Indebted to the Mafia King
Flirting with Death

Dante

A couple days after El's first ob-gyn appointment, I pull up in front of the same stupid diner Henry keeps insisting we meet at. He called me in the dead of the goddamn night, like I'm not busy, and insisted we meet. Finally, I was able to talk him around to doing this at the crack of fucking dawn, so at least I didn't have to leave my pregnant fiancée before she woke up. I can see him sitting at the same table as always, but I pull out my phone. Let him sweat.

A few notifications, nothing particularly exciting. I open the one from Tony and skim it, then smile. Third Russian hangout down, more bodies floating in the Hudson. I've been letting him mostly run that while I focus on getting regular operations up to snuff, and he's been crushing it. The other day, I even saw Wing smile. He's turning out to be much better at handling our "allies" than I thought he would be.

With a sigh, I pocket my phone and slide out of the car. We might be locked in mutually-assured destruction, but I'd rather not get destroyed because I woke up too early.

Inside, it could be midnight or noon, as always. The same smattering of random customers and tired waitresses stud the place, and the reek of decades of fried foods stuffs my nostrils. I join Henry in the booth.

A waitress appears before I can even open my mouth. "Coffee?"

I nod. She produces a cup that's clean but so deeply coffee-stained after years of use it looks like it's already full, then pours me a cup to match the one already sitting in front of Henry. He hasn't gotten any better at disguises, either. Today, I've gone with 'exhausted middle-class runner': T-shirt with old sweat stains at the neck, swishy plastic pants, worn running shoes. I even added one of those stupid armbands for phones. With any luck, he'll realize I'm making fun of him and snap.

"What?" I ask when the waitress moves off.

"Don't take that fucking attitude, Dante," Henry hisses. "What the fuck are you doing?"

I smile and sip my coffee. Black enough to actually start to wake me up. "Don't know what you're talking about. Where's Jace?"

"Fuck off," he says. "You know good and goddamn well what I'm talking about."

"Camila?" I ask quietly.

"The whole goddamn mess!" He gestures broadly enough I worry he's going to hit his cup. "You wanna fucking know where Jace is? Riker's."

I choke on my next sip of coffee. "What the fuck? You have to know that wasn't me."

"I know, I know." Henry shakes his head. "He stuck his dick somewhere it really didn't belong. But my SSA knows I was working with him, so now they're looking at me and the Russian boss I promised to take off the streets."

I thump my chest a few times, then wipe my mouth. Jace, arrested. That's only good news for me. Even for a dirty fed, he was a loose fucking cannon. But being looked at closer is the last thing I need. "So, what?" I ask. "You want me to un-kill Camila? That's beyond even my powers."

Henry ignores my joke. "I want you to stop dropping bodies. I don't have authorization for these raids, so I can't claim they're mine, and before long, someone's gonna fucking ask who's doing them." "Say it's infighting," I answer flippantly. "Russian-on-Russian violence."

Henry surges up from his seat and fists his hand in the neck of my T-shirt. He's fast, but he's not strong enough to drag me out of my seat like he obviously wants to. The gun he did a crap job hiding glints under his suit jacket. I keep a smile on my face.

"I don't know where you got the idea you're in charge here," I say quietly. "But I've got a good grip on your balls, and I'm happy to twist. Now let go of my shirt and sit before you find out what your name looks like on the morning news." "You're not the only one with leverage, Cattaneo." He doesn't release me.

"Let me put it this way." I smile a little wider. "I know what they do to cops in prison. And I know how many friends I've got inside. So I'm happy to share a cell with you if you're stupid enough to put hands on me again, capiche?" Henry lets go of my shirt and drops back into his seat. A few drops of coffee slosh over the side of his cup. "You're flirting with death. I'm not the only person who could take you down."

The accusation sticks tighter than it would have before El, before the heartbeat in that little office, but I sip my coffee like his words don't mean a thing to me. The waitresses don't seem to give a fuck about our little scuffle, at least. "Do you have anything other than threats?" I ask.

Henry sighs. "Fyodor's not a totally uncommon name, but I did some digging, and I was able to connect it to a guy called Raskolnikov, who dropped off the map in Russia about a month before Fyodor started moving over here." "Raskolnikov?" I blink a few times. "It's a fucking Crime and Punishment reference?"

Henry shrugs. "The last thing we needed was a psychopath with an education."

I stare into my coffee, trying to put the pieces together. They won't click. "Is that all?"

"Here's Raskolnikov's record.” Henry slides a file clearly labeled "Interpol" across the table to me. "Basically the same shit. He hits hard and fast, leaves little trace. Nasty sonofabitch."

I flip through a couple pages. A nasty sonofabitch who's been in business for damn near three decades, if Henry's right about the connection. Someone like that isn't going to topple after a few lost warehouses. He knows how to pick up the pieces.

"I wish I had an undercover." Henry thumps his fist on the table, spilling more coffee. "They all got pulled after we rescued Eleni. Burnt."

I stare at the file. A guy like this needs to be taken down from the inside. Henry, for all his stupidity and tactlessness, is right.

"Anything else?" I ask.

"What?" Henry frowns.

"You drag me out of bed at the asscrack of dawn to yell at me and give me another name that leads nowhere." I gesture to the file. "Do you have something actionable, or can I go back to sleep?"

He shakes his head disbelievingly. "Sleep if you want to, Cattaneo. I'll be awake 'til this is done."

I shoot the rest of my coffee, wincing at the burn, and toss a couple of bucks on the table before walking out. The Saints need an inside man. Someone Camila never met, someone none of the Russians would've crossed paths with. Only one name comes to mind.