I smiled, keeping the expression on my face even as I felt the needle slide into my flesh over and over. It took twenty stitches, forty punctures of my skin. I could feel each and every one, and it felt like forever before the last tug was done and Sophie snipped the thread. "Now lay back, I'll give you a shot of antibiotics," she said, filling a syringe and jabbing me in the uninjured shoulder.
"Thanks," I rasped, feeling the first tendrils of battle-shock drop over me. I groaned and lay back, letting Sophie elevate my left foot. "You need to get those bodies taken care of."
"After you're stabilized," she replied matter-of-factly. "You mentioned one other time that Owen Lynch likes to send cop patrols as cleanup on hits. Think he'll do it this time?"
"No," I said, trying to focus. It was hard, like I was swimming in laughing gas or something. "These two were freelancers. He'd do that for his own boys, but not these two. Also, he probably suspected there'd be some sort of setup. If that was the case, he wouldn't want to send more men to their deaths. He's smart that way, knows when to cut his losses."
Sophie nodded and went over to her little hiding place, retrieving my jacket. She brought it over and covered my body. "Then rest for now. I'll clean up the mess after it gets dark. Now I'm glad we don't have too many neighbors."
"See, I told you." I grinned and laid my head back, letting my eyes close.
I heard Sophie get up, and go over to the bodies of the two men. She spoke so softly I could barely make out what she said. "Two."
"Seventy seven," I whispered in reply, and let sleep overtake me. My last thought was just how high both counts would get before our war was over. Not a problem for me, but I just hoped that Sophie didn't let it overtake her.
Chapter 10
Mark
"Owen, this is the Snowman," I said over the burner phone Sophie had found in one of the Russians' pockets. "Your little delivery to Sophie White was not quite what I expected, but I must say it was quite a surprising welcome back to town gift. Unfortunately, your delivery men seem to have had problems, and found they needed to leave the country rather suddenly. Now, you don't have to worry about your Capital City Delivery truck, I've had that parked in the parking lot of the University Hospital. Maybe you can get Glen Green to check it out for you. It's been wiped down, by the way.
"Owen, you did a very annoying thing. Now, my current business partners are not the type to engage in petty feuds, so they'll let this one slide. They knew you and I had history before they hired me. But Owen, I'm telling you now. Sophie White, Tabby Williams, and everyone and everything associated with Marcus Smiley are all, as of now, under my protection. Unless you want my employers to take a much more vested interest in this town, I suggest you keep that in mind. Take care Owen."
I hung up the phone, pulled the battery and crunched the phone under the heel of my left boot. My right leg still hurt too much two days later. I'd been asleep most of the time, waking up just enough to be amazed as Sophie had taken care of almost everything even without me instructing her, disposing of the bodies in the bay. The floors and walls of the building she'd first scrubbed down with bleach and water before digging out the slugs and patching them with cement. Once the workers came in next week and painted, you'd never be able to tell any patches had been applied at all.
"You think he'll buy it?" Sophie asked beside me as I picked up the pieces of smashed cell phone and threw them into the bay. They disappeared under the water, and I turned to look at her. My right shoulder burned like hell, and I kept the hand tucked into the pocket of the hoodie I was wearing to try and support it somewhat.
"I'm pretty sure. Lynch and the Confederation were always worried about an outside party making a play in town. This city is too rich and too important for it to be just a two game town. The biggest worry they had was someone internal going into business with someone out of town like me. So Lynch is going to have to take time and try and verify if I really am as connected as that call makes it seem. He won't understand where I'm getting the money from, nor just how it all is working. He's a very cautious man, it's how he's gotten to where he is."
Sophie nodded. "What outside players would he be checking out?"
"The Korean gangs, the Triads, some of the operators in Italy. The Confederation has Sal Giordano from the Mafia, but his family isn't the only Mafia organization in the world. All of them have tried from time to time to make inroads here. We're going to have to watch for them too as we take Lynch and the Confederation down at the same time."