There was a hall beyond the corpse. I took it, kicked in doors as I went past. The smoke was clearer and I could walk upright. Most of the fire was up front, but this was the back of the building. I was about to give up when I came across one last door left partially ajar with stairs leading down into the basement.
The light flickered at the bottom.
I slipped my knife away and drew my gun.
The stairs creaked as I crept down them. Below was a storage space packed with boxes, barrels, paper products, and a million other things needed to run a successful deli. I kicked through the stacks, pushing my way deeper into the basement, until I came into an empty, open space near the back wall.
There was a single table and a chair. An older woman with gray-streaked hair sat behind the table drinking from a bottle of gin. She wore dark, designer clothes, and her face was smeared with soot and blood. She looked at me, frowning as I approached, scanning the space for any guards.
“I’m alone,” she croaked, her voice ruined by the smoke above. “I wondered if you’d come.”
Maeve’s cousin Simone was spindly and wry, but her gaze was sharp. She was a middling player in the game, and could’ve won if I hadn’t decided to come for her. Of all the cousins vying for Maeve’s empire, she wasn’t the worst, not by a long shot.
“I made a promise to someone. It’s nothing personal.”
She laughed and took a long swig. “What’s an Oligarch like you care about a nothing like me? I can’t carve out a little island for myself in this shithole city? You had to come and take?” She spit on the ground. “That’s all you people are good for. Taking, taking, taking. You do nothing for the world.”
“Like I said, this is business. You never should’ve gotten involved.”
“To hell with you. Maeve’s fortune is as much mine as anyone else. At least I’m not a piece of trash like Aisha.”
I raised the gun, aiming at her chest. “I’ll end it fast.”
She drained the gin bottle and coughed. She spit again.
“It won’t help. Killing me won’t help at all. You might get what you want in the end, but what’s it matter? There’s always someone bigger and stronger.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I shot her twice.
She toppled back, blood splattering on the wall behind her. She slumped and slowly slid down to the floor.
Noise behind me. I whirled, aiming.
Palmira stepped into the circle of light, frowning. “She was alone?”
I relaxed and holstered my gun. “Looks like it.”
“Then the rest of her people are broken.”
I pulled my knife. It was big and heavy with a wicked serrated edge. I walked gingerly to the dead woman’s side and dragged her body into the open space directly beneath the single bare bulb.
“Remind me of something,” I said, not looking up. “Do I ever break promises?”
“No, Redmond. You don’t.” I could hear the eyeroll in her tone.
I smiled wickedly, grabbed the dead woman’s hair, and plunged the knife into her throat.
It was hard work. Muscle and bone and ligaments weren’t easy to saw through. Palmira watched the messy ordeal dispassionately as the building continued to burn above.
When I was finished, I lifted what was left of Simone by the hair.
I promised Erin a head. I’d give her one.
Chapter 3
Erin
My men were based in a string of houses on the outskirts of Chicago. Our chosen neighborhood was seedy, but not terrible. I wished I could stay in a penthouse apartment overlooking downtown, but that wouldn’t send the right message.
Chika had a room to herself in the back. James came and went and slept on couches and futons. For a man in his early forties, he was surprisingly spry and youthful. I thought I had a lot of energy, but that man was boundless.
I sat on the front porch, foot up on the railing. My head was spinning, and I tried to keep myself centered by flipping through my phone. It was always like this, especially late in the day. I couldn’t control the racing, racing, racing. I took deep breaths and tried not to let it overwhelm me, but when things were stressful and I wasn’t sleeping well, my brain didn’t want to cooperate.
“We got word this morning about Simone,” James said, standing at the bottom of the steps. He watched the street like a hawk, his dark eyes scanning for threats. “Seems someone attacked her main base of operation and wiped out most of her men.”
“And Simone? Where is she?”
“Missing. Presumed dead.”
I felt a strange jolt in my stomach. Could it be? No, it was too fast. Simone wasn’t the strongest cousin in the fight, but she was clever and kept out of the worst of it.