“I guess.”
Shay snorted. “It’s either that or I kill him. Understand?” She inserted an extra edge into her voice. “This is a loose end we need to tie up, one way or another, and I can’t continue looking the other way.”
“I’ll start tracking down all the necessary account information,” Peyton murmured. “I’ll set it all up for a single script. A decapitation strike.”
“Good. We don’t need to do this right away. If anything, we want to take him off-guard. Observe and report. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Shay took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I know this shit is hard, but it’s also necessary. Not for me, but for you.”
“I know. Talk to you later.” Peyton hung up.
I should have fucking killed Randy for real right after I fake-killed Peyton.
Shay shrugged. She felt no pity for a man who brought on trouble himself.
The tomb raider returned to her dark web searches, once again more interested in the future than the past.
A few minutes later, her eyes widened at an entry on a hitman forum.
“Son of a bitch.” Shay groaned and stood. She had someone she needed to talk to, but first, a quick trip to Warehouse Five was in order.
Shay marched up the street in the middle of the night with her hands in her pockets. She hoped that when she ran into her targets, they’d be reasonable. The whole point of this little trip was intelligence-gathering, not ass-kicking, even if that would be fun.
I could have killed all you assholes the last time we tangled.
Someone shouted something in Cantonese from an alley, and several men laughed.
Shay sighed and turned the corner to confront a half-dozen men from the 25K Triad. They stood around smoking foul-smelling cigarettes.
She recognized each from the previous encounter, and more than a few still bore bruises from that last meeting.
The man she’d tagged as their leader pushed off from the wall. She’d later identified him as Johnny Lee.
“Oh, fuck,” Johnny uttered. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “This is bullshit. Total bullshit.”
The men exchanged nervous glances. A few swallowed and slowly inched their hands toward their guns.
Shay gave them a thin smile. “Let me make one thing really fucking clear. I didn’t kill any of you last time because I was trying to keep the peace, but if any of you go for a gun, I will end you right here. Also keep in mind, last time I managed all that shit without even using my gun, so do you really want to see what I can do in a shoot-out?”
Johnny lifted his arm to stop his men. “Okay, fine. What the fuck is this about?”
“I need some info from you.”
He laughed. “Are you for real?”
The other men just stared at her like she’d lost her mind.
Shay nodded. “Oh, I’m real. A real nightmare if you piss me off, but I’m also fair.”
Johnny narrowed his eyes. “Fair?”
“You guys are businessmen, right? Criminal businessmen, but still businessmen, and a businessman should never do something for free. I’m not here to ask for a favor. I’m here to pay for a service.”
The gangster stood up straighter and adjusted his jacket. “Yeah, that’s true. We were only after that one bitch because she stole from us, but you paid us back. We can appreciate that.”
“I’m gonna reach into my pocket and pull something out. Don’t do anything stupid, and keep in mind if I’d wanted to gun your asses down, I would have already done it.”
Johnny nodded to Shay, then his men.
The tomb raider pulled out a small music box. “This is a minor artifact. Can play any song you think of. Just hold it and think. I figure it’s a fair trade. You give me info, and I give you the artifact.”
“Why us?”
“Because little suspicious birdies have told me you are in contact with the Phoenix Gang.”
Johnny tensed. “Yeah, we know them. Not saying we’re friends or enemies. Just that we know them.”
Shay tossed the music box toward the gangster, and he snatched it out of the air. He stared at it for a moment, and a few seconds later it chimed out what sounded like a sad attempt at a hip-hop melody sans bass line. The gangster’s face brightened.
Johnny looked up from the music box as it continued its melodic hip-hop demonstration. “What do you need from the Phoenix Gang?”
“I haven’t heard of them before in LA, and they’re interested in James Brownstone. That makes me interested in them.”
All the men winced, and Johnny looked down. “I don’t know if we want to get involved in this shit, not if it involves Brownstone. We don’t need him thinking we’re with the Phoenix Gang and grinding us into dust like he did the Harriken.”
Shay snorted. “If you don’t want him thinking that, you should help me. From what I hear, these Phoenix assholes put a hit out on him, and I want to know where they came from.”
Johnny took a deep breath and slowly let it out. The music box ground to a halt.
“They’re not new,” the gangster muttered.
“Huh? I haven’t heard of them before.”
He looked up. “They aren’t new. I’m not lying. The Phoenix Gang? They’re guys from different LA gangs that Brownstone wasted in the past, but they’ll take anyone as long as they go through an initiation and swear they’ll help with the death of James Brownstone. The leader used to be in the Harriken. Low-level asshole. He wasn’t in town when the Granite Ghost finished them off. Some are from street gangs, a few Harriken, a couple of friends of bounties. Shit like that.”
Shay blinked. “So this whole gang is just some big-ass Brownstone Hate Club?”
“Yeah.” Johnny shrugged. “Look, those fuckers came to us and wanted us to bring in 25K guns and men to help them with Brownstone. We told them to fuck off, that we wanted shit to do with poking Brownstone. Everyone with half a brain knows what happens to fuckers who
