“I have eyes on you.”

Soricel hugged the corner of the factory building and scanned the decrepit parking garage across the street, searching for signs of Boss’s sights. A point of light flashed from the fourth floor, barely there, a signal that no one else could notice.

“There are three guarding the door from the inside.”

“They are restless,” Soricel murmured, unimpressed.

“Not enough to close their windows.” She could hear the smirk. “Room’s tight. I can take one, but the other two are yours.”

Soricel pulled the fabric tied to her neck over her nose and held up four fingers for Boss to see.

“Four?” Boss sucked her teeth and stared down her scope again, focusing over the thin neck of the rifle. Two on either side of the door, one at the check desk, and…ah. Another braced against the corner. If Soricel took a brick from the wall she leaned against, she could touch him.

“Good girl,” she grinned, centering the crosshairs over the man at the desk. No doubt he had a panic button under there. He’d go down first, the others will scramble to pick up the slack. With luck, she could take out two before they realized the desk was hot.

“On three.”

Silence. She leaned into the rifle, exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled.

The shot was silent, passing through a crack in the glass, and piercing the back of the target’s neck. His head hit the pinewood. Soricel kicked through the steel doors and loosed her weapon; it curled like jewelry around the second man’s neck and took his head with it.

The third went for the desk. Boss took him with another silent shot.

She couldn’t see the fourth man through her rifle’s view. But a moment later, Soricel appeared at the window with a stoic thumbs up and blood on her face.

“Okay.” Boss let go of her last exhale. “Next room. Radu is an idiot so the key to the office is probably in that desk somewhere.”

Soricel nodded and moved her gloved hands downward.

“Don’t you dare,” Boss chided, brow low. “I just bought you those pants.”

Soricel sniffed at the window, eyes narrowed, and went to the desk to wipe her hands deliberately on the dead man’s shirt. Boss smirked. It was good to be in the field every once and a while. Time and injury had dulled her just a little, but it beat desk work and dealing with runners.

The girl quietly turned through the drawers of the desk, glancing through papers and empty shells and bottles of half-finished booze. When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she dropped to her knees and scanned the bottom of the keyboard tray. It dangled there, taped sloppily. She took it with a hint of satisfaction in her eyes.

She held her hand up towards the window to show the key to Boss.

“Next room’s gonna be a shit-show,” she sighed into her mic. “Get ready. I’m moving to the second vantage.”

Soricel flexed her fingers and replaced the silvery, serrated wire on her wrist. Blood pooled on the floor under her as the thick liquid slipped from the curves of the metal. She looked to the interior doors.

Boss slung the rifle over her shoulder, grabbed her ammo and her stand and migrated down to the third level of the parking garage. Once again, she peered through her scope and counted heads. It didn’t seem like anyone knew something was going on yet.

“Radu’s hiring team must be loose as hell,” she shrugged to herself.

“Easier for us,” Soricel murmured, preparing herself at the side of the doorjamb.

“I count six inside. Four in my sights. Watch the corners.”

No cracks in the window this time. She strengthened her grip on the nose of the rifle. Once the window broke, the whole room would know they were there.

“In case I don’t make the shots, dragule, you’ll have to take most of them yourself.”

The girl nodded, unbothered.

Boss took three breaths, focused, and pierced a suited man between the eyes.

First shot. 0.2 seconds.

She kept her breath held.

Second shot. His body held in the air for a moment as if he hadn’t been hit.

0.5 seconds. Another man began turning towards the shattered window. Third shot.

It grazed the side of his neck, sending a violent wave of blood careening from his throat. He stumbled, fell and went out with a gurgle.

One second. The fourth shot collided with the side of the building as her target dove under the window, covering himself from her sights.

“Damn it,” she bit to herself. “Three out of four isn’t bad though, huh?”

The girl didn't seem amused. Then again, she never did. She held low and fast, like a striking snake, as she ambushed the remaining gang men. A dance, over before her partners knew it had begun.

No one had gotten off a shot before the room was clear. Boss exhaled with relief. The rest of the safehouse still had no idea.

“Bad time to take a vacation, bastard,” she growled. “Office is on the left. Let’s try that key.”

Soricel disappeared into the office and emerged with a stack of papers. She returned loyally, Radu’s client list stained with red glove prints but plenty readable. Back at their base, Boss hung the list like a trophy behind her leather chair and swept scarred fingers over the names.

“I knew it,” she bit. “Drugs only. That’s what he told us.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t deal in meat.”

“Yes.”

“I warned him, didn’t I?” she pondered.

“You warn everyone,” the girl answered.

“Yeah.” She stabbed a blade through the top of the stack of paper, pinning it to the wall.

In red pen, she circled the first of the human trafficker’s names.

“Yeah, I do.”