Breathing heavily, she pulled herself onto the roof as the helicopter landed. The light streaming from the helicopter’s spotlight illuminated two men standing just in front of it. Kestrel was standing behind the tattooed man and was looking up at his escape, his jacket billowing from the wind generated from the helicopter’s blades.

  She shakily stood up, unholstered her gun, and pointed it forward as she started walking. She pulled the trigger and the shot hit the side of the helicopter near where Kestrel was standing. Her arms were shaking too much. He whipped his head around when he heard the sound of the bullet hitting metal, squinting his eyes to see where the shot had come from.

  She had the satisfaction of seeing his confused face turn to one of shock and surprise before she pulled the trigger twice, missing once more before lodging a bullet in his head

  Hunter felt everything slow. It was as if she could see the individual helicopter blades spinning as blood started spilling from Kestrel’s head wound. Her head began to pound as the tattooed man looked behind him with an expression of utter surprise. Suddenly, time sped up again, and she had to catch herself before she fell over.

  The tattooed man pulled out a gun and started shooting in her general direction, but the light from the helicopter was too bright and his shots went wide. He let out a frustrated yell before he began sprinting toward her.

  She pulled the trigger, only to hear her gun click. She felt her heart stop as she realized she hadn’t changed the magazine after she’d broken the window. She threw her empty gun to the side and drew her knife. She didn’t have time to reload.

  Just as the tattooed man left the cover of the helicopter, Hunter saw his head violently jolt sideways before his body crumpled, as if pulled by gravity.

  She sighed in relief as she turned to look at the building across the street. “Nice shot, Jocco.”

  “I’ll pass on the message.” Raphael said.

  She felt the wind pick up again and she watched as the helicopter started to take off again. “That’s not good.” She muttered as she watched it slowly get higher.

  “You might want to take cover,” Raphael said cheerfully, “the helicopter’s next.”

  She quickly looked around and ran for the corner farthest away from the helicopter. She pressed herself against the concrete barrier around the edge of the roof and curled up into a ball.

  She saw sparks fly off the helicopter’s shell, hitting the rotor mast and the engine. After a few more shots, a chain of explosions went off and the entire roof was bathed in bright, fiery light.

  “Boom.” Raphael said, laughing. Hunter covered her head with her arms as debris rained from the sky and the flaming helicopter fell, crushing Kestrel’s corpse.

  “I think people are going to know I’m here now.” She said, removing her arms from around her head and looking around. She cut off the rope around her waist and sheathed her knife.

  “Oh yeah. There’s a lot of movement now.” He said. “You’re going to have to find a way down that isn’t scaling the building.”

  She ran toward the tattooed man’s body. “Kestrel’s beneath a burning hunk of metal, so I’m hoping this guy can get me out.”

  “And don’t worry about biometrics. It’s only there to keep people from coming in, not out.” Raphael said.

  She quickly ruffled through the tattooed man’s pockets before grabbing his security pass. From inside her bag, she grabbed a long black feather and tucked it in his jacket pocket. “A token of our appreciation.” She whispered, patting the feather.

  She stood and grimaced. “I’m going to need a change of clothes.” She said as she looked down at her torn, black leggings and bloodied long-sleeve shirt.

  “The fifth floor will have some. It’s the actual Lorenzo Cartel meeting place, so there’ll be clothes.” He said. “I don’t think anyone is in there now, but people are breaking away from the fight on the first floor.”

  She hissed in annoyance. “Can you stall them?”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  Hunter quickly looked around for the door Raphael had mentioned before and spotted it on the other side of the roof. She sprinted toward it, avoiding the small fires scattered across her path. When she arrived, she tried turning the doorknob and growled in anger. “Why can’t one of these doors already be unlocked?”

  “It’s called security.” He teased.

  Grumbling, she pulled out her lockpick again and hurriedly opened the door. She ran down the flight of stairs, bursting through a door and into a large, dark space.

  It took her eyes a moment to adjust as she quickly looked around. Thick, black curtains blocked any moonlight from coming in through the windows and she had to squint to see anything. She could just barely make out the glass wall across the room that separated the floor and the elevator. On the far side of the room, there was a kitchen and a sitting area with scattered magazines and food containers.

  To her right, she spotted a few half-opened doors and grinned. She ran toward the first door and peeked inside, disappointed to find a washroom. She moved on to the next room and quietly pushed the door open. Inside, there were a few unmade, empty bunk beds, clothes scattered all across the floor, and empty beer bottles on top of a dusty dresser.

  Hunter’s grin quickly soured as she looked around. “You would cry if you saw this room.”

  “Is it really messy?”

  She picked up a shirt from the floor and threw it over her shoulder. “They have a dresser with no clothes in it.”

  Raphael moaned painfully, as if the very idea hurt his soul. “Just imagining it is bad. Grab something and get out so we can keep going.”

  She quickly looked around and grabbed a black hoodie, a blue plaid shirt, and a pair of blue jeans that she had to keep pulling up. She grabbed a bandana and ran back to the bathroom before wetting her hair and pulling it away from her face, keeping it back with her makeshift headband. She was lucky she had very sharp facial features and could probably pull off being mistaken for a boy if she kept the hood up.

  “You’re going to have to ditch the bag.” Raphael said just as she returned to the bedroom. “It’s way too conspicuous.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll stand out.” He clarified. “No one at this time would walk around with a large, black bag.”

  She bit her lip and touched the tip of the beak as she carefully pulled her mask off her face. “What about the mask?”

  “We’ll get you another one.” He said. “You don’t need it right now.”

  She curled her fingers around the edge of the mask, reluctant to even let it go. It’d been a part of her for as long as she could remember. She sighed and put the mask down beside her bag, hiding it under the clothes scattered across the floor. She’d left her gun on the roof, so all she had was her knife, her lockpick, and the tattooed man’s key card.

  “What does my situation look like?” She asked as she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. She pulled the hood over her face and carefully looked around, worried someone would jump out from one of the rooms she hadn’t looked into.

  “I’ve got them trapped between the third and fourth floor. It seems they’re having a hard time finding a pass that can get the elevator working or the stairs open.” Raphael said. She could hear the pride oozing from his voice.

  “I thought you said you couldn’t get into the upper-level systems?” She pulled the security pass she’d stolen from her jean pocket as she walked out of the floor and toward the stairs.

  “I just shut the entire system down when you got off the roof. I can’t really control anything, but nothing is working. I’ll turn it back on now so you can get down too.” He explained. She stopped in front of the stairwell door and placed the pass on the small, black scanner, but nothing happened.

  “How long is this going to take?”

  “You’re good to go now.” He said as the door buzzed and she heard the lock click open. She pushed it open and ran down the stairs, pulling out the knife she’d hidden beneath the sweater. She used the key card to unlock the door on the fourth floor before entering the familiar space, but from the opposite side. She turned the corner and noticed the bodies of the two previous guards were missing, but there were still blood stains on the carpet.

  “Please don’t do anything crazy.” Raphael said. “I have access to these cameras, and I see you scheming.”

  She ignored him and pocketed the key card. She looked at the elevator again before faintly cutting her cheek to draw blood. She was already bruised up from the beating she’d taken before, but she needed more blood.

  Clenching her teeth, Hunter pulled the sleeve of her left arm up and cut a long gash across her arm, avoiding her tattoo. She hid her knife before smearing blood across her cheek, her plaid shirt, and on both her hands, as if she’d been stabbed in the stomach. With the hood still up, she sat with her back against the wall, positioning herself so the blood stain was close enough to look like it belonged to her.

  “This is what I meant by crazy.” He deadpanned as she pretended to be in pain.

  “It’s the best I can do.” She hissed just as the elevator doors opened.

  About half a dozen people spilled out from the elevator, guns drawn as they quickly looked around and spotted Hunter pretending to be injured. She wasn’t the greatest actress, but she hoped the urgency of the situation would distract anyone from any evident flaws. Like the lack of a stab wound.

  “Someone go check on that guy. The rest of you upstairs!” Someone said. She peeked from beneath her hood and watched two people, one man and one woman, running toward her.

  She coughed and waved the two away. “He took my key card and ran upstairs. The boss needs you more than I do.” She said, changing her tone so she sounded male and winded.

  “Oh, that’s pretty convincing.” Raphael said, and Hunter had to refrain from glaring at the camera.

  The female member nodded toward the other one and he ran off to join the rest of them. Hunter internally sighed. She’d hoped everyone would’ve gone upstairs.

  The woman looked to be in her mid-thirties. She had short dark brown hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and swamp-coloured eyes. “Let me see your wounds, I can help.”

  Hunter tried again to push her away, “I’m fine,” She coughed again. “Hurry, the man who attacked me has a gun.”

  “They’ll be fine.” She insisted as she tried to move Hunter’s hand away from her stomach. “Just let me see.” She looked up and made eye contact with Hunter just as a knife plunged into the Lorenzo Cartel member’s stomach. She gasped as her eyes widened in shock. She coughed up blood before collapsing forward onto Hunter.

  She grimaced and pushed the body off before standing and wiping the blade on the dead member’s clothes. “Should’ve listened.”

  “I know this was an assassination, but usually these things have a lot less killing.” Raphael said suddenly as she pushed the elevator button. The doors opened automatically and she quickly stepped in before swiping her stolen key card and pressed the button for the third level.

  “I can’t have survivors know my face.” She said, shrugging. “How many more people am I going to have to deal with?” She asked, changing the subject.

  “Not many.” He said. “Most of them fled to the warehouse.”

  She frowned. “You mentioned that before, what is it?”

  She could hear him grinning. “It was Kestrel’s main storage facility. It’s where he made most of his drugs and stored it before shipping it off.” He explained. “The lab in this building is more for testing. The warehouse is where they do mass production. If that thing goes down, their business is screwed.”

  “But wouldn’t they still have all the main files here?”

  He chuckled. “Not if someone planted a virus set to delete all of their files.”

  The elevator doors opened and she found herself on the third floor. As she looked around, besides the cluster of bodies she’d left previously, there was no one with her. “Did Scarlet do that last time we were here.”

  “Yeah. One of my informants—Payton—activated it though. After today, the Lorenzo Cartel is never going to be able to function.”

  She nodded. “Can you get the rest of the guys on the lower levels out of the building?” She asked as she walked toward the elevator. “I don’t want to deal with security on the first floor.”

  “I’ve got something.” He said. “Just wait a second.”

  She opened her mouth to ask what he had planned before she was interrupted by a large explosion. She whipped her head toward the window beside the elevator and watched, mouth gaping open, as a partially constructed building completely collapsed into a pile of rubble and dust.

  “What the…” The elevator doors suddenly opened and she jolted back to reality. She stepped into the elevator again and pushed the main floor button. “What the hell was that?”

  “I had some of my people plant explosives around the area in case things got really bad. They turned out to be rather useful. Everyone's rushing outside."

  The elevator dinged and the doors slowly opened. She watched men and women rushing out through the front doors with their guns drawn, some of them with phones glued to their ears while others were yelling instructions.

  She pulled the hood tighter around her face and snuck up behind a panicked-looking security guard. Someone at the front doors was ushering everyone out and she slipped by without anyone even questioning her. Outside, the entire area seemed to be covered in dust and Lorenzo Cartel members were running around, yelling at each other as they tried to find the culprit behind the attack.

  “You guys are going to have to move soon.” Hunter whispered as she began running to keep pace with the people around her.

  “Oh, we started moving before I caused the explosion. Where are you right now, we’ll come get you.” Raphael said.

  She dipped into a back alley when she was a few blocks away from the LC Pharmaceuticals building and peeked around the corner to see if anyone had noticed her. Amidst the chaos and dust, no one paid her any mind, and she easily slipped farther into the shadows and away from her crime scene.

  “Four streets away from the Lorenzo Cartel building, in the opposite direction of the explosion.” She said as she began running down the street, keeping out from beneath the street lamps and sticking close to the shadows.

  When she arrived at her destination, she spotted a sole parked black car with its lights off. As soon as she stepped into the street, the headlights flashed on and the car slowly crawled toward her. Raphael pulled up next to her and rolled down his window.

  “Back seat’s yours.” He said, pointing to the back. From the passenger seat, Jocco waved.

  She didn’t bother putting her seatbelt on as she collapsed on the seat, her feet hanging off the edge.

  “You look like hell.” Jocco muttered as he looked over his shoulder at Hunter. She glared at him before rolling her eyes.

  “You should try doing what I did, and then we can talk.” She muttered, lifting her leg to kick the back of Jocco’s seat.

  “Well, it was a bit messy, but mission complete.” Raphael said, giving her a thumbs-up. “Good job.”

  “I’m so tired.” She said. Hunter curled up into a little ball and rolled over so her back was facing the boys. She closed her eyes as the sudden rush of exhaustion took over.

  Epilogue

  Two weeks after Kestrel's death and the fall of the Lorenzo Cartel, Othloh still hadn’t fallen into a major civil war. Rumours of Occisor’s involvement spread once the remaining Lorenzo Cartel members found the black feather Hunter had left behind. Many people speculated Minosea, who’d been spotted attacking the LC Pharmaceuticals building, had hired the mercenary group to remove Kestrel of some sort of equation. Without knowing what Minosea had planned, it looked as if none of the minor gangs wanted to try their hand at taking control of the now emptying territory.

  After Kestrel’s death was confirmed, many Lorenzo Cartel members fled the city. Despite Othloh being a haven for criminals and scoundrels, Kestrel was not a well-liked man and by extension neither were his underlings. Kestrel had built his career on betraying or killing the people above him, and mowing down anyone else who got in his way. In the days following the attack, many Lorenzo Cartel members were found dead along the streets. Now that no one guaranteed their safety, Kestrel’s former underlings were easy targets for those who wanted revenge.

  But Othloh was not a patient city, and after two weeks, the violence in Kestrel’s former territory was steadily rising. A fourth of the city was turning into a war zone, something that hadn’t happened since Weston created Minosea and tore the city apart for a piece of it.

  Hunter sighed as she looked around the room. The only thing that would ever get all the Crime Lords together would be mass chaos erupting in the city. To be honest, they probably wouldn’t even bother trying to stop the fighting if it wasn’t for the fact that once it began, it would most likely spill into their territories.

  It was the first time she’d ever seen all of them in a room together. Dante Fury, international arms dealer, was sitting with her legs on top of the wooden table and her arms crossed over her chest. Her long white hair was braided and she looked bored. Charlie Miles looked much more cheerful and relaxed than Dante. He had a casual smile spread across his face, and his dark skin looked even darker against the pastel blue suit he was wearing. Weston was the only Crime Lord who wasn’t sitting. He was standing beside the table, one hand in his pocket as he looked over the others in the room critically. Lucian sat in front of Hunter, his cane leaning against the table beside him.

  Hunter felt extremely out of place. She was the only person in the room who didn’t have any sort of authority. Lucian had only told her that they requested she be present, as she was the main force behind Occisor. She didn’t completely believe him, but she followed anyway, giving Raphael a worried look before they’d left his hideout that morning.

  She was leaning against a window and tried not to look at the sea that stretched behind her. They were inside an office on one of Dante’s many docked boats. A large portion of Dante’s territory was a marina and a shipping yard. And since she loved the sea, she’d built her main base on it. Hunter, on the other hand, did not like the open water. It made her nervous.

 

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