CHAPTER ONE
Friday, May 6
New York City, New York
1:15 a.m.
He’d slipped inside unnoticed. Spoke to no one. Acknowledged nothing. He blended almost imperceptibly into the shadows inside the abandoned warehouse. Anticipation fed his smoldering rage like oxygen feeds embers before a wildfire.
He waited.
Black turtleneck shirt, black jeans and boots covered his white skin. Turned up collar on the black leather jacket hid his unshaven face. Black gloves enveloped his hands and wrists. A black wool beret covered his closely cropped brown hair.
The stale warehouse air had been warmed by the activities. He was too hot. Anger fueled his body heat, the hat retained it, and the wool itched like crazy.
Couldn’t be helped.
The man in black knew too many of these people. Although he had seen none of them in years, someone might notice him. The second-to-last thing he wanted was to be recognized.
The last thing he wanted was to fail.
His anticipation had built to a fever pitch over the years. Only with iron control had he managed the rage, always there under the surface. He’d have his revenge. He could feel it. Pak would pay. It would finally happen. Tonight.
He leaned against the steel support pole and peered into the dimly lit interior of the warehouse, ignoring the sweat trickling down inside his shirt.
The stale air was thick with the stench of sweaty humans, rancid smoke, and foul dogs. He drew a deep breath, inhaling it all. He’d missed the unmistakable smell. A unique blend signaling only one thing, buried deep in his reptilian brain, triggering his entire system to feel the thrill of the fight.
Snarling, howling, barking, cheers, and curses assaulted his ears, sending an electrical hum along every nerve in his body.
Fortunes were made and lost, all in a single night.
The potential for victory thrummed like a live wire in the cavernous space. The kind of victory few men throughout the world experienced even once in a lifetime.
The tension was palpable. Everyone could feel it. They craved it. Lived for it.
The man in black craved victory, too. Like a junkie craved heroin. Even after such a long period of abstinence, the embers of his desire smoldered.
He sometimes imagined that he’d lived a previous life. A time when dogfighting was the realm of fearless warriors. Perhaps he’d attended dog fights in the Roman Colosseum or fought wars alongside the Romans and the Britons. The same blood ran in his veins. He could feel it.
Something about the primitive nature of the sport appealed to him. As it did to populations everywhere he’d been in the world. The magnetic pull of the sport drew bloodthirsty souls like nothing else. It was a sinkhole into which, once experienced, a man could fall deep and never emerge.
The power to suck people in was one reason why dogfighting was illegal in all fifty US states and most countries.
Another reason the sport was illegal was its popularity. If no one had wanted to participate, there’d be no need for laws against it. After all, there were no laws against dishwashing or lawn mowing or dozens of other activities no one on the planet clamored for, right? He grinned.
Dogfighting crimes were serious felonies. If caught, prison time was unavoidable. Which was why dogfighting circuits existed as far off the grid as they could get and still be found by savages like him who disrespected such misguided laws.
In cities like this one, abandoned warehouses in decrepit areas hosted the fights for one night before the circuit moved on to the next location. Authorities were bribed to look the other way if they noticed at all.
The man in black had been heavily involved in the dogfighting world during his last stint in Asia. He loved the fierce, beautiful beasts. Gallant fighters. He’d owned dogs back then. Sold them. Presented them at fights where hundreds of thousands of dollars changed hands in a single night.
When he returned to the states, his dogfighting days had ended abruptly. It was too risky for him to attend fights now.
Tonight was the first time he’d been near the arena. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.
He had reluctantly put his passion behind him. And moved on to other activities in the interim. More lucrative. Less risk. He had no desire to live the remainder of his life in prison. The confinement alone would kill him.
But he’d monitored the organizers when he’d returned from Asia. He’d been waiting. For just this moment.
After two long years, the opportunity to kill his enemy had finally presented itself.
Tonight’s crowd was the usual mix of dog owners and handlers, drug dealers and gang-bangers, and wannabes attracted by the illegal gambling.
From experience, he knew it was safer to assume everyone in the place was armed.
He’d brought a knife and two untraceable handguns along. One was holstered on his ankle. The second rested heavily against his torso, stuffed into his belt in the small of his back. Just in case. He didn’t expect to use the guns. He wouldn’t need to.
He scanned the cavernous room. If he’d been spotted, the watcher was too skilled to reveal himself.
But Pak could have been followed here. He was under constant surveillance by his own country inside its borders and every time he left it. He would have tried to sneak away from his bodyguards, and he might have managed it. He was also watched by security services in every country he visited.
Safest to assume Pak was being watched by enemies and allies at all times.
Which made the man in black’s mission to kill him more difficult, but not impossible.
An hour after the qualifying fights began, he spied Pak across the smoky divide, close to the main fighting ring. Pak was easy to identify, even in the dim lighting amid the noisy crowd gathered around him.
The man in black’s stomach clenched and his lip curled. He flexed his fists inside the gloves. The obese North Korean was flat out disgusting. Always had been. Only his position and his power made him in any way palatable.
Ridding the world of Pak was a service to humanity, pure and simple.
Pak’s pudgy face had reddened with heat and exertion and the stress of his wagers. He pinched a smoldering cigar between the fat fingers of one hand and grasped a glass of whiskey in the other.
The last of the amber liquid splashed out as Pak waved his arms, rooting for the dog he’d wagered would win. He’d taken heavy losses tonight and his desire to win had ramped up the tension close to his breaking point.
A slender, attractive woman dressed in a sexy silk business suit, no shirt, jacket open to her navel, was glued to Pak’s side. Her name was Nina.
Tonight, Nina looked much like someone else—the love of his life the last time he’d seen her. Before Pak had kidnapped and killed her all those years ago.
Like his lover had been, Nina was way too good for Pak and everyone in the room could see that. Pak was a hideous troll. Nina was a goddess. Spectators might wonder what she wanted from him. It couldn’t be helped. Pak had a weakness for beautiful women. Nina could get close enough to him when the man in black could not.
Nina gently removed the empty whiskey glass from Pak’s hand with tapered fingers adorned with brightly polished fingernails flashing gold in the reflected light. She refilled the glass from a silver flask and placed the glass in Pak’s sweaty palm. He downed the whiskey in two gulps. She refilled the glass again.
Watching her fawning over Pak was both exciting and revolting. The man in black’s desire and revulsion flooded his body in waves, cresting and receding, like the rhythm of the sea.