Muwah was blindsided by the events unfolding with the Redevelopment Project.

Despite Cedric Roderro’s zealous advocacy for the scheme, which aimed to remove the urban blight around Church Walk, expel criminal gangs and improve the quality of life for the residents - it seemed that the entire plan was about to be thrown out of the window.

Muwah couldn’t understand why. There had obviously been a lot of trouble brewing between the Church Street gang and the mysterious murders taking place, though he always believed it to be more gang violence in a city that was often rocked by it. Despite the stormy seas he never once backed down or indicated that he was open to changing his mind.

At least until that morning, when a letter was dispatched to all of the investors triggering the plan’s formal dissolution. Those who purchased plots in the area were now free to do with them as they pleased, and those who invested money into Cedric’s hands were now offered a full refund for the cash spent. The redevelopment plot was now dead in the water.

Muwah was befuddled by the lack of any justification being offered. He decided to brave the risks brought on by visiting the city, even after another fresh spate of violence, so that he could speak with him face-to-face. He was an elusive man, but Muwah had an inkling of where he could be found.

He wasn’t at his office at the depot, so Muwah went to the next best haunt in the smoking room at the back of a pub named the Horse and Cart. It was a popular place for businessmen like him to get away from the noise and smoke in peace. True to form, Cedric was hiding in the back corner by an open window with a cigar clenched between his fingers.

Muwah approached and silently took the other chair across the small table.

“Mister Abdah, what can I help you with?” he rasped, his eyes darting between his face and the door.

“You already know why I’m here. You’re calling off the whole project. I dropped by your office and found an empty room, with your employees packing everything into boxes. What’s going on?”

“Business is all about risks, and I’m afraid that the risk calculation with the redevelopment projects has changed rapidly over the past few days. I can no longer guarantee a safe return for investors like yourself.”

Muwah frowned, “But the preservationist group hasn’t been making any ground lately. Is it because of the violent incidents going on in the area? You said that the whole reason you wanted to buy up Church Walk was to prevent that from happening.”

“I can’t deny that it’s a factor in my decision, but I hope you’ll respect my discretion in doing this. I cannot share every event that has led me to this conclusion.”

Muwah sighed and slumped back in his seat, before pensively stroking his thick beard and staring out onto the road outside. The smoking lounge was on the first floor, offering even more privacy than the VIP area by the bar. Muwah had to pull a favour from another investor to get inside.

“Did they send you to speak with me?”

Muwah nodded, “Everyone else is too busy to make the trip at the moment. They asked me to forward their concerns about this sudden about-face.”

He pulled an envelope from his pocket and slid it onto the table for Cedric to read later. Any losses from the cancellation of the scheme were small, and most would even turn a profit from the higher demand caused by their purchasing spree, but it paled in comparison to the promises that Cedric made when pitching it to them at the beginning of the year.

“Spare me the concerned letters. Nobody is more disappointed by this outcome than I.”

Muwah stayed his tongue but a rude thought crossed his mind. It was obvious that Cedric was strongly motivated by a desire to repaint that area of the city in his own image, not just for the money it could proffer to him and the investors, but also because it would be a lasting monument to his success. Cedric would often complain about how he was less notable than his now-imprisoned brother. Even some of the early plans for the new Church Walk suggested naming key areas or buildings after him. It was a show of restraint that he didn’t ask to build a bronze statue too.

Muwah stepped over the line into dangerous territory and asked the important question.

“Is this because of something you cannot tell us? Something illegal perhaps?”

Cedric was quick to deny that allegation; “No, no, nothing of the sort. Some find our aggressive strategy boorish or insist that it should be illegal, but nothing we’ve done for the sake of the project has been illegal. I’m sure of that.”

Muwah didn’t entirely believe his claims of ignorance. If anything had caused him to change his mind about proceeding with the project, it was an issue that implicated him directly. Muwah wasn’t trying to jinx him – but he suspected that the violence was now threatening to overflow and become his problem too.

“I can’t stop you, but I am disappointed that you’ve been forced to compromise on your vision. Those opposition groups don’t understand how good it would be for the city.”

“I... will have to find another way to make that happen,” Cedric said with finality.

“But it doesn’t explain why you’re having your people empty out the office.”

“We’re reorganizing our locations. I decided to move my office to somewhere more centrally located.”

Muwah was starting to suspect that there was more to the story than he was revealing to him. Was that relocation effort also a result of the project’s cancellation? There were too many different problems piling up on top of one another.

“I suppose I will have to speak with the other investors about this, but I didn’t have time to delay and confer before making my decision. Some may feel that I’ve pulled the rug from under them, but the premise of our agreement was always that I was the one steering the investment. If they have a problem or incur any losses, we can negotiate a reimbursement.”

He snuffed out his cigar in the ashtray and cleared his throat. Muwah didn’t smoke, so it was rare that he entered a parlour such as this. He craned his head around the room and studied the furniture. The stench of stale air was overpowering. It was ironic that heavy conversations about the future of the city occurred in places like these.

“Of all of the investors I’ve worked with – I like you the most, Mister Abdah.”

He turned back, “You do?”

“It’s no exaggeration to say that I greatly admire the work of your grandfather. He changed the fabric of this coastline almost on his own. There wouldn’t be the huge dockyards and ships coming and going if not for him, there’d be no prosperity for the men and women who work there either, and he built all of that from a small amount of money and his wits.”

“Luck played a part,” Muwah replied, “And not everything he did was a success.”

“But the intelligence to place oneself in the right place at the right time, and the will to persevere even after failure, those are the talents that separate influential men from the forgotten. Your grandfather encapsulates that ideal, at least to me.”

“Do you feel you have the skill to be in the right place at the right time?” Muwah pondered. It was an aspect of the business that he didn’t often consider.

Cedric was not eager to flatter his own abilities.

“We all like to think so, but given the outcome of this particular project, it appears that I still have more to learn. I’d like to work with you again in the future, regardless. Perhaps we can tackle a smaller idea and keep our feet away from the fire.”

“Of course. You know where to find me.”

Cedric stood from his chair. He’d already been lurking in the parlour for a few hours and wanted some fresh air. Muwah rose and joined him in walking towards the door out onto the landing at the top of the stairs. It was a disappointing end to a project in which Muwah had invested both his time and energy, but that was business for you. Sometimes the plans didn’t turn out the way you expected, or the money came up short.

Or – you found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Muwah couldn’t see what was happening in front. He kept walking towards Cedric’s back even as he stopped in place and stared at a stranger who was blocking his path.

A second later the back of his skull exploded outwards.

It happened so suddenly that Muwah couldn’t react to what he was seeing. A blooming rose obstructed the terrifying reality of what had just occurred. Even though Cedric was already dead, the assassin kept shooting until his magazine was empty. His body fell away from Muwah’s path, and two of the stray bullets ripped through his abdomen.

The lancing pain he felt was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. He cried out in agony and fell to the ground. It raced through his veins like poison and caused his vision to fade at each edge. Through his struggling consciousness, he finally comprehended that Cedric had been shot dead right in front of him. His body lay in a twisted heap on the floor of the parlour, eyes gazing towards the ceiling and a hole drilled directly into his forehead.

“Help... Help!”

The gunshots were going to attract attention, but he didn’t know if he’d live for long enough to see that happen. He could feel where the bullets had hit him in the gut. His hands were covered with viscera. His mind raced, his life rewinding at a breakneck speed, all of his regrets and worries and triumphs welling up inside of him.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

At the forefront of those images were his family. His father, mother, brothers and in-laws. He was blessed to have a family that truly felt like one in the face of a myriad of conflicting motivations. Now he was on the verge of never having the chance to say goodbye.

“...Odeh. Max!”

He couldn’t move his legs. His strength was fading by the second, spilling from his open wounds and onto the wooden floor. He lay his head against it and tried to will his body from shutting down.

All he could do was lay there and wait.

----------------------------------------

The atmosphere in the hospital was suffocating.

Surrounded on all sides by the first ventures into creating a sterile medical environment, assaulted by the sounds of the ailing in their beds, and all paved over with looming architecture that was both too large for comfort and simultaneously claustrophobic in nature.

Adrian and Max had reasons to be here.

That was that. Cedric was dead – killed by one of Welt’s gunmen after trying to pack up and leave town. It was an unfortunate series of cascading events, beginning with our interrogation, followed through with a botched attempt to apprehend Welt by WISA, and finishing with a messy and sudden hit in the upstairs lounge at his favourite bar.

Everyone who knew about Welt’s involvement in the scheme was being picked off one by one. The smart ones had already gone to ground and fled the city, but I did not doubt that a few more bodies would join the pile before the end of the week.

What made it even more odious was that Muwah was caught up in the crossfire, taking two shots to the body whilst standing behind him. He was in critical condition with more surgery, both magical and rational, planned to try and fix the damage. It was a convergence of all the ‘plot threads’ I saw over the previous two weeks. If I were a smarter person I would have seen it coming and tried to act.

But when facing the weight of the world, with so many moving pieces and individual decisions being made, how could I ever hope to keep up with it? I was only one teenage girl. I couldn’t be everywhere at all times. I didn’t possess any special knowledge about when and where these events occurred. I just had a lot of magic, a lot of cash, and a lot of ammunition.

In the waiting room I sat with two despondent boys. Max was angrier than I’d ever seen him before. His face was flushed red and his forehead pulsed. He was going to give himself a headache.

“Your uncle is down there in that bloody morgue right now, and my brother is two steps away from meeting with death up here! What in the Goddess’ chuffing name were you thinking?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t do anything!”

I shook my head; “Come on. You can’t honestly be playing ignorant now. Welt has a warrant out for his arrest, and WISA must know that he’s involved in this plot with the assassins. He’s killing everyone who knew about his involvement – and that’s why Cedric got shot, and Muwah was caught in the crossfire.”

Adrian grimaced.

“I gave you one simple instruction. I told you not to go off on your own! These people are extraordinarily dangerous, and they’re more than happy to kill someone if they think it’s in their best interest!”

I was starting to get flustered too. I took a step back and sucked in a deep breath. Adrian kept his mouth shut now that the recriminations were flowing thick and fast. There was no ground for him to stand on at this point.

“You shook the half-hawk’s nest – and now we have to deal with the consequences,” I concluded grimly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Adrian contested, “The police and those assassins showed up at the same time. He was going to get found out eventually, and then he’d do the same bloody thing.”

Adrian stewed by the window for a while, running through a silent argument in his head about what had happened with Cedric.

“It was his own bloody fault. It was his fault for getting involved with people like Welt,” he said to nobody, “It was never good enough for him. He had enough money to never worry about being fed or having a place to live, but it wasn’t about that. It was all about being better than my Dad. The bloody idiot.”

The waiting room fell into a tense silence once more. I crossed my arms and sat quietly on one of the chairs. There was a lot to consider about this situation. I warned Cedric about the consequences of moving too suddenly – but that didn’t matter in the end. Welt was handing out burn notices to everyone who knew about his involvement.

It wasn’t necessarily fair to blame Adrian for it, but I wanted him to use this as a learning experience. Actions could have unintended consequences. He ignored what I said and rushed headfirst into the situation, almost getting killed in the process, and it may have expedited the execution of his uncle.

A Doctor emerged from thin air and asked for him; “Mister Roderro – I’m afraid that there may be a delay while the autopsy is conducted. Would you mind if we speak in private?”

He stood up and followed him out of the room, “Of course.”

With Adrian gone, for the time being, Max felt at ease to speak his mind.

“You know, before this, I didn’t have a horse in this race – but now it’s personal. Cedric nearly got him killed, or Goddess forbid, did get him killed.”

It was sketchy. There was a high probability that Muwah wouldn’t pull through given the extent of his injuries. They didn’t have an exact number, but Max told me that he’d taken two bullets into the stomach and laid there on the floor for some time.

“I’m not saying that you’re wrong to feel that way, but you ought to take a step back and think about what you can do in response.”

Max pinched his nose, “I know that I can’t fight like you, or don’t have contacts like you, but I can’t just sit here and let him get away with it!”

“Welt and the people he’s working with are digging their own grave. The worst thing a man like Welt can do is react like this. He used to have the benefit of being an important political figure, but now that he’s implicated in this, the police aren’t going to hesitate.”

“They’ve been utterly useless so far,” Max complained, “What’s going to change now that he’s killed a few people?”

“I understand your cynicism, but given the circumstances, it’s hard to imagine that they will take the matter lying down. Welt has decided to play a different type of game than he’s used to, and he will likely come to regret that in due course. He can’t use his influence or good manners to stay above the fray.”

“How did this happen?” he wondered.

“Welt’s cutting everyone loose.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone who knows that he is involved with those enhanced assassins. It appears that Cedric was one of those select few. Welt and his collaborators decided to ‘pay him back’ for his cooperation by killing criminals in the district, but he wasn’t happy about it, and that led to him contesting their plan.”

This conflict was about to heat up – and I still had no idea what Welt and his friends intended to do with their new private army. Was it enough to overthrow the government and restore the Van Walser’s to their original powers? I doubted that. Such a movement would require significant foundations to be in place first.

I was stumped.

“That face you’re making isn’t filling me with confidence, Maria...”

“Oh no. It is going to get worse before it gets better.”

After all – Samantha and Claude hadn’t turned up yet, and what would a good narrative climax be without all of our main characters?

----------------------------------------

Marco’s eyes strained under the harsh spotlight that was being cast onto him. A single lamp had been placed on the table in the interrogation room and pointed directly towards his face. His hands were still chained together and now looped through the back of his chair to keep him from moving.

They hadn’t given him a five-star welcome, that was for sure – though it was better than he expected given his infamous reputation. He was one of the most wanted men in the country, and now they finally had firm evidence of his misdeeds. The attempt on Welt’s life was a complete failure on all counts.

His biggest challenge was yet to come. Veronica Gladwell was the one interviewing him about what happened that day.

“Tell me exactly what you saw.”

Marco closed his eyes and tried to keep them from watering; “There was nothing unusual until we reached the Grand Rose. We’d planned the whole thing out from the start. One of us would distract the private guards out front, and then we’d bust in from every angle and catch them with their pants down.”

“What happened once we moved into the cellar?”

He grimaced, “We cleared the place out and headed to the back entrance. Some of us stayed in the bar to keep an eye on the other door. We were about to try and bust the door open when they showed up. All hell broke loose. I was the one who killed the original assassin who attacked the Church Street gang.”

“You were?” Veronica muttered, “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. He broke into my house and tried to murder me, so I defended myself.”

“Do you think that they possibly had a list of other targets in the area?”

“I keep a tight lid on who knows about what I do. They’d have to be a past client to get that information. As soon as he locked eyes with me, he dropped what he was doing and knocked on the door, then he blew it open with his magic when I refused to open it.”

“And the fight outside the bar?”

“They were just as tough as that man was. We tried to fight back, but they were durable and willing to use magic to disarm or kill us. I told everyone to scatter, and the last few who could get away did. I stayed behind to try and score a shot on Welt.”

Veronica didn’t even try to get their names. Marco was going to refuse to talk.

“How did you know that Welt was involved?” Veronica inquired, “We’d only just received a warrant for his arrest at the time.”

Marco grinned. This was what he was waiting for the whole time, a piece of information that Veronica probably didn’t know. It was rare to have a hidden card when dealing with a WISA agent.

“Maria Walston-Carter told me. No idea why – but I sent some of my men to check it out and it all lined up. She was right.”

“Mari-" She caught herself. "Walston-Carter did?” she said with scepticism on her face.

“One of the gang kids was keeping an eye on Robert’s place, and apparently they were already acquainted, so she told her and they intercepted me while I was leaving. She told me that Welt was one of the people responsible, and didn’t seem to care for one second that I was going to kill him.”

Veronica’s expression told the tale to Marco. It wasn’t a surprise that Maria was getting into trouble – but it wasn’t a happy revelation for her either. Marco put himself in Veronica’s shoes for a moment. He wouldn’t have been happy to have his daughter tangling with paid killers either.

“And did she suggest how she got that information?”

“Adrian Roderro was there. I think they made Cedric Roderro sing about his little Church Walk project. That was the place where all of the carnage was happening.”

“And now he’s dead. One of those assassins just painted the parlour room at a local pub with what was left of his skull.”

Marco was unphased, “He played with fire – and that’s what happens.”

“The men you sent to investigate Welt, did they find anything else worth sharing?”

“Nothing that you don’t have already,” Marco explained, “That he and a few friends were shipping the assassins from place to place, buying lots of drugs to keep them docile and easily coached. I’m afraid that if you want answers, you’ll have to speak with the man responsible.”

“And do you want to see him go down?”

Marco smiled, “I don’t get paid if he doesn’t.”

Veronica flattened a stray strand of her hair and frowned. Money wasn’t going to do him any good when he was behind bars for a laundry list of criminal offences, but it was his pride talking. He wanted to see the goal through even if he didn’t benefit from it.

“-And he killed some of my friends too.”

Veronica paused.

“You have friends?”

“Yes. You should know as well as I do that we’re not monsters. What shocks people the most when they learn about me and what I do is how normal I am when I’m not working a job. They can’t accept that it’s all so banal. Do you see yourself as a mindless killer?”

“No, but WISA policy says we aren’t allowed to make friends.”

“Uh-huh. Does it say that you’re permitted to have children?”

“What they don’t know can’t hurt them.”

Marco chuckled, “I would threaten you with that information - but you’re only going to break my balls for trying.”

Veronica stood from the chair and finally tilted the light away from his face. Marco breathed a sigh of relief.

“True, but this is out of my hands. I can’t offer you anything in exchange for your silence. I hope that you’ll not give the police officers trouble when they question you next.”

“I’m keeping my mouth shut,” he replied, “That’s what my lawyer told me to do.”

“Smart.”

With those parting words, Veronica stepped through the door and passed by the one-way mirror that looked into the isolation room. The observation area was empty too, and the only police officers were waiting outside of the cell by the second door. That was how discrete a WISA visit to the jail was. They weren’t permitted to eavesdrop on the content of their discussion.

“Are we good to clean the room, Miss Gladwell?”

“Yes. Keep a close eye on him. He’ll be an important witness.”

“Aye Ma’am. He’ll be under watch all day and night.”

Veronica did not take them at their word. She would have to ask.