Blood Oath (Ruby Rose/Ares fan fic)

Three

"Hello dear." Winston kisses my hand like the gentleman he's before turning to face the assassin and sitting on the chair in front of her, leaving his briefcase on the floor. "Ares, it's nice to see you again. I guess that our Nerd has informed you of the circumstances of this case and why we're here, so you have decided wisely to let her live since killing her would piss me off. I think it's time to take the cuffs off."

"It's Nira, no Nerd. How often do I have to tell you?" I grumble angrily while I pour him a glass of the wine he likes to drink every time he comes to my house. Then, I get close to Ares cautiously, avoiding looking at her eyes, and I enter the six-digit code that opens her handcuffs. Once free, she rubs her wrists while she shoots me one of her frozen looks, watching my movements when I bring back her gun from the table near the door along with a bottle of water: the sedative makes your tongue feel gritty and she'll need it. For a moment I thought that she was ready to shoot me despite all, but she holsters her gun and drinks slowly even if I still can feel the rage vibrating under her skin. I sit down on my chair facing my computer system, looking at the screens, checking my defensive perimeters and reading some of the urgent news headlines in order to know what has happened in the world while I was talking to a professional killer.

"Well, since you already know what our friend Nira does for a living and how important her work is for The Company I'll talk you about the little problem we're facing now." Winston takes a sip of wine and sighs before speaking again. "It was my idea to employ her and I've never regretted my choice, you have no idea how much she's helped, the vast amount of information she's gathered and how many of her decisions have contributed to... stabilize The Company. In the past, when anyone could kill anyone at the slightest provocation, the consequences were catastrophic: gang wars, mass murder, civilians killed as a collateral damage, ruined business, police and judges chasing after us no matter how many attempts to bribe them... it was a mess. Having a person with a global vision has benefited us all but unfortunately not everybody feels the same way. Some members of the High Table think that leaving these kinds of decisions in the hands of one person means... give her too mucho power."

My boss looks at me squinting while I hold my pets in my arms to prevent them from jumping on his lap: he hates cat fur on his designer suits.

"To be honest Nira has never taken advantage of her position, nor has she manipulated information for her benefit. She does a really nice job, and that's why she's still alive, but obviously some people feel offended because a 25-year-old girl controls behind the scenes the course of the economy and the power of the greatest criminal organizations. Let's just say that the biggest mafias like the Russians, the Japanese and the Americans, we're in favour of keeping Nira in her post of arbitrator to resolve the issues between gangs. On the other hand, smaller organizations like the Irish, the Mexicans and even the Chinese, tend to see her as an obstacle to their development. Irish have been losing power in favour of other mafias for a while now and they want to recover it, of course; Mexicans only care about selling more and more drugs without thinking of the consequences and Chinese want to gain a foothold everywhere in order to unseat us all from our position as leaders of the High Table. We had the support of the Italians too but, unfortunately, D'Antonio family is now more concerned with their struggle to keep their hegemonic position that has been weakened due to the siblings death; they need to find a new leader soon and also are obsessed with hunting down John Wick. Nira is the least of their worries right now."

The reference to John makes Ares get tensed again, it's obvious that she wants to get her hands on him before the Italians if possible. She's going to have a hard time trying to find him since he's eluded them all so far. I know where he's hidden of course but I've no intention of telling that to anyone: I like the guy, it takes a lot of balls to try to leave the Company and he almost succeeded. The Italians can try to find him on their own, I'm not helping them.