The Mouse and The Monarch

29

She just told the woman to make friends with Soap and get him to whack the LT over the head when he was being a dick.

Much like she used to.

For the first time, she missed them.

The Los Vaqueros and the 141.

She'd written and deleted a few messages to John.

She didn't want him to know what she was doing, he would be so furious with her.

The 141 and KorTac didn't have a great relationship.

Yeah, KorTac paid way better but the 141 did things to help people because they wanted to help people.

She wondered what that said about her.

Two weeks passed with Ophelia sleeping on the couch, each night a silent protest against the void that had enveloped her.

She fucking hated silence.

Apparently, three weeks was how long it took Callisto and Zeus to prep for their next mission.

In some ways, it was good for Ophelia. The wound on her side had healed and she could return to the field.

On the other hand, she was bored out of her mind and had taken to running laps every morning at five am just to pass the time.

Sitting in the intel room she looked down at the diagram in front of her.

Dimitri Kozlov's club loomed like a fortress, its classy façade concealing the illicit activities that fuelled the underbelly of the city.

He was the mob boss to go to in Russia if you needed something done.

His father had been running it all before him but mysteriously vanished a year before Dimitri took over.

All assets had fallen to Dimitri.

And by the look of his club.

He was doing very well for himself.

Callisto stood before a large screen displaying a blueprint of the club's interior.

Her black hair pooled behind her as she drew points on the map.

The hum of whispered conversations and the soft glow of the overhead lights made Ophelia's head swim as she leaned back in her chair.

Zeus's fingers danced across a keyboard, navigating through a virtual landscape of blueprints and security protocols.

The image of the club's interior materialized on the screen, a snapshot of the labyrinthine layout that awaited them.

The pulsating beats of music and the dim lights suggested a world of revelry, but underneath it all there were snakes.

Ophelia let her fingers dance with practised ease around the hilt of the knife in her hand.

The one she slept with, the one that kept her safe.

And the one she wanted to ditch at the hooded man in the corner.

The metallic glint of the blade caught the ambient light in the dimly lit room, casting fleeting shadows on her face.

The weight of the weapon felt reassuring, a tangible extension of her mind as she flicked it through her fingers.

Her gaze alternated between the weapon in her hand and the image on the screen, where the activities of the strip club played out.

Of course, it was a strip club.

What mob boss didn't own one.

She was just tired of the cliché.

Why couldn't there be any bakery-owning mob bosses?