered and his vision was gone and his brain was screaming, What the hell is this?

  He landed on his rear on the sidewalk and sat there, stunned into submission. For some reason, he didn’t even consider getting to his feet. His nose was pure molten agony, and frankly he wasn’t in the mood to do anything else but sit motionless and feel awfully sorry for himself.

  He almost let out a moan of pain, but common sense caught it at the last second.

  He couldn’t show weakness.

  If he made it out of this alive, he’d have a reputation to salvage.

  His vision came back piece by piece. The pain had been so intense, so all-encompassing, that it had shut down the rest of his senses as his body grappled with what had occurred. He could already feel the broken bones swimming around in his septum. He could feel his nostrils closing, the skin swelling, turning purple.

  The assailant loomed over him.

  Gianni lifted his gaze to look the man in the eyes. He wanted to see the face of the guy who had bested him.

  The man crouched down and stared hard at Gianni, like a lion observing its prey.

  He said, ‘You’d better hope those two kids you dragged into that alleyway are alive.’

  ‘They are,’ Gianni mumbled.

  ‘I’m about to go and check.’

  ‘You do that.’

  ‘I hope you’re telling the truth.’

  ‘And what would happen if they’re not?’

  ‘That wouldn’t bode well for you.’

  ‘I have six men in that truck across the street.’

  ‘I don’t see them.’

&
nbsp; ‘They’re there. Trust me.’

  ‘Let them come, then.’

  Something about the sincerity with which the assailant spoke sent a shiver down Gianni’s spine.

  Gianni said, ‘Did the Whelans send you? Is that what this is about?’

  Silence.

  Gianni said, ‘I knew I shouldn’t have trusted those pricks. Serves me right for taking a job like this. Fuck…’

  The assailant said, ‘Did you say the Whelans? The Whelan family?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They didn’t send me. I’ve had a run-in with them before, though. A long time ago. Right here in this city.’

  ‘What?’

  The assailant squatted in front of Gianni, so they could see eye-to-eye. He had a withering intensity about him. There was a seriousness in his eyes that Gianni couldn’t decipher.

  There was a strange sensation in Gianni’s chest.

  Anxiety.

  He hadn’t been scared like this for as long as he could remember. It was like the assailant was a different breed. Another species. Faster, stronger…

  …better.

  The dark-skinned man said, ‘Remember when the Whelans ran this city? They had control of everything. The unions, the docks, racketeering, extortion, murder. They were doing all of it. And they sure as shit weren’t recruiting second-rate gangsters like you to do their dirty work.’

  Gianni brushed off the insult, simply because he wasn’t prepared to take another elbow to the face for his troubles. He said, ‘I remember.’

  ‘What happened to them, then?’

  ‘Rumour on the street is that a mystery man beat the shit out of the whole family. All the top dogs. That sort of thing could get you locked up in a dungeon and tortured for the rest of your life. So we didn’t stop talking about it. Because he vanished right afterwards. No-one heard from him again.’

  Gianni knew where this was headed.

  The assailant said, ‘I destroyed the Whelans. That’s who you’re dealing with now. I’ve got some free time on my hands, so I guess you could count this as my official return. That’s the message I want you to pass up the chain of command. Got it?’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ Gianni mumbled. ‘Whatever you say. Who the fuck are you anyway?’

  ‘Will Slater.’

  5

  Slater regarded the pathetic shell of a man at his feet.

  The guy was a thug, through and through. He was big and beefy, at least five inches taller than Slater, but all that mass hadn’t achieved a thing when he’d tried to put up a fight.

  Over his shoulder, Slater could hear two soft sets of whimpers from the alleyway. So the young couple were alive. He’d seen the thugs manhandle them into the shadows from across the street. He’d been tailing the box truck for a couple of hours when it had all kicked off. He hadn’t planned to intervene here, in the hustle and bustle of the Meatpacking District. He would have preferred somewhere quieter.

  But it was late, and he didn’t have a choice anymore.

  Those kids would have died had he not stepped in.

  Now he contemplated what to do with the thug. He was sure the guy was a big shot in certain places. Probably ran a union operation, swindling hundreds of small businesses out of “protection” fees. But those skills didn’t exactly translate to fighting.

  It took something special to intimidate Will Slater.

  Slater bent down and said, ‘Stick your right leg out straight.’

  The thug said, ‘What?’

  Slater said, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Gianni.’

  ‘Gianni, I’m only going to ask you one more time, and then I’m going to punch you in your broken nose. And trust me, that hurts.’

  Gianni had been seated cross-legged on the concrete, but now he extended his right leg, as Slater requested. Slater lined up his aim, then stomped down on the outside of the guy’s knee. It wasn’t a traditional stomp. It was a strike honed over years and years of practice. Slater considered himself the master of generating force over a short distance, and he probably ruptured every ligament and tendon in Gianni’s knee with the sole of his boot.

  Gianni stifled a scream.

  Slater said, ‘Now I know you’re not going anywhere.’

  He strode over to the unconscious bodies of Gianni’s two bodyguards, and dragged them by their collars into the alleyway. They were waking up, stirring from their slumbers, so Slater hit each of them one more time behind the ear and dropped them in a heap behind one of the dumpsters.

  Then he went to check on the young couple.

  They were in a state. The guy was bent over clutching his face, and the woman was curled up in the foetal position holding her mid-section. Pain creased both their faces. Slater whispered reassurances, trying not to bring them any more stress, and helped them to their feet.

  They took their sweet time, both hurting, both shocked, both traumatised.

  Slater said, ‘I took care of the problem.’

  ‘Thank you,’ the guy said. ‘Who are—’

  ‘Don’t bother. Just go to the nearest hospital and tell them you were mugged. You didn’t get a good look at your attacker. You have no information for them.’

  ‘But I know what he looks like,’ the woman said.

  ‘The cops won’t do anything. He pays the cops. Leave the punishment to me.’

  ‘Okay…’

  ‘And besides, however you remember him looking … he doesn’t look like that anymore.’

  With that, Slater sent them on their way, ushering them to the other end of the alleyway. They disappeared into the darkness, strangely silent. Slater had seen it all before. They were deep in their own heads. Victims reacted differently in each situation. Some panicked, some handled it well, and some went quiet.

  Slater forgot about them.

  He went back out into the street.

  Gianni had passed out from the pain. He was lying on his back, mouth agape, nose swollen, leg straightened.

  More importantly, there were a group of five rowdy partygoers stumbling down the sidewalk toward them. They were all inebriated, arms around each others shoulders. Three guys and two girls.

  Slater instantly transformed his demeanour.

  He laughed hard, and snatched Gianni by the collar, and hauled him into the mouth of the alleyway.

  At the same time, he yelled, ‘He’s had a few! I’ll handle this.’

  Someone shouted back, ‘Happens to the best of us.’

  Slater shoved Gianni into a dark corner amidst trash bags and dumpsters and fetid puddles, and crouched over the unconscious man. The party of five stumbled past, firing barbs and harsh laughter in Slater’s direction. He gave them a short wave, as if to say, Look at the shit I have to deal with.

  Then they were gone, heading on their merry way.

  Gianni came to a couple of minutes later. He stirred, and groaned, and reached for his leg.

  Slater batted his hands away and said, ‘Where are your friends?’

  ‘What?’ the thug mumbled.

  He was barely lucid.

  ‘Thought you had six friends coming.’

  ‘They’ll be out of that truck any moment.’

  ‘Don’t you think they would have tried it already?’

  Silence.

  Slater said, ‘Probably not the smartest idea to make them wait in the back of the box truck.’

  Silence.

  Slater said, ‘There’s a latch on the outside. Didn’t take much effort to drop it on my way across the street.’

  Gianni sighed. ‘What exactly do you want out of this?’

  ‘I want to know what’s in those crates.’

  ‘You’ll have to go and see for yourself.’

  ‘Wrong answer.’

  ‘Break my other leg. I don’t care.’

  ‘Okay,’ Slater said, and did exactly that.

  6

  He stomped down again, and this time Gianni screamed.

  But there was no one around to hear.r />
  Slater threw a glance at the box truck. He had a sneaking suspicion that the six men would soon be free.

  He said, ‘You’re lucky I didn’t kill you for what you did to those kids, but this’ll do. I’m hanging around the city for a while, so I can keep tabs on you from afar. I’d wager that I tore both your ACLs, but a couple of MRIs will tell you everything you need to know. You’ll be in a wheelchair for a couple of months, then you’ll have to learn how to walk again. Consider that punishment enough. Okay?’

  Gianni had a subtle smile on his face as he listened to Slater speak. His pale face gleamed in the lowlight.

  ‘What?’ Slater said.

  ‘You’re real confident for someone that’s about to get their head kicked in.’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘There’s more than one way out of that truck. Have a look.’

  Slater threw a glance over his shoulder, and sure enough Gianni was right. Four men were already out. They were big brutes with sleek black pistols in their hands, and they’d wormed their way through a front compartment and shimmied over the driver and passenger seats. Two more were spilling their way out onto the asphalt.

  They were disoriented, frustrated that they’d been made to look like fools.

  They couldn’t see Slater and Gianni in the lee of the alleyway.

  Yet.

  Slater said under his breath, ‘If you make a sound, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Do you even have a gun?’

  Slater withdrew a compact Beretta M9 from an appendix holster under his shirt and pressed the barrel to Gianni’s forehead.

  ‘Bet you’re wondering why I didn’t use that earlier.’

  Gianni shrugged. ‘I don’t understand anything you do.’

  ‘Use a gun from the get-go, and it’s impersonal. Which is why you didn’t shoot those two kids right away. You wanted them to suffer, for reasons I’ll never know. But you can understand why I want you to suffer.’

  Gianni said, ‘They’ll find you eventually.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Are you a good shot?’

  ‘I’d like to think so.’

  ‘It’s six on one.’

  Slater smiled and said, ‘Well, it’s a good thing I brought a friend, then.’