GENTLEMEN!

“Where is he?” 

The accusation comes as a hiss through grit teeth, fueled with pure ire. Tardiness in this world brings a loss of profit, and for Nikita, profit means everything. Lacking patience certainly doesn’t help matters either, and while gaining a few looks from the people scattered around the near-empty bar (only the still drunk or hungover remain at this hour in the morning). Dingy and dark, her only companion - Nico - remains stoically silent as always, knowing better than to interrupt. 

Cell phones - burners, always - remain as a last resort, insurance to make sure that the job’s been done, and Ben’s never been one to delay in giving the go ahead to let them know if plans have changed. 

Visibly agitated, flicking her lighter off and on (damn these places and their no smoking inside policies), the sudden ring of her phone nearly makes Nikita spill her drink. Tossing the lighter down with a hard clink, the old flip phone is tossed open, all but thrown against her ear. 

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Disdain can be felt over the phone, so she thinks, but the voice on the other end isn’t familiar. Instead, her brows start to knit together, glancing across the table to Nico with a look that dictates both visible confusion and concern, and even anger. 

“O’Connell?” She repeats, voice lowering down to avoid attention of the few that remain within the vicinity. It sounds familiar enough that she can place exactly where this woman belongs – a gang that’s been hard to run against as an independent. A gang that all her partners know has been a steady source of inconvenience at best, and problems at worst. Clearing her throat, Nikita wets her lips. This is one good man down, out of a handful; it’s most certainly a crippling blow to her affairs. 

“Only unfortunate conclusion is you’re going to answer for this. Now.” 

Oof, little fire cracker isn’t she? All bite and bark, if her known body count was anything to go by. Nevermind. A verbal sparring match followed by a literal sparring match wasn’t what she was looking for. 

“Glad we’re on the same page with that-” Cathrine drawled with a tone that would have been all business and even dismissive if the circumstances didn’t make it agonisingly sardonic. She stood from the bed and started looking around the room, opening doors and lifting beds, (with her clean hand) since no smuggler got this antsy unless they were waiting for a shipment. Which, strangely, might count in Cathrine’s favour, if she played her cards right. 

“Why I called actually, but long and short of it is Ben and I had bad blood for a good jump back. You’re not gonna get a sorry out of me for ticking him off and if you know your business as well as I’ve heard, that won’t come as a shock. But...” She eventually managed to click the phone onto speaker and set it on the side table, searching for a rag to cover her hand before she hefted a long sofa. “- I’d hate to, hrgh, make a habit of getting in the way when no one’s getting in mine, so-” Ah, there it is, ‘it’ being a very full carrier of semi-automatic shotguns that ooze that ‘unlicensed’ look that gets organised crime so hot under the collar.

Lord preserve her but she hated mobile phones. And she wasn’t going to come around to them either! Even if it was as easy as a few button clicks to get a full list of some recent corpse’s contacts. The buttons were so damn small and the little white numbers were easily concealed by even a smudge blood. If someone tried to tell her Blackberrys were a criminal’s best friend one more time-... Oh, Nikita?

Her clean hand stilled in it’s rummaging for the ever present Hydrogen Peroxide sanitiser she kept in her bag as she gazed down at the little pixel screen in her hand. Bugger it all, the man lying dead on her hotel floor was one of that Nikita’s fixers? This Ben Adams? Ben Adams good-at-the-job, better-at-being-a-snitch Ben Adams? Ben destined-to-catch-her-knife-in-his-throat-one-of-these-days Adams? Well, fuck. 

Cathrine let out a weary sigh. She would have reached for a cigarette but that’d set off the cheap fire alarm. She supposed she should have suspected this, at least. All she’d heard of this Nikita told her he wasn’t particularly big on trust. Best kind of people to deal with a man like Ben Adams. But, given that, this little hiccup in her plan to eventually make contact with New York’s newest prize smuggler needed some quick resolution. Plans change and all that. So she hit dial, and- (ah shite blood on her ear damnit-) waited.