“This is unacceptable!” Guiseppe Antonio slammed his fist on the table during the dawn of a very beautiful Saturday. “You are recruiting my people, and dare to refuse to reply to my letters!”

“Letters? I do not know what you are talking about.” Tom said, wearing his mask like I did.

“I have quite a few assassins as well who claim similarly.”  Vladimir Tarasov claimed.

“Hmm … someone wants to divide us.” Tom said, grabbing his mask and apparently deep in thought.

“I fear not. I have credible proof you are behind the sudden disappearance of a few of my subordinates.” Oh, no, that wasn’t Tom. That was me because I felt bored the last three days. Well, at least we knew everything about them now, from their leaders to their numbers.

“Mr Tarasov, I bear no ill will towards you and the D’Antonio crime family. I understand your distrust towards us, but I do hope coming here without a weapon helped to solve the issue at hand.” He said. Truly, they refused to let me in particular carry any weapon and checked me three times alongside Tom. But we already anticipated their reluctance to meet us and left our weapons in the carriage anyway.

“That remains to be seen. We want compensation and stop meddling in our business.” Guiseppe said threateningly and knocked his golden rings onto the table.

“You misunderstand. I never had any intention to intrude into your work, but I needed to borrow your subordinates for a very important task concerning damaging the king’s reputation.” Tom said and lowered his head demurely.

“Is that so? We delivered every bit you wanted from us. We gave you the blueprint and intel about every trap there is, but you … you attacked us!” Guiseppe said, clearly a bit enraged by our transgressions.

“I held my word as well though? So good in fact, that we will commence the operation tomorrow.” Tom claimed brightly.

“I thought it would happen in two months?” Vladimir asked, as equally surprised as Guiseppe was.

“Yes, but we are doing something even better than what we had planned originally. We will crown ourselves ruler of the underworld, in front of the army outside the eastern slums, in front of the citizenry of the slums and commoner district alike, and in front of all our men. We will start a civil war tomorrow, and we will bring the king himself onto his knees within a few weeks.” Tom presented a bit too proudly in my opinion.

“Your claims are as impressive as always, but what do you have to back it up?” Vladimir asked, looking towards me all of a sudden as if he expected me to bash his head. Tom brought that option up, but I found that a little bit too early.

“We got rid of the two monsters and managed to sway the opinion of the population in our favour. Isn´t that enough?” Tom asked, which seemed to convince the other two leaders somewhat. “You don’t have to do anything at this point. But please, do bring your men towards the eastern outer gate undetected tomorrow around midnight. Please, you can even encircle my men if you want to, but do enjoy the show. I am sure you two have things to discuss now, so I will take my leave.” Tom stood up abruptly, and the other guards drew the swords. Holding his hands conciliatory in front of him, he stepped to the side and turned around to leave. I turned around as well but stopped as Vladimir Tasarov made a little move.

“Hey, vampire, how much do you cost?” Seriously? That was his answer to the problems he was facing? As an assassin himself, he had to know that not everything was buyable and I fell under this category. Turning around and walking backwards, I formed two 0´s with my hand and pushed them together in front of me. Without having spoken any word at all, I turned around once again and strolled behind Tom who walked away leisurely. Only inside the carriage did he speak up again.

“What do you think?” He asked, even though I had my mask off and glared at the whore who sat beside him.

“Please wait a second. Whore.” I said and nodded towards her.

“Slut.” She nodded back, following the code of conduct we made between us perfectly.

“Is that your new greeting or what?” Tom asked, and was promptly ignored by the whore and me.

“It went alright, I would say. The only thing we have to watch out for is their cooperation, but even that won´t change much to be honest, mostly because they are still underestimating us.” I said after a little while.

“Hmm?” The whore asked, clearly not filled in.

“Whore, do I need to tell you everything?” I asked and glared at her threateningly.

“Yes, please, mommy!” She said, holding the palm of her hands against each other under her chin and smiled brightly.

“For fucks sake … you are making this weird again … they are over- and underestimating the power of money at the same time. Some people, especially those heavily invested in their work cannot be bought, no matter what. But your average assassin or drug dealer? He doesn’t give a shit for who he is working, as long as the money is coming in. And we are paying way better than they do.”

“… you pay your employees?” She asked once more and nearly drove me crazy. I had to hear this so often during the last weeks that I felt like puking whenever she opened her mouth.

“Yes, and I do provide additional benefits like ‘employee murder parties’ where I randomly select a few to die or ‘stabby stabby’ where I cut brunettes open who can impersonate others during sex, aren’t human, feed on disgusting stuff and go on my nerves daily.” I said, my voice becoming more and more aggressive.

“That´s oddly specific … have you ever thought of doing ‘stabby stabby’ to a blonde slut who feigns lust during sex, isn´t human, feeds on disgusting stuff and goes on my nerves daily?” I could feel my right eyelid twitching again as my hand raced towards my dagger on the floor of the carriage.

“Girls … chill.” Tom said, clearly a bit overstrained by the situation.

“I´m not your girl.” I hissed, but still kept my gaze locked onto the whore.

“I´m not your girl either, but I am your woman. Something she can never be.” My hands balled into fists as I lunged over towards her, grabbed her by the collar and yanked her over to me.

“… you better take that back.” I hissed and held her close to me.

“Take what back?” She asked innocently, even though she knew exactly what I meant. And sadly, she also knew I couldn’t kill her yet … sighing, I let go of her collar and pushed her away from me, a bit disgusted to have touched her in the first place.

“… I will be so grateful when you finally lost all of your value.” I said and grinned devilishly.

“Hmm. Tom, could you please note that she doesn’t like to be seen as a child.” She said, fixing her messed up clothing.

“That’s not new?” He said with closed eyes and a shaking head.

“Oh … I must have forgotten.”