Chapter 9: THE COLLECTOR
The mahjong parlor didn't have a sign.
Just a red door in an alley off Mott Street, guarded by a teenager who couldn't have been older than sixteen. He looked me up and down, seemed to decide I wasn't worth bothering about, and jerked his thumb toward the stairs.
I climbed.
The second floor was thick with cigarette smoke and the clatter of tiles. Twelve tables, maybe fifty players, and a bar in the corner selling drinks that came in unmarked bottles. The clientele was mostly older men—the kind with weathered hands and eyes that had seen things they'd never talk about.
Tommy Zhao was at a corner table, losing badly.
I recognized the dragon tattoo first. It curled up from his collar like a serpent trying to escape, the colors faded from age and cheap ink. The rest of him was exactly what the photo had promised: young, thin, nervous. The kind of person who looked like prey even in a room full of predators.
I ordered a drink I didn't plan to finish and found a spot where I could watch without being obvious.
Two hours passed. Tommy's stack of chips dwindled. His hands started shaking around the fifth losing round. By the eighth, he was borrowing from the house with the desperate energy of a man who knew he was drowning but couldn't stop reaching for one more breath.
The parlor started emptying around midnight. Tommy was the last to leave, stumbling out with his head down and his pockets empty.
I followed.
The streets of Chinatown after midnight were a different world. Quieter. Darker. The tourist crowds had vanished, leaving only the people who belonged here—and the people who didn't want to be seen.
Tommy walked like he knew someone might be watching. He took two wrong turns that led nowhere, doubled back through an alley, crossed the same street twice. Amateur countersurveillance. Good instincts, bad execution.
I stayed with him.
He ended up in a dead end between a closed restaurant and a building with boarded windows. Trash piled against the walls. A single streetlight flickered overhead, casting everything in stuttering orange.
Tommy turned as I entered the alley. His eyes went wide.
"Who—who the fuck are you?"
"Mr. Chen sends his regards." I kept my hands visible. Non-threatening. For now. "You owe money, Tommy. Time to pay up."
His face crumbled. Not into anger—into despair. The expression of a man who'd already given up.
"I don't have it. I don't—my sister needed surgery. The money was supposed to be for something else but she was dying and I couldn't just—"
He dropped to his knees. Actual tears streaming down his face.
"Please. I'll get it. I just need more time. A week. Maybe two. I can—"
Motion in my peripheral vision.
I spun as two figures emerged from the shadows at the alley's entrance. Big. Chinese. Moving with the confidence of men who broke bones professionally.
"Ah." The one on the left smiled. Gold teeth. Scarred knuckles. "Mr. Chen sent another one. He's getting creative."
The other one cracked his neck.
"We were told the Zhao debt was ours to collect. Seems there's been a misunderstanding."
"Triad. These are Triad enforcers. And they're not here for Tommy."
The realization hit like ice water.
This wasn't a collection job. This was a test. Chen had sent me into someone else's territory—deliberately—to see what would happen. To see if I could handle complications.
The enforcers drew weapons. Knives. Long, curved, designed for close work.
Tommy was still on his knees, frozen. Too scared to run. Too stupid to realize he wasn't the target anymore.
I had maybe three seconds before they closed the distance.
The Glock cleared my waistband smooth and fast. Muscle memory. Combat reflexes. The same instincts that had kept me alive in war zones halfway around the world.
First shot took Gold Teeth in the chest. Center mass. He staggered, looked surprised, started to fall.
Second shot caught his partner in the throat. A wet sound. A spray of arterial blood. He dropped like a marionette with cut strings.
I pivoted back to Gold Teeth. He was still alive, crawling toward his knife, leaving a trail of red across the concrete.
Third shot ended it.
The alley went quiet. Just my breathing, harsh and fast, and Tommy's whimpering somewhere behind me.
I turned. The kid was still on his knees, hands over his head, shaking so hard his teeth chattered.
"Go."
He looked up. Eyes wild. Not comprehending.
"What?"
"Run. Now. Before I change my mind."
He ran. Stumbling, tripping, not looking back. Within seconds he'd vanished around the corner, footsteps fading into the night.
I stood in the alley with two corpses and the copper tang of blood thick in my throat.
[SIDE CONTRACT MODIFIED. OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE HOSTILE CONTACTS. STATUS: COMPLETE. REWARD: 50 BLOOD COINS.]
The System's voice was satisfied. Approving. Like a teacher pleased with a student's progress.
"Chen set me up. He wanted these men dead. The Zhao debt was just bait."
I should have been angry. I should have felt used, manipulated, turned into a tool for someone else's agenda.
Instead, I felt nothing. Just the cold clarity of survival mode. The same emotional shutdown that had carried me through firefights and ambushes and the worst days of my military career.
The enforcers had wallets. I checked both.
The first had three hundred forty dollars in cash and a photograph of a woman—pretty, young, smiling at the camera. A wife or girlfriend. Someone who would never see him again.
I left the photo. Took the cash.
The second wallet held less—eighty dollars and a business card for a massage parlor that was probably a front for something else.
$420 total. Added to my remaining cash, that put me at...
"Over four hundred. Still not enough for gold coins through legitimate channels. But maybe enough to make Chen take me seriously."
I needed proof of the kill. Evidence that the job was done.
A convenience store three blocks away sold disposable cameras. The kind tourists used before smartphones made them obsolete. I bought one with cash, walked back to the alley, and photographed both bodies.
The flash was too bright in the darkness. I half-expected someone to come running. No one did.
Chinatown kept its secrets.
I disposed of the gun's spent casings—three rounds, leaving me with seven—and walked away from the carnage like it was just another errand on a long list.
The brand on my arm pulsed once. Warm. Almost pleased.
[BLOOD COINS: 125. TIER 1 PROGRESSION: 25%.]
One twenty-five. Closer to whatever threshold unlocked the next tier. Closer to abilities that might keep me alive long enough to understand what was happening to me.
The walk back to Chen's shop took twenty minutes. The streets were empty. The city was asleep, unaware that three men had died in the last hour—one in Red Hook, two in Chinatown. All by my hand.
"You're becoming something," I thought as the shop's grimy windows came into view. "Something you wouldn't have recognized a week ago."
The door still stuck. I shoved it open.
Chen was waiting behind the counter, tea already poured, expression unchanged.
"Mr. Radcliff." He didn't seem surprised to see me alive. "You have something for me?"
I dropped the disposable camera on the counter.
"Your competitors. Both of them."
Chen picked up the camera. Examined it without opening it.
"And Mr. Zhao?"
"Ran. I let him."
A pause. Long enough that I wondered if I'd failed some part of the test.
Then Chen smiled. Actually smiled—a thin expression that didn't reach his eyes but was unmistakably genuine.
"Good. You understand." He reached under the counter and produced two gold coins. They caught the light like frozen sunshine. "Mr. Zhao was never the point. He's been working off his debt for months—providing information, running messages. The men you killed were trying to poach him."
I stared at the coins. At Chen. At the entire twisted logic of what had just happened.
"You used me to settle a territorial dispute."
"I used you to prove you're worth investing in." Chen slid the coins across the counter. "Those men would have killed you if they could. Instead, you killed them. That tells me something."
"It tells you I'm dangerous. Which is exactly what you wanted to know."
I picked up the coins. Heavy. Cold. Worth more than their weight in any metal.
"And if I'd failed?"
Chen shrugged.
"Then I'd have found someone else." He poured himself more tea. "Welcome to the business, Mr. Radcliff. Try not to die."
I pocketed the coins and walked out into the night.
Two gold coins. Enough for Continental access. Enough to start building something in this world of killers and kings.
Behind me, the tea grew cold in its cup.
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