The bus was late again. Ethan leaned against the cold glass of the shelter, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other flicking lazily across the cheap Nokia burner. His real phone was in his backpack, buried under textbooks. This one was for work. The real kind of work.
The screen lit up. ID Pawn #1.
Ethan's lips curved. 'A little bit ahead of schedule, but it's still okay.'
He slipped into the narrow alley beside the shelter, brick walls damp with morning drizzle. With practiced ease, he fished out the voice changer from his other pocket, thumbed the dial, and clipped it against his throat. By the time he answered, "Luc Moreau" was the one speaking, not Ethan Blake.
"Enfin," the filtered voice rasped in a rich French cadence. "You're awake."
There was no pleasantry on the other end. Delilah's voice came in hot and sharp, all gravel and distrust. "Luc. What the hell happened? One second I'm fighting, the next I'm waking up in some basement bed. You'd better start talking."
Ethan let the silence hang just long enough to dig under her skin. Then, smoothly, "I'm impressed, ma chère. Most wouldn't be standing after what you took. Healing in days instead of weeks… formidable indeed. I was right to invest in you. Roughhouse will remember your claws for a long while."
Delilah spat a curse. "Don't play games. Where's Bloodscream? Where's Roughhouse? And don't tell me it's all sunshine—last thing I saw was that freak's claws draining my blood."
Ethan inhaled, voice steady. "You managed to take Roughhouse down. As you remembered, Bloodscream took you down chère. Ricochet then returned the favor to Bloodscream. Both were injured, but neither was dead. I had another associate watching the scene from shadows, ready for emergencies. She pulled you clear before the tide turned. I… allowed S.H.I.E.L.D. to scoop up the scraps. They're carting away Black Tarantula's lieutenants and are locking them up for us even now. Which means Tarantula himself must slink into the dark. A victory, though perhaps not as clean as you'd like."
Silence, then the faintest sound of teeth grinding. Delilah didn't like being handled. Ethan expected that.
"Funny thing," he added, a smile twisting behind the voice modulator. "Your little disappearance has been noticed. Your old boss Rose, thinks you've turned traitor. More than two days missing? Who knows where you could have gone and what you could have told anyone? He doesn't forgive that. He's put a bounty on your head. I do believe it's currently at half a million." He laughed, low and cruel. "The underworld loves irony, doesn't it? His best killer, now prey."
For a moment there was only Delilah's breathing, ragged, angry, but… not panicked. She wasn't the panicking type. When she spoke again, her voice was knife-flat.
"So. Now I've been burned by Rose. That wasn't part of our 'plan.' Tell me again, Luc—why shouldn't I think you're the one who sold me out?"
Ethan's eyes flicked toward the street. High school kids laughing, swinging backpacks. The absurdity of it almost made him grin. Here he was, a boy with a math test at nine, calmly puppeteering an assassin's paranoia.
"You wound me, ma chère. If I wanted you gone, I would have used Roughhouse to finish it. Non non, I keep my promises. You wanted more than being someone's thug or hired gun. A crime boss in your own right, with money, men, freedom. I will still give you that. But timing…" He let his voice drop, more serious, more convincing. "…timing shifted. You fell into a coma. Rose turned quicker than expected. I adapt. That's why you want me in your corner."
Delilah exhaled, a frustrated sound. "You make it sound simple."
"Nothing is simple. But listen carefully." Ethan shifted, lowering his tone to business. "Get a pen. Write this down."
There was the faint rustle of paper. He dictated the address of the dockside warehouse—the one he had just wrangled from Robert Hughes for a fraction of its price.
"Go there," Ethan said. "For now, it is half-empty, half-forgotten. Perfect to disappear for a couple of hours. My associates will drop off food, clothes, cash. Enough to keep you until I arrange something better. A temporary safehouse, perhaps by tonight. But you must vanish from sight. No one must know where you are."
Delilah's voice was colder now, but controlled. "You're telling me to hole up in a half-finished building like a rat. That doesn't sound like the empire you promised."
"Empires are not built overnight," Ethan replied smoothly. "Rome began as a swamp. New York itself began as a Dutch trading post. Do not mistake groundwork for weakness. It is survival. And you, ma chère—you will survive."
A beat of silence stretched. Ethan knew she was turning it over, testing him, looking for cracks.
Finally, she muttered, "Fine. I'll go. But you better deliver soon, Luc. I didn't crawl back from death to end up forgotten in a warehouse."
"Bon," Ethan purred. "That fire in you is why I invest. Now go. Trust me once more, and you'll see what my foresight buys."
The line went dead. Ethan slipped the phone back into his pocket, peeled off the voice modulator, and exhaled. Speaking with a fake French accent was annoying, but he could pass as a French national trying his best to speak English.
For a moment, the alley smelled sharper—oil, damp brick, the metallic tang of garbage cans—and he let the mask slip. Rose had burned her bridge. Ethan had built the only new one in sight.
And she'd walk across it.
By the time the bus pulled up, Ethan's expression was pure teenage apathy again. Backpack slung, he boarded with the other kids, blending seamlessly back into the morning rush. No one around him would ever guess that only minutes earlier, he had steered the life of one of New York's most dangerous assassins into his own orbit.
No one, except Ethan.
And Luc Moreau.