Page 73 of Fall Before Her Throne

The sooner we got this over with, the sooner we could all get home.

Cas looked around. He raised an eyebrow and scoffed at the refuse practically covering the apartment. Old takeout containers littered the kitchen countertops. Black trash bags were piled in all the corners. A rank smell hovered in the air. What should have been a paragon of modern luxury in one of New York’s richest neighborhoods had become a hovel for a sad, terrible man.

“Looks like our friend has been having a hard time since the last we spoke,” I observed while I crept through the hallway, gun drawn just in case.

“Crippling fear of confronting your darkest secrets will do that to you,” Cas said as he followed.

Together we reached the door to the bedroom, at least according to the blueprints I’d spent the last few days studying. My hand closed over the handle, and I pushed the door open.

A man slept on the bed, completely unaware of the assassins infiltrating his home. His snores filled the air.

“What a dick,” Ryuji said from beside me.

I let out a breathy laugh, staring down at the sleeping form of Sean Porter, the director of the Motor Transit Authority. He was a white man in his early forties. He normally lived in a brownstone on the Upper West Side with his family, but he spent a few nights a week at this secret apartment. His family, as far as I could tell, was blissfully unaware of how terrible a man he really was.

My nose curled with hatred. Sean Porter had been part of the trafficking operations that allowed the Albanians into New York City and beyond. They’d paid him huge amounts of money to use the resources of his department to hide in plain sight, transport victims, and conduct auctions in the abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city. He’d been at The Obsidian in Philadelphia, and he’d tried to force himself on Leona. I’d wanted to cut his throat then, but we’d let him live for one reason, and one reason alone. He’d one day be useful to us.

That day had come.

Porter snored again and rolled over. I gave an annoyed look to Obi. He set up a signal jammer to make sure Porter didn’t have any other electronics in the room, then he gestured at Porter’s prone body.

“Time to wake up, Sean.” I kicked the bedframe. It rattled and jolted Porter awake. With bleary eyes, he searched the room until he saw four heavily armed men, dressed in dark combat gear, looming over his bed. None of us wore masks.

We wanted him to recognize us.

“Y—y—you!” he whispered, finally sitting up straight. His eyes flashed with fear, and I didn’t blame him. We held enough blackmail on him to bury him under ten tons of his own depravity.

I pressed the barrel of my gun to his forehead in warning. “Yes. Did you think we wouldn’t come back for you?”

He gripped the bedsheets, terrified, while his eyes flicked back and forth between all of us.

Even in the dim light, I could see the dark circles hanging beneath his bloodshot eyes. He looked like he had lost some weight. A little bag of white powder sat open on his night table. “Are you going to kill me now?”

Slowly, I shook my head and lowered my weapon, but I kept it in my grip so he could see it.

“Then what do you want from me?”

Obi dropped a USB pin drive on the bedsheets. “Inside that drive are details of the Italian mafia organization, the Camorra. They are currently infiltrating New York City with the goal of taking over the criminal underground. You’re going to help us stop them.”

He blinked rapidly, eyes flicking back and forth between all four of us. “What? Why—why me?”

“You opened the door for the Albanians,” I said. “You can close it for the Italians.”

“I can’t control that,” he started, pushing himself straighter. “You’re asking for me to⁠—”

“Yes, we are,” Obi said. “I don’t care what is within your purview or not. You will control the flow of Italians into the city, watch their imports at the shipping ports, and make sure that they do not increase in numbers. I want you involved in customs, air traffic, oceanic transportation, politics, anything it takes. I don’t care who or what you have to do, but you will use all of your power to inhibit them and their leader, Piero Greco. If you don’t, we will first ruin your life, let you live long enough to feel the painful consequences, and then we will kill you.”

He licked his cracked lips. “I could just go to the police. You broke into my home⁠—”

“The secret home you keep hidden from your wife and kids,” I interrupted.

He flinched, but he powered on. “You’re threatening me. With my family’s money and my connections, you do not want to get on my bad side.”

Ryu snorted, playfully hitting Cas’s arm. “Cas, why don’t you tell him what we’ve got on him?”

Cas grinned. “Since we saw you last, Porter, we’ve attained your financial records, your internet history—especially your frequent visits to the trafficking website which we shut down—and the history of your physical location over the last six months. We know exactly how much money you spent with the Albanians and other trafficking organizations. We know when and where you were.”

Porter blanched.