Chapter 2
MICAH
The blade slid in clean.
I felt the resistance—skin, muscle, the brief catch against cartilage before steel found the softness between ribs and punched straight into Vince Draconi's heart.
His eyes went wide. Not with surprise. He'd known this was coming the second I'd walked through his door.
No, this was something else. Recognition, maybe.
The understanding that all his choices had led here, to this roach-infested shithole in Riga, Latvia, to my hand on the grip, to the cold spreading through his chest like winter.
I held him there.
Kept the blade buried deep while I watched.
My father's voice cut through the moment, sharp and unwelcome—Make it quick, son. Clean kills are merciful kills.
I shoved the memory down hard, crushed it beneath the weight of everything I'd become since he'd left. Since he'd disappeared from Montana, from us, from his family.
Mercy wasn't on the menu tonight.
Draconi's mouth worked, trying to form words that would never come. Blood bubbled at the corner of his lips, dark and thick. His hands clutched at my forearm—weak, desperate, already losing their grip.
I leaned closer, let him see my face clearly in the dim yellow light from the bare bulb overhead.
"You got Benson killed," I said quietly. "He trusted you. He was a good man. Wife. Three kids. He was in Baku because I asked him to be. Because I told him the intel was solid. Because it was an easy deal."
Draconi's eyes flickered. Maybe guilt. Maybe just the synapses misfiring as his brain started shutting down.
"Wrong place, wrong time," I continued, voice flat. "All because you sold us out. So, yeah. I'm gonna stand here and watch you go, you fucking piece of shit."
The light in his eyes dimmed by degrees. Not all at once—never all at once. It was gradual, like someone turning down a lamp. First the clarity went. Then the fear. Then the recognition that he was still a person, that this was still happening.
By the end, there was nothing.
Just empty windows where a soul used to live.
I let him slip to the floor, the blade still buried in his chest. Left it there.
Fuck him. Fuck anyone who came looking and tried to trace it back to me.
The weapon was a common blade, a kitchen utensil, strong, sharp, untraceable, purchased at a market in Tallinn three days ago, specifically for this.
If someone wanted to play detective, they could waste their time.
Draconi crumpled like a puppet with cut strings, his body folding in on itself, blood pooling beneath him and soaking into the ratty carpet that probably hadn't been cleaned since the Soviet Union collapsed.
I stood over him for another moment, searching for something—satisfaction, maybe, or closure, or the sense that Tony's death had been balanced out by this one.
Nothing came.
It never did.
Special Agent Vince Draconi. Decorated FBI. Traitor. Piece of shit. Dead.
He was the only thread I'd been able to pull from the tangled mess that had gotten Benson killed. The only name that surfaced when I'd spent two weeks digging through encrypted communications, bribes, offshore accounts, and favors traded in dark corners of the intelligence world.
I'd hoped there'd be more. Accomplices. A network. Someone else I could bleed for answers.
But Draconi had operated alone, selling information to the Chechen syndicate for cash and the promise of a cushy retirement somewhere warm. Selfish. Stupid. Lethal. Too bad he’d lose his deposit on that house in Cabo.
The mission had gone sideways because of him. Benson had walked into an ambush in a Baku warehouse that should've been empty. Instead, it was full of men with AKs and bad intentions, all because Draconi had whispered our movements into the wrong ears.
I'd still completed the job. Two syndicate lieutenants were rotting under three tons of garbage outside Baku, their bodies contributing to the landfill's methane production.
But Benson was still dead.
And now, so was Draconi.
I took one last look at the body, then turned and walked out.
The tenement was a relic—crumbling Soviet-era concrete, narrow hallways that smelled like cabbage and mildew, stairs with missing rails and graffiti in three languages. I moved through it like smoke, keeping to the shadows, ears tuned to every sound.
A baby cried somewhere above me. A television blared Russian news through a thin wall. Someone was arguing in Latvian, voices rising and falling in a rhythm I didn't need to understand to recognize.
No one saw me.
I was good at that. Being invisible. That skill kept me alive.
The street outside was wet, slick with rain that had turned the cobblestones into mirrors reflecting the amber glow of streetlights.
Riga at two in the morning was a ghost town.
A few late-night drunks stumbled past, arm in arm, singing off-key.
A stray dog nosed through an overturned trash bin.
Somewhere distant, a siren wailed and faded.
I didn't see any of it.
Not really.
I saw vectors. Sight lines. Escape routes. The old Volga parked across the street with a man sleeping in the driver's seat—drunk or homeless or waiting for someone, it didn't matter. The alley to my left, too narrow for a vehicle, wide enough for a man. The rooftop access three buildings down.
My life was the mission. Had been for a long time. Since I was old enough to understand that the world was full of men like Draconi, and someone had to put them down.
I flagged a cab two blocks away, a battered Skoda with a driver who looked like he'd seen worse than me. I gave him an address in broken Russian—tourist district, a hotel I wasn't staying at—and settled into the backseat.
He didn't ask questions. Good.
I watched the side mirror, tracking headlights, counting vehicles, noting patterns. No one followed. No one cared. Just another fare in a city full of ghosts.
We passed the Freedom Monument, lit up against the night sky, a woman holding three stars aloft like hope meant something. We crossed the Daugava River, the water black and slow beneath us. The old town rolled by, medieval spires and gothic facades that tourists paid good money to photograph.
I saw none of it.
Just the mission. Always the mission.
I paid the driver in cash, added a tip that wouldn't be remembered, and walked three more blocks before catching another cab. Different route. Different destination. This one dropped me six blocks from the Airbnb flat I'd rented under a name that didn't exist.
I walked the rest.
The building was quieter than Draconi's tenement. Newer. Cleaner. The kind of place where young professionals lived and pretended Riga was the next Berlin. I took the stairs, avoiding the elevator and its cameras, my footsteps silent on the concrete.
Four flights up.
I paused at each landing, listening. Checking angles. Looking for anything out of place—a door cracked open, a shadow that didn't belong, the faint scent of cologne or sweat or gun oil.
Nothing.
The hallway on the fourth floor was empty. Three doors. Mine was at the end, number 409. I approached slowly, hand on the gun tucked against my spine, eyes scanning for tampering.
The lock was untouched. The piece of tape I'd placed at the bottom of the door was still there, unbroken. The dust I'd blown across the threshold was undisturbed.
I unlocked the door with my left hand, the Glock in my right, and stepped inside fast, sweeping the room in a practiced arc.
Empty.
The flat was small. Kitchenette to the left. Living room with a sofa and a window overlooking the street. Bedroom and bathroom to the right. Minimal furniture. No personality. Just the way I liked it.
I checked the window sensors first—still armed. Then the motion detector I'd hidden in the bookshelf. Active. The micro-camera aimed at the door. Recording. I scrubbed back through the feed on my phone. Nothing. No one had entered.
I checked the bedroom. Closet. Under the bed. Behind the shower curtain.
Clear.
Only then did I let myself relax. Barely.
I stripped off my jacket, the black thermal beneath it, the tactical pants still damp from the rain. Dropped them in a pile by the door. Down to my boxer briefs, I hit the floor and started counting.
One. Two. Three.
Pushups. One hundred. Fast and controlled, shoulders burning by fifty, arms strong by eighty. I pushed through. Pain was just information. Weakness was just something to outlast.
One hundred.
I rolled onto my back without pausing and started situps. Core tight, elbows to knees, breathing steady. The mission high was still coursing through me—adrenaline, endorphins, the chemical cocktail that came from violence and survival.
One hundred.
I stood, chest heaving, sweat slicking my skin, and headed for the bathroom.
The shower was mercifully hot. Scalding, even. I turned my face into the spray and let it beat against my skull, washing away the sweat, the rain, the faint copper smell of blood that always seemed to linger no matter how clean I was.
Feeling wasn't something I recognized anymore. Hadn't been for years. But the heat was something. A reminder that my body still worked, still functioned, still obeyed commands.
I scrubbed my hands twice. Under the nails. Between the fingers. Even though I'd worn gloves. Even though there was no blood.
Habit.
By the time I stepped out, the mission high was fading. The adrenaline was draining away, leaving behind the familiar hollow ache that came after. Not guilt. Not regret. Just ... emptiness.
I dried off, pulled on a clean pair of boxer briefs, and walked into the kitchenette.
A beer. Maybe two. Then sleep. That was the plan.
I opened the fridge, grabbed a Latvian lager I couldn't pronounce, twisted the cap off—
And saw the phone.
It sat on the kitchen counter, black and sleek, screen dark.
It wasn't mine.
It wasn't there when I'd gone into the bathroom.
My hand moved before my brain caught up, setting the beer down, reaching for the gun I'd left under the sofa cushion. I had it up and ready in two seconds, eyes scanning the flat again, every sense screaming.
Someone had been here.
I checked the window sensors again. Still armed. The motion detector. Still active. The camera feed. Still empty.
What the fuck?
I moved through the flat again, slower this time, checking every corner, every shadow, every place a person could hide. Under the bed. Inside the closet. Behind the shower curtain.
Nothing.
No sign of entry. No footprints. No disturbance in the dust near the window. No scratches on the lock.
It was like a ghost had walked in, left the phone, and walked out.
The phone buzzed.
I spun toward it, gun raised, finger tight on the trigger.
It buzzed again. Incoming call. The screen lit up with a blocked number.
I didn't answer. Not yet.
I checked everything again. The door. The windows. The sensors. All clear. All untouched. No one had been here.
Except someone had.
The phone stopped buzzing.
Five seconds later, it started again.
I stared at it, mind racing through possibilities. FSB. CIA. Mossad. Some private outfit. Someone with resources. Someone who could bypass my security without leaving a trace.
Someone who wanted me to answer.
I picked up the phone, keeping my back to the wall, away from the window.
"Yeah," I said.
The voice that came through was low. Gravelly. The kind of voice that belonged to a man who'd seen things and done worse. A man like me.
"Are you done saving the world from FBI turncoats, at least, for tonight?"
I froze.
Every muscle in my body locked tight. My finger twitched on the gun’s trigger.
"Who the fuck is this?" I said, voice flat and cold.
A pause. Then: "Someone who's impressed."
"That's not an answer."
"You'll find out soon enough," the voice said. "There's a plane waiting to bring you back to the States."
"What is this about?"
Another pause. Longer this time. When the voice spoke again, it carried weight. Intent.
"How would you like to keep doing what you're doing, only make more of a difference?"
My mind spun. Cataloging. Analyzing. Searching for the angle.
Who had the access? The know-how? The balls to breach my flat without tripping a single alarm, to track my movements, to know about Draconi, about Benson, about missions that weren't on any official record?
Government. Had to be. But which one? And why now?
Or maybe it wasn't government. Maybe it was something else. Private. Dangerous. The kind of offer that came with strings made of barbed wire.
I gave very few fucks either way.
If it was the Feds, they'd catch up with me eventually. Might as well face the fire now. If it was a legitimate offer—something that let me keep doing what I was good at, only with better support, better intel, better results—then I'd listen.
And if it was something else? Some player on the wrong side of the moral equation trying to recruit me for the wrong reasons?
I'd see to that, too.
"Okay," I said. "Where's the plane? Where am I going?"
"I'll text you the location of the airfield," the voice said. "And I'll be waiting in Charleston to meet you in person."
The call ended.
I stood there, Glock still in hand, phone still pressed to my ear, staring at the dark screen.
Charleston.
The text came through thirty seconds later. A GPS pin drop. A private airfield outside Riga. Departure as soon as I got there.
I set the phone down carefully, like it might explode.
My beer sat on the counter, forgotten and warming.
I'd just become a domino in someone else's game.
And I had no idea who was holding the board.