Dantes watched the exchange between Ket and Pacha through Jacopo’s eyes with great interest. He’d remembered Zak telling him about Pacha back in the pit. A guardsman that was actually trying to clean up Midtown. Dantes expected the man would likely die long before he made any meaningful changes. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t get some use out of him first. Ket may also have his uses. Dantes already had an affinity for rats after all.

Dantes heard a cough, and looked over to see Zilly gesturing toward one of the couches at the Vixen with her neck. Dantes had lost himself between Jacopo and his own thoughts. He looked where Zilly was gesturing and saw that a large human sailor was forcefully pressing a drink into Sera’s face. He moved toward them.

“Come on love. Just have a couple of these to loosen up. Don’t be a bitch about it.”

She didn’t respond, her mouth clenched closed to avoid taking a sip.

The man lifted a large hand to grip her face, and stopped when he felt Dantes’ hand on his shoulder.

“I’m going to need you to let her go,” he said, gripping the man’s shoulder tightly enough to make him wince.

The man looked Dantes up and down, blowing a scoff out of his nose. “I’m just trying to share a drink with the lady, isn’t it her job to make me comfortable.”

“Not until you’ve paid her and gone up to her room. Even then, she doesn’t need to drink with you. She’ll have clients all day, she can’t drink with all of them. Bad for business.”

The man shook his head. “I don’t sleep with sober women.”

Pathetic, thought Dantes, but he kept that to himself for the moment. “Then you shouldn’t go to a whorehouse at noon. Come back later, everyone will be drinking then.”

The man bristled, standing up. He was a head and a half taller than Dantes, and just as broad. “Is there a problem with me spending my hard earned silver here!?”

Dantes sighed. He’d tried to be diplomatic for Sera’s sake. He’d seen too many bouncers cost girls money by being too gung-ho with handsy rude customers. The girls usually didn’t need saving so much as for those men to be reminded that their actions had consequences and the girls were owned by the house, the men were just renting them. After that, they usually just paid and things went as they should with everyone satisfied.

“Leave.”

“What?” said the sailor, his eyes bulging from his head and his breath reeking of cheap wine.

“Leave.” Repeated Dantes pointing to the door. “Exit’s that way.” He brushed his coat to the side, and rested his hand on his dagger.

The man eyed the dagger, and sized Dantes up.

Dantes watched the man’s eyes, waiting for him to make the choice. He was surprised when the man seemed to deflate again, shaking his head, and making his way for the exit.

Dantes frowned as he watched him leave. He could’ve sworn the man had made up his mind to attack him, but he’d just spent a lot of time in the Pit. It was possible his read on people used to civilized society had taken a hit in that time. He turned back to Sera.

“You alright?” he asked.

“No. That dumb bastard wasted an hour of my time. He basically stole silver right out of my pocket,” she whined, her voice an octave higher than he’d heard her before.

Dantes nodded. “You’re a lot of men’s type. I doubt you’ll have much trouble getting another customer. The hostess spot is empty if you want it.”

She nodded, and rose, making her way over there. She stood there with Dantes, her face originally neutral, then annoyed, then she crossed her arms.

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“You should have beaten him.”

“Oh, I should’ve?” asked Dantes with a crooked smile.

“He wasted our time, and manhandled me.”

“If he’d actually hurt you, there’d have been a beating, but he didn’t. It’s not good business.”

“Decker would’ve done it…” she muttered.

“That’s his prerogative,” responded Dantes with a shrug. She was clearly picking at him just to vent her own frustrations. It reminded him of when he’d watch the smaller children at the whorehouses his mother worked at for a few coppers when he was young. He didn’t expect a high level of maturity from a girl as young as Sera, and he expected it was likely that some men enjoyed her attitude as it was. Even in his limited time at the Vixen it was clear she was one of the top earners.

That was proven again, when less than five minutes later she was pouting on the lap of a different sailor who seemed to have been immediately wrapped around her little finger. Dantes checked back in on Jacopo who he found to be in the middle of an intimate affair with a gray haired rat at which point he decided to give him his privacy.

Dantes clenched his jaw and tightened his fist. He’d gotten some information and started to realize the tools he’d need for his revenge, but it wasn’t enough. He’d already decided that his first target would be Gaspard. He hadn’t developed any new connections, and so Dantes had nothing to systematically take from him. He also may be the most willing to flip on the other former members of the gang considering their place in the world in comparison to his own. The only problem was finding him.

…

The sun was high in the sky when Decker arrived with a grim expression on his face. The rest of Dantes’ day of bouncing and watching the girls had been an easygoing affair with him only needing to remove one more patron for trying to deal in glamored coin, an old trick that he shouldn’t have tried on either Dantes or Zilly who also felt the enchantment on them immediately and simply snapped one of them in two revealing them to be wooden coins. The academy student who’d tried to use them was more embarrassed than aggressive when he was kicked out.

“I can take over Ed,” said Decker. “Thanks for watching things.”

Dantes shook his head looking him up and down. “No, you seem to need a minute. Have a drink at the bar first. I can cover for a bit longer.” Jacopo was still making his way back and he wanted to travel with him once he arrived back.

Decker gave a grateful nod, and went over to Zilly where he gave a very detailed wine order and Zilly gave him shit for it. Once he was done he came back to Dantes with a much less miserable expression on his face.

“Thank you,” he said with a polite nod.

“No worries. I just didn’t want you to scare off any customers. Yer Dad okay?”

He shook his head. “Not particularly, but that’s a problem for tomorrow.”

Dantes nodded, and made his way out of the Vixen and back out onto the street. He had a few goals in mind before night hit. He wanted to hit the actual docks and see what ships were in the harbor. Zak had told him that Mondego had made peace with the smugglers and he wanted a clearer picture of what that meant. He also wanted to pay a visit to the guard office that Pacha worked at to see if he had any records of what he’d determined about Mondego’s operation. He stretched his neck, and arms, then flexed his fingers. It was going to be a long night. He felt a small temptation to simply turn around and return to the Vixen as a patron rather than an employee, but squashed that, and moved to an alley where he met Jacopo and let him crawl into his coat, taking his customary place in a large pocket in the back.

Dantes followed the smell of saltwater as he made his way to the docks themselves. The buildings gradually turned from luxury goods and bars, to more practical stores, to factories and warehouses, dry docks tethered to the sea by a system of canals, and finally to the docks themselves. Each layer was rougher than the last as the streets grew crowded less by merchants and workers and more by dockhands and sailors. He saw a man having his throat slit in a dark alley, an open brawl between ship crews from opposing nations in the middle of a busy street being broken up by guards and a group of nearly thirty men singing a bawdy sea shanty as they hauled heavy freight up and onto a platform so that it could be lifted by crane.

When the ships themselves came into view, he didn’t even truly see them. Gazing instead at the vast open ocean beyond the edges of the city. It had been more than five years since he’d seen that sight. He savored it for a few moments before looking at the hodgepodge of ships at the dock. He saw the usual glut of small fishing ships manned by locals, and a few of the Galleons manned by the guard. The rest of the dozens of vessels in view were from Drashus, Tymond, Visalia, and Frasheid. He shook his head, that was a fucking disaster waiting to happen, but that was how it always was at Rendhold. It was one of the only places that stayed neutral and would allow trade from any other nation. Even if those countries were all in active conflict with one another.

He remembered sharing a meal with a sailor from Visalia once. She had been very impressed by the idea of eating rice, tomatoes, corn, and dodo in the same meal. Impressed enough to spend a bit of her shoreleave with him anyway. He took those things for granted as a Rendhold native. He’d had access to the most varied mixture of goods of anyone possibly on the entire mortal plane.

He began making his way closer to the docks when he felt Jacopo’s presence in his mind.

“You’re being followed.”