The rain washed the blood off my knuckles.
I didn't care whose blood it was. Some low level dealer who thought he could cheat the Volkov family. He learned differently. They always do.
I leaned against the brick wall of the alley, my black jacket blending into the shadows. Across the street, the back entrance of The Daily Grind glowed under a flickering streetlight. A twenty four hour café. A place where police officers went when they couldn't sleep. When they wanted cheap coffee and bad sandwiches before the night shift ended.
My target was inside.
Police Commissioner Aditya Mahardika. The man who murdered my mother fifteen years ago.
I had been waiting for this moment for more than half my life. Training for it. Dreaming about it. Every bullet I ever fired, every fight I ever won, every drop of blood I ever spilled. It all led to tonight.
"Target is in position." Yakov's voice crackled through my earpiece. He was stationed across the street, hidden in a doorway, his old eyes watching everything. "He's sitting by the window. Alone. Two guards outside the front entrance. One inside, by the bathrooms."
"Copy," I said, my voice flat.
I reached into my jacket and felt the cold steel of my Glock. Silencer attached. The plan was simple. Walk in through the back. Move through the kitchen. Step into the dining area. Two bullets to the chest. Walk out the same way I came in.
Thirty seconds. That's all I needed.
The chaos of the night shift would buy me those thirty seconds. No one would notice a stranger in a crowd of tired cops. No one would remember my face.
Fifteen years of hate, condensed into half a minute.
I pushed off the wall and stepped into the rain.
That's when I saw her.
A woman was running toward the café, her brown hair plastered to her face, a white takeout bag clutched to her chest. She was laughing at something on her phone, her head tilted back, her smile bright even under the dim streetlights. She didn't see the world around her. She didn't see the danger.
She didn't see the man following her.
I saw him.
Dark hoodie pulled low over his face. One hand shoved deep in his pocket. His eyes locked on her purse. His footsteps quickening.
Amateur.
I could have ignored it. I had a mission. Fifteen years of waiting. Fifteen years of hate. I could have walked past and let the mugger do his work. Let the woman learn her lesson about walking alone at night while staring at her phone.
But something made me stop.
Maybe it was the way she smiled. Maybe it was the fact that she was running toward the same café where my target sat, blissfully unaware that death was watching him from across the street.
Or maybe it was the gun the mugger pulled from his pocket.
A cheap revolver. Old. Probably stolen. But loaded. Definitely loaded.
He grabbed her arm. Hard. She stumbled, her phone flying from her hand and shattering on the wet pavement.
"Give me the bag," he hissed. "Now."
She froze for half a second. Just half a second. Then something shifted in her face. The fear didn't disappear. But something else appeared behind it. Something harder.
"What?" the mugger said. "You deaf?"
She looked him straight in the eye. "I'm a police officer. Put the gun down before I put you down."
My lips twitched.
Interesting.
The mugger laughed. A high, nervous sound. "You're not wearing a badge, sweetheart. You're not wearing a uniform. You're just a girl with a bag full of cash."
"I don't need a badge to break your nose."
That was when I moved.
I was behind the mugger before he heard my footsteps. One hand grabbed his wrist, the one holding the gun. The other pressed my Glock into his lower back, right where his spine would shatter if I pulled the trigger.
"Drop it," I said.
He dropped the gun.
I twisted his arm until I heard a pop. He screamed, a high pitched sound that echoed off the buildings. I shoved him face first into the wet asphalt and pinned him with my knee.
"Call for backup," I told the woman.
She was staring at me. Not at the mugger. At me. Her brown eyes were wide, but not with fear. With curiosity. And something else.
Recognition.
She pulled out her badge and called it in. Within minutes, uniformed officers arrived. Two of them. Young. Eager. They took the mugger away, his arm hanging at a strange angle, his face pale with pain.
The woman stayed.
She was still staring at me.
"You're not a cop," she said.
"No."
"Then why did you help me?"
I looked at the café window. Commissioner Mahardika was still sitting there, still sipping his coffee, still reading his newspaper. He hadn't moved. He hadn't noticed anything.
He had no idea that his daughter was standing three feet away from a Volkov.
His daughter.
The truth hit me like a bullet between the ribs.
This woman. This brave, stupid, beautiful woman who had looked a gun in the face and didn't flinch. She was my target's child.
"Because," I said slowly, "your father owes me a debt. And I collect."
Her face went pale. "You know my father?"
"I know he killed someone I loved."
I turned and walked into the rain.
"Wait!" she shouted behind me. "Who are you?"
I didn't answer. I didn't look back.
But I knew one thing for certain.
Tonight's mission was compromised.
And somehow, I didn't care.