Chapter Text
Shaw stares at the coffin that has been lowered into the hole in the ground, the rain glistening on the shiny surface. She picked a polished walnut wood casket, not sure if that’s even something her wife would’ve liked. They never talked about the ‘death do us part’ section of their vows in any serious way—hilarious, considering Shaw’s previous profession that she'd left behind.
Still, she thinks that Sam would’ve liked it.
Shaw stands under her open black umbrella, the rain falling down harder than before and she barely notices the other guests leaving for their cars. She spends a moment longer here, lingers at the grave of her wife who just left for some small groceries and never made it back due to some drunk fucker running a red light—it seems a small mercy that both died immediately. Shaw had barely listened to the brief report some medic gave her about the fire both cars caught.
Facts don’t change the outcome.
It’s truly lucky for the driver he died as well.
Shaw takes a deep breath. Fixes the coffin one last time with her stare. Feels nothing other than the cold seeping into her bones from the fresh fall weather and the icy breeze pushing the pouring rain sideways. Her slacks are beginning to soak up the rainwater.
Their dog, Bear, is dutifully keeping her company and only tugs at his leash when he shakes off some of the rainwater that has fallen on his fur. He appears more demure than he usually is. She wonders if dogs can feel sadness too or if Bear feels what she feels—just an uncomfortable emptiness that is vaguely painful if she thinks too long about it.
She still ponders on it when they both are on their way to her dark gray 1969 Ford Mustang BOSS 429. They cross the street and are almost there when someone stops in front of her.
“Cole,” Shaw says, blinking in surprise. She hadn’t seen him among the other guests, but of course, Cole is better than that. And truth to be told, Shaw had not scanned her surroundings as careful as her old self would have, but seeing as this had been her wife’s funeral she hadn’t expected to see someone from her old life to pay a visit.
For five years she had been allowed to live in peace as she had requested and seeing someone familiar on the day of her wife’s funeral feels . . . eerily like some bad omen. Shaw tries to dismiss this notion as soon as it enters her mind.
“My condolences,” Cole says and it sounds genuine and heartfelt. Cole had always been the compassionate type, a rare thing to encounter in that world. “Can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now,” he adds, looking down at his shoes for a moment. He notices Bear and gives the Belgian Malinois a little, sad smile.
I feel nothing, Shaw almost says. “Thanks,” she says out loud instead. “You still on active duty?” she goes on, aware that there are still some people around, even if they’re too far away to listen in. Better safe than sorry—and so talking in code it is.
“Had to take a break for a bit, a mission fucked up my lower back real bad,” Cole plays along, giving her a chagrined smile. “When I heard. . .well, I wanted to make sure you’re alright, is all.”
“I’m fine.”
“Must be hard to lose the person that made you leave this . . . life behind,” Cole slowly notes, tilting his head a little.
Shaw shrugs, feeling the telltale prickle of discomfort on her neck. She is a very private person and that people know about her reason for leaving this life behind is bad enough—Cole alluding to the fact that her retirement has now lost its purpose is almost insulting. Almost. “It was an accident,” she says, feeling tired of these words. She’s said them often these past few days while organizing this funeral and getting Sam’s things in order.
“Was it worth it?”
Shaw doesn’t have to think long about it. “Yeah.”
She remembers her wife’s smile the day they brought Bear home. She remembers how they met at one of the hotels Shaw had been send to keep tabs on a target, how a room mix-up has lead to Shaw at first being very annoyed with the brunette who couldn’t wink to save her life, but eventually warmed up enough to go as far as to drop out of her old life entirely.
She can’t even say why.
Just that Samantha Groves had allowed her to experience something that she imagines people mean when their partner makes them feel ‘at home’—to lose that is . . . rough.
Cole nods a few times, unaware of the growing turmoil in Shaw’s head. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. It was nice seeing you again, Shaw.”
Shaw simply nods, watching him leave with a slight limp. She wonders if his injury means that he’s now only taking sniper contracts. She has no doubt that this is Cole’s way of working around his work accident.
Ignoring how heavy her chest feels she opens the door for Bear before she climbs into her car herself and drives away without looking back at her wife’s grave on more time.
*
At their home, she talks to the guests, eats a little, drinks some and stares a lot out of their wide windows. Most guests here are Sam’s friends, only brief acquaintances to Shaw who spent most of her days working in the city, teaching self-defense classes and going back home right after. It gave her a good outlet for her skills and forced her to stay fit, but it had been a somewhat isolating way of life—by design. Shaw had been very careful not to run into old contacts and acquaintances.
It’s one of the reasons why she was so adamant to leave the city behind and buy a modern big house somewhere more remote. Not that it had been hard to convince Sam of that idea.
Shaw’s lips twitch when she remembers their chaotic move to that house, with boxes everywhere. She’d never seen herself to be the domestic type, and she still really isn’t, but experiencing something else than the fast-lived, tense atmosphere of her old life feels all the more precious now that it is gone.
At least Bear is still here, reminding her of it, allowing her to still feel close to the only person that truly meant something to her. She looks down and finds him seated next to her, also gazing out into the growing darkness outside. “Good boy,” she whispers to him, not sure why.
Bear looks up at her and seems to smile.
She smiles back.
*
After saying goodbye to the guests, Shaw flops down on the couch with another glass of scotch neat and watches Bear jump up on the couch, a bunny slipper in his mouth. A gift from Sam, identical to the silly bunny slippers she insisted on wearing.
Shaw finishes the drink in one gulp, looking away from the slipper between Bear’s sharp white teeth.
She takes a shower and goes to bed.
*
She can’t sleep and it’s not because of the rain. Her bed feels too big for just one person and one dog.
*
The next morning.
“Shit,” she curses, realizing that she’s out of dog kibble. With all the stress of organizing the funeral and the wake, Shaw’s forgotten to check on Bear’s food and that’s why he’s now eating cereals with her. He doesn’t seem to mind. She puts his food on her grocery list, cancels via email another week of classes with the excuse of needing a break. Her boss is way more understanding than he should be and Shaw puts the phone away before the urge to start shit grows too strong.
After her modest breakfast and a cup of black coffee she takes Bear into her Mustang and drives to the closest grocery store in that small town that is closest to her home. On her way back, she stops at a gas station. With sun glasses on she gets out, and walks around the car to fill up the gas tank again. Bear is watching her through his open window on the passenger side, blinking against the sun with his tongue out. She might throw some ball in the garden to power him out, and to get her mind away from trying to find out whether that drunk fucker made it or not.
Another car stops, a 2014 BMW M5 in black. Plain compared to her car, but the Russian rap song is enough to make Shaw more aware of her surroundings. At first, nothing happens. She finishes filling up her gas tank, uses her credit card to pay and is almost back on her side of her Mustang when a young lanky man whistles in her direction and approaches her.
“Nice car,” he says with a grin. “Is it a 1970 Ford Mustang BOSS 429?” He’s wearing the hood of his hoodie, but she can tell that he has very short hair, military style cut and the almost vanished lilt in his diction that betrays his Russian roots. He doesn’t seem very familiar, but the accent—barely there as it is—could be a strong hint as to why this guy rubs her the wrong way. That, and he is bothering her for now good reason.
“No,” Shaw says slowly, old instincts kicking in. She could use the hose attached to the nozzle and wrap it around his neck before he could yell for help to his two friends that she’s keenly aware of. They are refueling the BMW, but both men are watching their friend interact with her, music still playing loud in the background.
“Hmm, could’ve sworn it was a 1970. A 1969, then,” he corrects himself, obviously not deterred by Shaw’s reaction. He seems eager to flex his knowledge about cars. “How much would you want for this beautiful car? Money is not an issue,” he says, giving her winning smile that he probably assumes to be charming.
Instead, he comes across as an arrogant dickhead who doesn’t get a hint. “It’s not for sale,” Shaw tells him, no longer trying to hide how little time she has for some idiot trying to pry this car from her.
His mood shifts a little. “Oh, come on. Don’t be like that, I mean I would treat her very well,” he says and looks at the Mustang but . . . Shaw can tell the double-meaning here. Not only is he almost half her age if she had to guess, she’s clearly not into immature asshats bothering women about their cars at a fucking gas station.
“Your friends are waiting,” Shaw says with a nod towards the two at the BMW, still looking towards her car. It’s her last attempt to solve it peacefully. His friends waiting for him seem to be on the lookout for . . . something. But whatever it is, the dude that has chatted her up doesn’t give it to them. Instead, he finally drops his act and his smile, fixes her with one last petulant glare, before he walks away, all the while cursing in Russian under his breath. He is not aware that Shaw understands him perfectly well and she could let him know that—but why should she waste her time on someone like him?
Shaw leaves the gas station behind and soon forgets the encounter on her way home.
*
Sadly, the three idiots did not forget her and decide to pay her a visit that night. It’s telling how much she has slipped into this domestic comfort zone when these amateurs manage to not only break-in without her noticing in time, but they also manage to best her in her own fucking home.
Bear tries to protect her—
And fails.
*
When Shaw wakes up, she’s in pain. Her head hurts, her ribs hurt and more than anything, her heart hurts. It’s not helping to wake up and with a motionless Bear lying right in front of her on the hard wooden floor. She closes her eyes and for a moment she can’t think. For a moment, the world stops.
Then, she takes a few deep breaths, rolls onto her back and slowly starts to get up. “Fuck,” she whispers, seeing double for a bit. These three fuckers did a number on her. Her right side hurts, she’s got a horizontal cut on the back of her nose and a scrape on her right temple. Both stopped bleeding hours ago, dry blood caked on cheek and chin. She feels bruised and battered and hates it. She hates how looking at Bear feels like being stabbed.
She blinks against the burning in her eyes and all she can think about is how her last remaining connection to Sam has been taken from her—just a few days after her death.
Because that fucker and his two friends, the same ones she met at the gas station decided to break into her house, rough her up and kill her dog to make a fucking point, or to—
Her head snaps up.
No.
And then she is on the move, hobbling towards her garage. With trembling hands she unlocks the door and finds only Sam’s bike in there—her car had been totaled in the crash. And her own parking spot, right next to Sam’s spot should be her Ford Mustang.
There are only dark tire tracks on the concrete floor.
Shaw curses with a hiss.
With blaring nostrils she opens her garage door and inspects the tracks outside. The three fuckers had left in a hurry, no doubt feeling proud of their actions.
It’s clear that they have no idea who she is.
No one steals Sameen Shaw’s car and kills her dog and lives long to boast about it.
She’s left this life for her now dead wife.
There is nothing keeping her from dipping briefly back in, just long enough to deal with these clowns. She returns back inside, closes her garage and starts planning.
First, she needs to clean-up her house and give Bear his last resting place. His favorite spot was underneath the oak tree in her garden. Next, she’ll have to take a shower, get dressed and call a cab. There’s only one mechanic in NYC that might know where these cunts took her fucking car. And last but not least, she’ll have to open up her weapon stash that she’d covered in the basement with some solid concrete. Maybe not right away, but at some point it’ll be inevitable. Her past had fit neatly into a heavy, compact box and she had not expected to ever open it again, and not this soon.
But Sam is dead, so is Bear, and really what else is there to do other than to hunt down the cunts that took the last two remaining things she loved more than her own life?
Shaw gets to work.
*
Meanwhile, the three men that stole Shaw’s car arrive at Dominic Besson’s car shop. Mikhael “Laskey” Lesnichy and his friends, Raf and Titus, are hollering about something, making Dominic stop stirring his coffee. He watches them get out of the familiar 1969 Ford Mustang BOSS 429, still laughing about something that Dominic doesn’t care to find out.
“Dom, my man. Look at this beauty!” Laskey calls and gently touches the roof of the car. “Just got it, what do you think? I need some papers and plates for her.” He grins, as if his request for this particular car is not one of his poorer ideas. Judging him by his own actions, no one would be able to tell who his father is—a pity.
Dominic slowly puts his steaming mug of coffee down and flexes his shoulder muscles. His men stop what they’re doing to see what is going, the tension in his shop growing by the minute.
Carl Elias’ illegitimate son has just brought Sameen Shaw’s car into the shop and expects praise, demands papers that would make this stolen car his. But, Dominic knows his place, knows the penalty for disrespecting Carl Elias’ offspring, so he starts to play along. He stops in front of Laskey, a head taller than the boy and nods towards the car. “Where did you get it?” he asks, calm and collected.
“Stole it from some uptight rich bitch,” Laskey says with a laugh and his two idiot friends join him, spitting out some Russian vulgarities. “You should’ve seen her house. And her garage is big enough to house several cars. I mean she had a freaking Yamaha YZF-R6 in there!”
“So you just took the car?” Dominic asks, growing more and more nervous but manages to hide it.
“Don’t forget her fucking dog!” Laskey’s taller friend Raf, calls, and all three start to laugh again. “He got Titus’ arm but he didn’t stand a chance,” Raf guffaws, sharing a high-five with Laskey. Titus looks less happy about it and Dominic just now notices how his arm is in a makeshift sling underneath his leather jacket, the empty sleeve hanging down at the side.
Dominic feels proud of his calm demeanor. “You killed her dog?” he asks, still pretending not to know what is going on. His voice sounds even friendly, but he can tell that his men around him—still not working on the several cars standing in the shop—are waiting for the inevitable point of no return. Maybe some of them are starting to put things together as well. There’s honestly only one woman who owns such a car in the area.
“Yeah, we killed her stupid dog just to let her know what a cunt she was. I mean, I asked her to sell the car but she said no, to me, Carl Elias’ son,” Laskey boasts, lifting his arms and receiving cheers from his two mates. “You got a problem with that, Besson? You suddenly a representative from fucking PETA?”
Dominic has to get them out his shop. He clears his throat, waits for Laskey to shut up. Then, “I can’t give you papers for this car,” he finally says, crossing his arms. He knows that he is now showing off with his muscles, but this boy in front of him needs to understand that he may be Carl Elias’ ungrateful brat, but he can’t just steal Sameen Shaw’s car and expect to keep it.
(Or live to tell about it much longer, but that’s a different story, Dominic thinks and keeps it to himself.)
“What?” Laskey looks at him as if Dominic has lost his mind, his good mood suddenly gone. “What are you talking about? You’re working for my old man, he owns this shop and y’all work for him!” The arrogance in his voice matches the expression in his pale eyes.
Dominic has heard enough. “What did you just say?”
“You can’t just refuse my demands, I’m—”
Dominic doesn’t let him finish.
“What the fuck!” Laskey yells, holding his bleeding nose. His friends look both surprised and worried at the same time. Maybe it’s because Dominic knows that at the end of the day the men working for him in this shop are going to pick him first, before they start to worry about Carl Elias’ influence in the city.
And it seems that Laskey starts to understand that as well.
Dominic adjusts his shirt and works some tension out of his neck. “Get out of my shop, boy.”
“My father will hear of this, asshole!”
“Good,” Dominic says and watches with some brittle sense of accomplishment how the boys climb into Sameen Shaw’s car and back out of his shop with screaming tires. One of his men has the foresight to immediately close the main garage door and Dominic simply makes a circling hand motion. “Back to work,” he tells them, takes his mug and decides to go to his little office room with the large window to ponder on what to do next.
Finally, he decides to dial a number he hasn’t used in five fucking years.
*
Shaw takes the cab to Dominic’s shop when it’s already dark and rainy again. She slips into the main garage building and nods at the guy who’s letting her in, noticing with some satisfaction that her name still carries some weight, even after five years of retirement.
Dominic is in his office, two glasses of whisky in front of him. He smiles a tense little smile when she approaches him. “Shaw,” he says, lifting one glass towards her.
She takes it. “Dominic.”
“I’m sorry about your loss,” he says next, taking his own glass in his hands.
Shaw wonders how everyone has heard of that—it’s as if her retirement has truly perished with her wife in that burning pile of cars. She simply nods and drinks to that.
“Well then,” he says and follows her example. After a moment of easy silence between them, they both sit down and Dominic starts to play with a ballpoint pen, swinging it back and forth between his index and middle finger, from time to time even drumming on the surface of his desk. “Heard your car got stolen,” he says slowly, watching her reaction.
She smiles. “They were here, huh?”
“Punched the kid right in his stupid face,” Dominic admits freely, a smile tugging at his full lips. “They were here some two hours ago.” Before he can add anything else, the black rotary phone starts to ring.
Shaw lifts a brow and watches how Dominic takes the call.
“My son told me an interesting story today,” Carl Elias calm voice drifted towards her, ever the smooth talker even in his anger. Skipping the greeting etiquette is a warning sign on its own. “His voice was a little nasal, probably because you decided to punch him. Are you out of your mind? Have you forgotten your place in my ecosystem?”
“No, Sir. But he stole a car,” Dominic replies, looking straight at Shaw. “And killed a dog.”
Ah, so the fucker boasted with that too. Shaw clenches her right hand into a fist under the table.
“So? Isn’t every other car in your fucking car shop stolen? Are you a cop all of the sudden? And what the fuck should I care about some dead puppy?”
“Sir, I couldn’t care less that he stole a car, but . . . it’s who he stole it from you should be worried about,” Dominic says in the most polite tone she’s ever heard him use. Shaw can’t help but lean back while she witnesses the show.
“I’m all ears, dear Dominic,” Elias says on the other end, and he has that peculiar talent of sounding ever so kind, when in reality he’s probably instructing his men already to torch Dominic’s place. It’s probably the reason why Dominic is so fucking polite in the first place; he knows that his life and work are in danger.
“He stole Sameen Shaw’s car and killed her dog, just a few days after her wife’s death,” Dominic says and waits.
The clock in his office tick-tocks louder than before.
For several seconds, nothing comes from the other end. And then: “. . . oh.” The call is disconnected right after.
Dominic puts the handset back down and looks at Shaw. “I guess you should go back home. He will try to call you.”
“You don’t happen to have a car lying around, do you?”
Dominic smiles and gets up. “Some poor fellow can’t pay his debt to me, so I suppose I am now the rightful owner of his car. A 1970 Chevelle SS in dark green, how does that sound?”
Shaw smiles. “You know me so well,” she says and catches the car keys in one fluid motion. “Thanks, Dominic.”
“You’re very welcome, Shaw. And . . .” He stops there and looks conflicted for a bit, before he shrugs and goes on. “I’m not presuming to question you, you know that, but—Sameen, if you go after that brat and his friends, you will be back for good. Your retirement, poof. Gone.” He makes an explosion motion with his hand and looks Shaw straight in the eyes when he says it. He says it as if her retirement is still in place and just on the brink of collapsing.
Shaw smiles at him. “I know,” she admits in a low voice, and turns around to walk out of his office.
Oh, she knows that she’s being dragged back into the world she vowed to leave behind for good.
But she has a task to complete and for some reason she can’t find it in herself to feel bad about what she’s planning to do.
*
Shaw had not opened up her stash before she left her empty house to go to Dominic’s. But now, with a new car in possession—not as fun as her actual car, but it will do—and the knowledge that Elias has been warned, she has not much time. She knows that Elias will try to solve this mess before resorting to more drastic means and sending his goons after her. After all, if there is one person who should know what she’s capable of it’s Carl Elias himself.
She is busy breaking the concrete floor in her basement when her black rotary phone starts to ring. Her forehead is sweaty and her ribs hurt from the physical exertion, even her shoulder muscles burn from swinging the heavy sledgehammer several times until the ground has finally cracked. She puts the hammer down, reaches for the towel she brought and walks to the still ringing phone. Her gaze falls to the framed picture of her and Sam, a picture taken on their last vacation together.
Sam had no idea what kind of life Shaw had left for her. She’d never told her what things she’s hiding down here in this basement room. Officially she has used it as her workout room, but the rotary phone and the heavy box lying under the broken fragments of her concrete floor tell the full story.
Shaw picks up the phone and waits.
“Sameen Shaw,” Carl Elias smiles into his phone, voice friendly as ever, as if he had called an old friend to ask how they’ve been. “I didn’t think I would ever have to dial this phone number again,” he goes on, clearly striving for an amiable tone. “I’ve heard that my son has . . . caused some unpleasant trouble,” he continues, as if his fucking son had trampled some non-existent flowers in her garden.
Shaw has trouble not slamming the phone receiver back into its handle. She could, but she wants to know what else he is going to say.
“I’m certain we can come to an agreement like civilized people. After all, we’ve known each other for so long, and I did support your wish to retire, if you remember, quite avidly. I’m sure, you can forgive a young, inexperienced man like my son the mistake he—”
Shaw can’t take it anymore. She hangs up, wipes her hands and gets back to collecting her past from the box she’d just unearthed. Not even a Carl Elias can stop her now.
They killed her fucking dog and stole her car.
What did he expect to happen? That he can throw some money at the problem and make it disappear? That one call to her will make her anger disappear? That she will nod and agree like all the brownnosers around him?
It’s almost funny.
Shaw retrieves her gun collection, takes out all the gold coins she has kept after her retirement (the real currency in her old world) and leaves the mess behind.
*
On the other end of the abruptly ended phone call, Carl Elias is putting his own phone receiver down and rubs his forehead, before he takes his glasses off and starts cleaning them. He can feel a headache growing behind his left temple, and the tension in his shoulders has climbed up to his neck. Ever since the call to Dominic he has not spend a calm minute.
Yelling at his son felt good for a brief second or two, slapping him repeatedly for every attempt to interrupt him has eased some of his growing restlessness, but in the end his boy simply still doesn’t understand what he has done. To Mikhael they’re all overreacting because of a stolen car—
And a killed dog.
Elias sighs.
“Did she say anything, boss?” his right-hand man and most loyal supporter, Anthony Marconi, better known as Scarface to most, asks. Dressed in his usual dark suit, he appears to be more calm than Elias.
“No,” Elias admits with another deep sigh. “Gather some men and have them tie this up. I don’t want this to become a bigger problem than it already is.”
“Boss, you know that—”
“What else am I supposed to do? Slap a ribbon on my idiot son’s head and personally drop him off at Sameen Shaw’s house? Maybe bring a loaded gun she can use to kill him, as well?” He didn’t mean to raise his voice but now he feels like some yelling might do him some good. He takes another deep breath and finds his countenance again. “Anthony, she will go after him and she has to be stopped.”
Anthony, to his credit, doesn’t flinch when faced with his superior’s anger. It’s one of his best qualities, to remain calm even when Elias himself is losing his temper. Which happens rarely—but this is a rare occasion. Baba Yaga has awoken and is after his son. “I will make sure to pick the best,” Anthony promises with a bow and then leaves him alone with his uneasy anger.
He won’t call it panic.
But deep down, he knows better.
Sameen Shaw is one of the best players in this game and she is very, very angry.
Elias fixes himself a drink.
*
Shaw lies in her bed, wide awake and waits. She’s in her PJs, just in case someone has been watching her through the big windows of her house. She knows that Elias will mobilize some men and send them over. Most likely he’ll do it at night, hoping that she falls asleep in her bed and poses an easy target.
Elias should know fucking better.
But his options are limited and his son’s situation is quite dire—he has to know that Shaw won’t simply sleep on it and feel better in the morning. He must know that the moment his son broke into her house, killed Bear and took off with her car he made it personal.
And she can’t let something like that slide.
It doesn’t take long until she can hears someone messing with her lock on her door. They must’ve taken out her alarm system first, and judging by the footsteps there’s around one dozen men creeping in and around her house.
Twelve against one.
Shaw smiles.
Elias could’ve at least made this challenging.
“Amateur,” Shaw whispers to herself in the dark and gets up.
Clad in nothing but her dark gray jogging pants and a plain black t-shirt she leaves her bedroom with bare feet and sneaks through her own empty hallway. She has a gun tucked into the waistband of her pants, loaded and ready to be used. It doesn’t take long for her to run into the first pair of buffoons looking for her. For a split second she can feel the adrenaline high of returning to her old job. Disarming the first idiot with two clever hits and using his gun to shoot his partner in the chest and head, before shooting him in quick succession in the same manner happens in just a few seconds. She’s aware that the noise will draw the others to her current location, but she’s not feeling anything but the thrill of doing what she’s best at: taking out people in quick, precise ways.
It feels good to be back.
She finishes the rest of the team off in a similar fashion, painting her walls with dark red splotches and breaking her glass dinner table by throwing one of the goons over her shoulder and letting him crash through the glass, using the split-second of confusion to shoot the other two with well-aimed shots. Then, after calmly reloading, she finishes off the last remaining guy using one of her bookshelves as cover. The others found their death in a less brazen fashion, but it had been enough to kill them quickly.
Shaw breathes heavily and is about to turn towards her basement when her door bell rings.
She keeps her gun in her hand and walks up to her door.
“Shaw,” officer Lionel Fusco greets her. He’s in his uniform and is holding his hat in his hands.
“Lionel,” she greets back, only half-heartedly positioning herself in his field of view to hide the body right in the center of her hallway.
Fusco sees it anyway. “There’s been some noise complaints from your neighbors,” he informs her, craning his neck a little more. “Didn’t know you were workin’ again.”
“I’m not.” Not really, this is a personal thing, after all. “Time for some spring cleaning,” she tells him, trying to tell him that this is a temporary break in her retirement, one that she wouldn’t have taken if it weren’t for the assholes who killed her dog and took her car.
“Well then,” Fusco says and hums politely. “I’ll leave you to it. Night, Shaw.”
“Night, Lionel.” Shaw closes the door and blows out some air.
She has a call to make.
Back in her basement, she reaches for her black phone. “Hi, this is Sameen Shaw. Yeah, you heard that right. I want to make a dinner reservation for twelve people.” Then she hangs up.
And waits.
*
Leon Tao and his crew arrive some twenty minutes later. “Good to see you, Shaw,” Leon says, smiling nervously at her before nodding to his men to get to it. They’re busy for over two hours with wrapping up the corpses, carrying them into their van, wiping floors and walls as best as they can, and removing bullets from her walls, furniture and wooden floorboards.
Shaw hands him a few gold coins at the end of a job well done and nods at him. “Thanks.”
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Leon Tao says, reverently stacking the coins from one hand into the other, before putting them away. “Until next time.”
Shaw mock-salutes him and returns into her house, closing the door after her.
Elias has made his first move and now it’s time to make hers.
*
First, she packs some clothes, her old work clothes, and all the equipment she might need. Once she’s done loading it into her car, she drives to the Manhattan Continental hotel, the only place where she will be able to make some plans in peace and come up with a strategy. She knows enough to track down Elias’ dumb son and friends, but she has to be smart about it. She wants to get it done right. That rules out the possibility of using a sniper rifle. She wants to be up close when she finishes them off, one by one.
She gets her things out of the 1970 Chevelle SS and hands the keys to the friendly valet that offered her his help the moment she stepped out of her car. Then, she walks into the building and notes that not only does the façade look differently, the inside seems to have gone through a make-over as well. It looks more luxurious than before. The hotel lobby is quite full, but thankfully the guest at the reception is done and leaves when Shaw draws closer.
John Reese is busy typing something into his computer and lifts his head when Shaw places a single gold coin on the countertop made of polished mahogany wood and pushes it towards him. “One room, please.”
“Sameen Shaw,” Reese smiles, doing a poor job of hiding his pleasant surprise of seeing her back in this very hotel lobby. “Welcome back to the Continental. I wasn’t expecting your return so soon after your retirement,” he adds, clearly trying to figure out what the hell she’s doing here.
Or maybe he already knows what happened and tries to figure out if she’s willing to share or keep it to herself. He should know her better than that. “I’m on a personal matter here,” is all she tells him.
“Personal,” he repeats in his unmistakable low voice, not the least surprised. “I see. Shall I notify the Manager of your arrival?”
“Is it still the same manager? Your building seems to look . . . different from what I remember.”
“Still the same, yes,” Reese confirms. “Just invested into some cosmetic renovations, to go with the times.”
Shaw misses the old-timey flair but keeps it to herself. “Tell him I’ll find him once I brought my stuff into my room.”
Reese’s eyes twinkle with amusement. “I’m sure you will. Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Good.” Reese hands her a key card and gives her his usual thin, almost ironic smile that has some hint of genuine joy behind it. “Enjoy your stay at the Continental, Miss Shaw,” he says in his overly formal tone, mirth coloring his words.
Shaw simply nods at him and makes her way to the elevators. Once in her room, she stores her bags underneath the bench at the foot of her bed, washes her face, and gets dressed into her old work clothes: a bullet proof dark suit, custom made to fit her body form perfectly and to provide her with the optimal defense against most projectiles. She’s not about to prowl through the city just yet so she leaves her bulletproof vest and her weapons in her bag. There is a very strict no-violence-policy on the hotel grounds in place and she still has her bare hands should the need arise—which she doubts. The Manager has a very firm and strict no-bullshit policy on that front—those who break these rules don’t tend to live very long.
Shaw makes her way down to the basement, following the muffled sound of deep bass and electro music. The underground bar of the hotel hasn’t changed much. Green neon light panels at the bar, a comfy atmosphere and the same room structure greet her once she makes her way through the room. She nods at some familiar faces, Claire Mahoney’s among them, and finally reaches the almost empty table at the far end of the club.
Harold Finch is sitting alone at the table, busy reading the newspaper. When he hears her approach, he lifts his gaze and smiles at her—with some reservation in it. “Miss Shaw,” he greets her, motioning for her to sit down. “I was surprised to hear from Mister Reese that you are back in my humble little establishment.”
Shaw wouldn’t call the former library building a ‘humble little establishment’, not with the added levels on top of it, but she keeps that to herself. Instead, she picks up the cocktail menu from the table and studies it briefly. It’s still the same after all these years. Some things don’t change around here. “Should we pretend you don’t know why I’m here or do we skip that part?” she asks, not looking away from the menu.
“Straight to the point as always,” Finch notes with some light amusement in his voice. “If I may, I’d recommend the 40 years old Highland Park single malt, neat.”
Shaw puts the menu down and simply nods.
Finch only has to look towards the bartender and then he directs his thoughtful gaze back in her direction. “Elias has put out a contract for you. With an exorbitant amount of money attached to it for someone allegedly in retirement,” he goes on, folding his newspaper.
Shaw crosses her arms. “Allegedly?”
“Well, you are here, are you not?” Finch points out, pushing his glasses back. “Word has it it’s because of a dead dog and a stolen car.”
“My dead dog and my stolen car.”
“I never said it wasn’t justified,” Finch amends. “Elias is already working against you as we speak. I do hope you did more than just getting your skeletons out of your basement closet and drive back into your past.”
Shaw doesn’t even want to know how he knows about her basement hiding spot. Finch has this way of . . . knowing things. “I know what I’m doing.”
“So you are fully aware that by stepping into this very hotel, or even by spending your very first gold coins since five years, you are back from your retirement?”
“Temporarily. Don’t get used to my presence here.”
“I would never presume such a thing, Miss Shaw,” Finch tells her earnestly, folding his hands over the newspaper. A waitress appears at their table and places Shaw’s drink in front of her. “However, I must once again remind you that some might consider your retirement fully . . . cancelled.”
“They are welcome to tell it to my face,” Shaw smiles and takes a sip from the excellent whiskey.
Finch smiles back. “Welcome back, Miss Shaw.”
She empties her glass in reply and gets up. Then, she looks back at him. “Is Zoe Morgan still in town?”
“Where else would she be? You might want to talk to Reese about it, he will know where to find her.” It sounds like a joke that Shaw isn’t able to get.
She shrugs and is on her way back upstairs to the lobby.
*
When she mentions Zoe Morgan’s name to Reese, she sees the brief flicker of something in his eyes and it is enough to betray him. When the words “we are giving that relationship thing a go” leave his mouth, Shaw stares at him with a blank expression, not sure how to react to these news. Now, Finch’s words make way more sense. It is kind of the most hilarious thing Shaw’s heard all day since re-entering her old world.
“How did you do that?” she asks, barely able to contain her chuckles. “Wait, don’t tell me, it’s funnier that way.”
Reese gives her a deadpan look. “I liked you better quiet and brooding,” he tells her, pretending to be busy typing something. “Can I actually help you with something or was that all? I have an actual job to do,” he reminds her and pretends to be clicking on something.
“You look halfway there to be bored into a coma, Reese. Don’t you miss being more hands-on?”
“A desk job can be rewarding.”
“For the desk maybe.”
“You have a funny way of trying to get a favor out of me, Shaw.”
“Just tell me where Zoe is and I’ll be out of your hair,” she says, chancing a quick glance at his short, graying her.
He notices it and frowns. “As it happens, she’s staying in one of the penthouse suits,” Reese tells her.
Shaw wiggles her eyebrows. “So that’s why she’s dating you. Hotel discount.”
“Please, I have important work to do.” Reese picks up the not-ringing phone and pretends to take a call.
Shaw is still laughing inside the elevator, on her way to Zoe’s room.
Well, room is actually a too small word. It’s one of the few hotel apartments that are offered for very few, very influential guests. Zoe, while not a killer for hire, has some powerful ties to both the people under the table and above the table, that has her secured the treatment fit for a queen in her own right. She can end lives with just one phone call, and has done so in the past. She’s been also a huge help to Shaw in getting out of this world.
And now she’s back, knocking at Zoe’s door.
“Who’s there?” Zoe Morgan asks.
“Room service,” Shaw says and waits for the door to open.
Zoe looks at her, blinks, and shakes her head. “I could’ve sworn I worked for weeks on end to get you out of this place,” she notes, a small smile sneaking onto her lips. “Yet here you are only five years later.”
“A personal matter,” Shaw says before Zoe can actually ask.
“Widowhood not becoming you?” Zoe asks instead and steps aside, holding her room door wide open for her.
Shaw enters the suit and waits for Zoe to close the door and follow her into the spacious living room. “Let’s drop the act and tell me where Elias is keeping his dirt,” she says, looking around the room, vaguely impressed with how expensive everything is in here.
Zoe laughs darkly. “What, you just come in and waltz right back into your old life as if we didn’t move heaven and hell to get you away from all of this?”
“Elias’ good-for-nothing brat killed my dog and stole my car,” Shaw reminds her with a pointed look.
Zoe looks a little ashamed at that. “I’m sorry, you’re right,” she agrees and sits down on the dark green samite designer couch that probably costs as much as one month worth of rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. “Elias’ dirt, you say? I thought you want to go after his son.”
“I am,” Shaw says, sitting down in the armchair complimentary to the couch. Also samite. “But you know as well as I do that he put a contract out for me.”
“Just this morning, yes. $2 million, if I am not mistaken.”
Shaw almost asks when Zoe has been wrong about anything in recent times. “Who took it?”
“I’m not sure if I should tell you.”
“We can politely talk in circles or you could just tell me now.”
Zoe grins at her. “I missed this. Very well. An old friend of yours took it. And I know your list of friends is very short, I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Shaw’s smile drops. “Cole,” she guesses.
Zoe nods. “Cole.”
Shaw doesn’t get angry, it’s part of this world. A contract is put out, someone takes that contract. Cole has as much a right to take that contract as anyone else. It’s actually good that someone fairly familiar took it—Shaw has a better chance of anticipating what could happen next, if Cole is even working against her in earnest. He might’ve taken the contract just to block it from others, less biased killers for hire.
Shaw clears her throat. “I need that address,” she repeats and takes three gold coins out to place them on the glass couch table in front of Zoe.
Zoe stares at the coins and then looks at Shaw again. “You aren’t even going to ask if I am willing to give that information?”
Shaw shrugs.
Zoe takes the coins and stands up. “Let me write it down for you.”
“That was easy.”
“His growing pile of dirt is posing a serious threat to my business model. The sooner it is torched, the better for me and my clients. He’s invaded my turf and I don’t take that likely.” Zoe returns from her desk with a folded piece of paper. “Here it is.”
“Thank you,” Shaw tells her, meaning it. She takes the paper and leaves the room.
Step one is complete.
*
Later, back in her room, Shaw memorizes the address Zoe has written down on that piece of paper and rips it apart into tiny fragments before collecting them all and flushing them down the toilet. While violence is prohibited on hotel grounds, breaking and entering doesn’t strictly fall under that rule and the last thing Shaw needs is Elias finding out that she knows where he keeps his secret stash of dirt and riches.
She remains in the bathroom after she’s done watching the swirling water and stares at her own reflection. She looks tired and when she touches the wound on her nose she squirms. It’s still tender.
She could try to figure out where Elias’ boy is right now, where he and his friends kill their time, but she decides that it works in her favor to keep them on their toes for a little while longer. No doubt has Elias mobilized most of his men to protect his son and keep him safe from harm’s way, no matter how foolish that notion is.
Eventually, Shaw will find him.
And finish it, once and for all.
*
She lies down and tries to fall asleep. She has a lot on her plate tomorrow, what with scouting the address she’s been given by Zoe and trying to hunt down Huey, Dewey, and Louie, but for some reason her mind keeps returning to the fact that Cole took a contract on her.
She can’t blame him. It’s a lot of cash for someone who might be considered no longer fit for this line of work. Hell, he’s probably sitting on some rooftop right now with his sniper and watching her.
And yet, she’s still breathing.
Her shoulders relax.
She closes her eyes.
And is almost asleep when a sniper shot misses her by mere centimeters.
A warning shot.
Shaw is out of her bed and cowering behind it, reaching for her gun with a steady hand. No violence in this hotel is like the rule. And whoever just broke into her room doesn’t give a fuck.
With a brief moment to consider her options, Shaw decides to confront the intruder and once she’s out of her hiding spot she’s face to face with young Claire Mahoney, the rising youngster in their branch.
Shaw feels almost insulted that Elias would pay another contract, this time closed and off table to see her finished off.
And out of all people, he picked someone still green behind their ears.
Mahoney attacks her from the front, using her quicker reflexes due to her younger age to dive underneath Shaw’s grabbing arms and hit her head first against her chest, pushing her back with the force of impact. One arm sneaks around her gun hand, making it impossible for her to fire the shot that would decide this fight. Instead, she wrestles her around, trying to get some leverage against her, maybe pin her somewhere to finish her off.
They stumble through the room, Shaw still at a slight disadvantage, only dressed in her PJs and her weapon useless while Mahoney manages to keep her hand holding it immobilized most of the time.
“You are supposed to be the killer and yet, I find you here in your pajamas, barely able to keep up,” Mahoney chortles, followed by a scoff.
“Conducting business on hotel grounds is forbidden,” Shaw reminds her a little out of breath.
“Fuck the Manager,” Mahoney announces and gives her a fiendish smile.
Shaw headbutts her for that, uses the small pause in resistance to free herself and is about to use her gun, when someone else beats her to it, hitting Mahoney in her shoulder with the fired bullet. She hisses in pain and briefly stumbles, only to quickly exit the room, not even looking back.
Shaw would’ve assumed Cole who had used his sniper to warn her had done this, but the shot came from the wrong direction; and the gunshot had been clearly too close, fired within her room.
Someone else is in here.
Shaw slowly turns around, and a part of expects to see Reese there with his Glock 17, dressed in his usual dark suit with the white shirt, an easy smile on his lips, maybe some dry comment about how she’s getting old and sloppy or asking her if he should get the room service for her.
Instead, her very much not dead wife is standing right there in the middle of her trashed hotel room, gun still in her hand.
“Hello, sweetie.”