Chapter 4: Bliss

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Andrés glowered at the whiskey in front of him, not really seeing it as he contemplated the latest clusterfuck.

"Whatever happened, I don't think it's the Macallan's fault, mate." Cillian grinned at Andrés's glare and toasted him with the bottle before tucking it back under the bar. "Have a drink, talk to me."

Continuing to glare at Cillian only widened the bartender's smile. Andrés didn't look away as he raised the glass and sipped, too irritated with the day's events to concede in the staring match. Imogen might have gotten the upper hand, but Andrés would be damned if he had to give up one more inch of ground today.

He'd forgotten that Cillian nearly always won, if only because he never bothered to compete. With a wink, he served the next patron down the bar and left Andrés to stew.

This would be so much easier if you did things the way you used to. The thought twined through his mind, seductive and unbidden as it tempted him toward a solution. What's one more time? How bad do you want to be master of London?

"Don't."

Cillian didn't flinch when Andrés fixed him with a harder gaze than he had minutes ago. His jaw clenched and his forest green eyes grew wary, but he held his ground.

"Don't what?"

"I know that look. You walked away, remember?"

"I remember getting things done."

"Do you remember the day you decided to quit working for her and go legitimate?"

Andrés did remember, although it had been years and he'd tried forgetting.

When he'd started in his previous line of work it was all he could do to finish a clean kill. By the end, it was all he could do to keep the kill clean. He'd started losing himself; most days, the alias he worked under had felt more solid than his real self.

Too many lines were crossed. Chasing power and doing anything for the money to buy his way out of the depths of London's underworld had broken something in him. That day rose up again at Cillian's reminder and he shivered at the memory of the hitman he'd been.

###

His dreams were stained red and rang with screams all the time now. It would happen again tonight, he knew it. He hated the nightmares despite loving the distance being the Raven gave him in the moment. Nothing mattered but the job.

Clarity. Focus. Success.

Mastering each mark mentally, emotionally, and physically satisfied him in a way nothing else did, keeping memories of the past at bay. Making him powerful. Power kept him safe, gave him the clout and financial independence to stand on his own. He wasn't the little fish he'd been when he arrived in London, easy pickings for the violent nationalists in KAP, the heavies of other gangs, and the sadists who'd been above him in Imogen's outfit.

Nothing mattered but the job – until the job was over. Then the dreams came.

They were getting to be too much. This wasn't who he was supposed to be, no matter how good he was at his job.

Once Andrés finished cleaning and reassembling his gun, he set it aside and scrubbed his hands over his face. I need to get out of here and stop thinking.

Not thinking meant taking another job as the Raven – which meant more blood – or alcohol. Whiskey it is.

Perdition would do. There was always plenty of distraction there. And Cillian was always good for a more sensual distraction.

He stepped into the bathroom for a piss and froze, heart skipping a beat at the face looking back at him in the mirror. Ragged black streaks clawed their way across his visage and for a few seconds he had the irrational panic that some god of the dead had marked him for judgment.
Then he realized his hands were filthy with gunpowder residue and oil, and remembered rubbing them over his face. He wasn't marked for judgment, just dirty.

Gripping the edge of the sink, Andrés hung his head and trembled, taking deep breaths to swallow past his rising gorge. If his nightmares were bleeding into his waking moments he needed to get out.

And do what?

Something legitimate. But he'd gotten so used to the power and control of being his own boss that he couldn't go back to being just another grunt. He was tired of being a nobody...and yet he couldn't keep being Imogen's hitman for a living.

###

"Fuck you," Andrés muttered, shaking free of the flashback and finishing his drink in a long draught. Cillian let the obvious quip go unspoken, all laughter gone from his eyes as he topped up the glass.

"Seriously, mate. Whatever it is, they only win if you take that step backward."

"Wrong." The word stood between them, a wall in the making. "They win if they take London. This city is mine."

Cillian sighed and pulled out the cleaning rag to polish the already spotless bar. "Fine. Talk to me."

"No."

"Fuck's sake, Rey. It's not you alone against the world. Don't be a twat."

Andrés swirled his drink, watching the rag's steady circles against the shiny wood. He trusted Cillian; the man had been his first friend when he arrived in London and had never done anything worse than love him. And I need him to carry out my payback.

"Imogen Quinn."

Cillian looked up as the rag paused on the bar. Anyone with a finger in London's less-than-legal business had had dealings with, or at least heard of, the mob boss. Cillian had more than one finger in the business.

"And Zoë Lefevre."

"Oh, fuck me. Mate..."

It was Andrés's turn to ignore the obvious quip. "Yeah."

"You should have listened to Chi."

"Piss off."

"Jesus, Andrés. How bad?"

"I got a warning today. Aguilar got an email this morning, backed up with a tossed container this afternoon."

Cillian tapped the touch screen he used to take payments. His eyes flicked to the corner, where the time was displayed, before he clicked the music up a notch and flicked one set of overhead lights off. The bar's patrons whooped as the club's dancers took their cue to spill out from behind black velvet curtains and onto the raised stages lining the edges of the seating area. "Tossed how?" he asked when everyone was distracted.

"Nothing illegal, since Zoë's team was overseeing it and her heavies were cops. Just a search." Andrés pinched the bridge of his nose, remembering the photos forwarded to him. "Some of Imogen's associates were very careful to be captured on camera as they smashed some very valuable merchandise to shit. She wanted me to know who was responsible."

"Okay, so you know. But what does she want?"

"To ship something. Bliss, I imagine. I can accept now and take a ten percent cut, or she'll simply keep trashing everything until I agree."

"In which case, you'll get nothing because she had to twist your arm. Well, then." Cillian pursed his lips and chucked the rag into a bin. "Either way, that sounds like war, mate."

"It is."

"Only nobody can die this time."

"I fucking know that."

"So. What're ye gonna do?"

The thickening of Cillian's Irish accent belied his neutral expression and Andrés reminded himself that he wasn't the only one Quinn had screwed over in the last few years. He shrugged. "The only thing I can do until we find a hacker. Follow the money."

Cillian's eyes hardened to glint like emeralds. "That's a ballsy move, even for you."

"Exactly. She won't expect a hit on a lab. Nobody would dare."

"What does Chi say?"

"She doesn't know." Andrés hated keeping things from his second but Chi would need plausible deniability for this. She'd still be pissed when she found out, but he compartmentalized his business activities for a reason. If she was discovered while infiltrating IQ Security, she couldn't give up what he hadn't told her.

"She's not going to like that." Cillian grinned suddenly. "I hope you lot are in the bar when she finds out. It's fun to watch you scramble."

Andrés sighed and watched one of the dancers wind around a pole. "Better that she stays alive to be angry with me."

"True enough. So. What do you need from me? And don't say, 'nothing'. I know you, mate, you're too cagey to tell me this much unless you needed something."

"Bastard," Andrés muttered, without putting any feeling into the word. He turned his idea over in his mind once more, trying to find the weak spots as Cillian poured himself a drink.

The weaknesses were there but he needed to do something Imogen wouldn't just take notice of. He needed her distracted and unbalanced, long enough for him to find a hacker and move to the next stage in their match. "I need a dealer. High roller that moves a lot of product, but stupid. Or arrogant."

"I know just the one." The glint in his friend's eye told Andrés this was someone who'd needed knocking down a peg for a long time. He raised his glass in thanks, the clink of his glass against Cillian's sealing the deal.

***

The hardest part of making Ryan Halliday give up the location of the Bliss lab was not killing him after.

Unlike Imogen, Andrés preferred to remain unknown. He also preferred to do the delicate work personally, rather than leaving it to underlings who might fuck it up or snitch. He'd worked hard to get where he was, sold most if not all of his soul along the way, and he wasn't keen on going back to the hard life.

Be honest with yourself.

Andrés shook his head to clear the whisper, but it had more to say.

You missed this.

He had missed the rush of power but admitting it wasn't an option. This wasn't who he was anymore. It was an unfortunate and necessary detour.

The scream he pulled from Halliday helped quiet the whisper.

Sweat beaded under the brow of his cap in the stuffy room and the kerchief covering his face made it harder to breathe. Better that than to be identified.

A spray of blood burst across Andrés's face as Halliday's cheek split under brass knuckles. The kerchief was good for blocking that, too.

Andrés found his rhythm, the awkward rustiness falling away as he slipped back into who he used to be, embracing his past for the first time in years. Halliday was a challenge, resisting for more than an hour before Andrés broke him.

"Barking!" he gasped out at last. Andrés swatted at him just to see the man flinch, then waited for him to continue. "It's in Barking. Industrial estate on Alfreds Way. She's paid off the coppas."

Andrés considered the information, tuning out Halliday's switch to enraged cursing. He was securely bound to a chair and Andrés had broken the dealer's foot. He wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm going to call someone," he told Halliday in a voice pitched lower than his usual. "If that someone gets to the estate and doesn't find what they're looking for, or they fall into a trap...well. We're going to have to have another conversation, you and I."

Halliday's eyes widened so far the blue was lost in frightened white and he babbled a few more pertinent details. When he slipped into snarled insults again, Andrés stuffed a sock in his mouth, stepped out of the small room, and dialed his man Urrego from the hallway.

"Boss?"

"Industrial estate. Barking. Alfred's Way. There are armed guards and dogs. Take the money if you can find it and destroy the drugs."

"Casualties?"

"Do what you need to do."

"Including police?"

Andrés debated the question. On one hand, they'd be dirty, owned by Imogen. On the other, killing cops was not how one stayed discreet and kept underworld violence in the underworld. "My new friend says they're paid to look away, not protect."

"He could be lying."

"He could be. Pain makes liars of everyone. Don't hunt them down, but don't leave witnesses or evidence." There would be hell to pay if police died, but Andrés would deal with that if and when it happened. One thing at a time.

Urrego grunted. "That's a big ask."

"Fine, then take whatever you want as a bonus to you and your men and destroy the rest. But if there's Bliss on the streets next week, it had better be your shit. And don't get caught because you got greedy. I need this done as clean as possible."

"You got it, boss." The mercenary's surly tone lightened considerably at being awarded spoils.

"Call me when it's done." Andrés re-entered the room as he ended the call, savoring Halliday's flinch.

"So, my friend. What should we do to pass the time? Should we see how far this rabbit hole goes?"

Halliday shook his head. Desperate groans tried to escape around the sock between his teeth.

Not broken yet, but soon, Andrés thought. He had a knife in his boot; he'd liked knifework once. Halliday wasn't the one he'd been asking about the rabbit hole. Taking control of something in the explosion of clusterfuckery that had been business post-Zoë would soothe the pull from his past.

With a shudder, Andrés stepped back and forced himself to lean against the wall. He couldn't throw away five years of hard-won distance to indulge in this further than necessary. It would feel good now, a rush to wash away all the uncertainty and frustration, but he'd pay for it later. Andrés was better than that.

Waiting for Urrego to call him back was the longest three hours he'd ever passed. He didn't dare allow work to distract him. Though he kept himself under control and kept his blade away from Halliday, he'd slipped back into the mindset of his old life, that of an enforcer and then an independent hitman. Distractions would get him caught. Focus and patience had kept him alive this long and would continue to do so.

He did allow himself to consider the long game. Hitting Imogen's pocketbook was a short-term move, something to piss her off and weaken her. Ever since he'd walked away from her organization, she'd nibbled at the fringes of his legitimate business. He'd allowed it, not wanting to draw attention or be pulled into a war.

Imogen didn't play a civilized game though. She overreached, got greedy. She'd hurt not only him but also the people and businesses to which he'd offered protection. Like Cillian and Perdition.

She had to go before the situation escalated further. Money and influence kept police and politicians in Imogen's pocket. If Andrés could strip her of both, he'd own London and be free to continue building his empire in a more civilized manner. And for that, he needed to find a damn hacker.

A jazzy tune made Halliday jump. Andrés grinned behind his kerchief and put his phone to his ear as he stepped out. "Speak."

"All sorted, boss. Your cut of the cash will be delivered to the drop in the next hour. Bliss goes home with my boys. Building's on fire. Will look like a bad chemical mixture."

"Casualties?"

"Thugs and a dog."

"No cops?"

"Nah. Cowards ran when they saw our guns."

"Excellent work. There'll be a bonus in it for all of you."

"Thank you, sir. Looking forward to the next assignment."

Halliday tried to babble something from behind his sock as Andrés stalked toward him. The babbling became frantic when Andrés drew a pistol from the holster under his leather jacket.

"It's your lucky day," he said. Halliday screwed his eyes shut and sobbed. "Coward," Andrés muttered, lip curling. Shooting him was tempting but humiliation would suit his plans better. A pistol whip left a distinct mark.

When the dealer slumped, unconscious, Andrés cleaned up. Halliday would wake in a room devoid of clues, as though only he and a ghost had been there.

In a way, it had been a ghost.

The walk back cleared his head and gave him time to peel away the layers of his past life and put everything back into its proper mental box. He was out of practice balancing all three facets of his identity and the secrets that went along with being a fixer, or a businessman, or a hitman depending on what needed doing.

London's underworld knew him as a fixer and information broker. Everyone was a little dirty these days, so he worked under his own name. Marin the fixer had an interest in several not-so-legal projects and if he didn't already know something, he knew someone who did.

At the office and in the general public, he was a consultant at Surefire Industries, the man who kept things running smoothly even if nobody quite knew what his job entailed. Chi, Cillian, and a select few of his directors knew he owned Surefire Industries and drew on his past in the Venezuelan Navy to advise the weapons division. Looking too successful would be an invitation for blackmail.

Chi and Cillian alone knew how he'd gotten enough money to found the business; they had helped him launder it and make everything legal. They'd also helped him erase everything that had to do with his past – except for Imogen Quinn.

By the time he reached one of his old safehouses, a barely livable hole not tied to Andrés Marin or Surefire Industries, he'd managed to pack his past away and shake off the last vestiges of anxiety that Halliday would figure something out.

Even if he could, there's nothing to connect me to a hitman who died five years ago. Anyone who knows about the side businesses knows I deal in information and experimental weapons, not drugs.

His phone chirped with a news alert. A fire was spreading in East London, at an abandoned warehouse in Barking that was rumored to be a drug lab.

Andrés smiled. Now he could contact Glitch.

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