The hotel restaurant provided complimentary meals for guests every day.
Today, the chef was serving beef Wellington.
Guests who didn’t feel like eating in the restaurant could have a waiter deliver it to their room instead.
Of course, asking the chef to make something special meant paying in gold coins.
When Nate returned to his room, a waiter had just delivered his meal.
The chef was good, but Nate wasn’t particularly fond of the mushroom sauce in the Wellington.
He managed to finish about half before pushing the plate aside, lying back on the bed, and propping himself against the headboard to count his remaining money.
Ten gold coins.
Not exactly a fortune, but not nothing either.
It was enough to stay holed up in The Continental for a few days, provided he didn’t spend too freely.
His bulletproof suit still needed another two days.
Without that layer of protection, Nate couldn’t shake the feeling that the moment he stepped outside, someone might put a bullet in his back.
“So I’ll spend the next two days practicing with the gun.”
He adjusted the pillow behind his head.
Once he’d gotten used to it, shooting was actually pretty satisfying.
Night had already fallen outside.
Neon light leaked through the gap in the curtains, and faint music reached Nate’s ears.
Next door?
The Continental’s soundproofing was supposed to be excellent.
Whoever was playing that music must have had the volume turned up ridiculously high.
Nate stared at the ceiling and ran through his plans again.
Wait for the suit.
Take bounties.
Build up a supply of gold coins.
And then…
Then what?
He hadn’t figured that part out yet.
Going after his heartless father now would be suicide.
He needed to get stronger, earn Resource Points, and take more jobs.
But with a bounty on his head, going outside was dangerous.
A perfect vicious cycle.
Then he remembered Elena.
She was a veteran assassin.
She knew the rules, the connections, the dark web, and which people you could afford to offend and which ones you absolutely couldn’t.
Normally, approaching someone like that on his own wouldn’t be a great idea.
But right now, Nate felt like someone trying to assemble a complicated set without ever reading the instructions.
Every rule he learned came from stepping into a trap first.
That was far too expensive a way to learn.
He had nothing better to do anyway.
Might as well talk to her.
Nate took a bottle of liquor from the minibar and went next door to knock.
The door wasn’t fully closed.
His knock pushed it open.
Elena looked like she’d just returned from a job.
Her leather jacket was halfway off, revealing a black tank top and one bare shoulder.
Several spots of blood stained the jacket.
“Uh… just get back?” Nate asked.
“Couldn’t tell?” Elena rolled her eyes.
“Have you eaten?”
“Just ordered something from the hotel.”
“The steak?”
Nate hesitated.
“Do you have any vegetables? I could cook a few things.”
Trying to force a conversation would be awkward.
Talking over a meal would make things easier, and he hadn’t exactly eaten his fill either.
“You cook?” Elena’s eyes immediately brightened.
“Give me a minute. Cook in your room. My kitchen’s a mess.”
She opened the refrigerator, stuffed some vegetables and meat into a bag, and handed it to Nate.
At the last second, she added nearly half a bag of rice.
“I’m taking a shower. I’ll come over when I’m done.”
She tossed her jacket aside and disappeared into the bathroom.
Nate carried the large bag of ingredients back to his room and unloaded everything onto the kitchen counter.
Tomatoes, peppers, leafy greens.
All of it was fresh.
There were also two chicken breasts and several eggs.
Plenty for a few dishes.
He tied on an apron, rinsed the rice and started it cooking, then began chopping the vegetables.
Nate had left his door open.
From next door came the faint sound of running water, occasionally accompanied by Elena humming badly off-key.
About twenty minutes later, someone knocked.
Nate turned.
Elena stood in the doorway wearing clean pajamas.
Her hair was still damp from the shower, and her cheeks were flushed.
Without the blood-spattered jacket and the fresh-from-a-crime-scene look, she was considerably easier on the eyes.
“Smells good.”
The moment she stepped inside, she leaned toward the kitchen and sniffed the air.
“What’d you make?”
“Chicken breast with green peppers, tomato and eggs, and stir-fried vegetables.”
Nate returned to the stove, tossed the final dish a couple more times, then turned off the heat and plated it.
“Didn’t have much to work with, so that’s about it.”
“Looks good to me.”
Elena pulled out a chair without ceremony and sat down, already holding her chopsticks.
“You have no idea how sick I am of the hotel’s beef Wellington. It’s so rich I can barely eat more than a few bites.”
Nate brought the three dishes over, served two bowls of rice, and sat across from her.
“Why not ask the chef to make something else?”
He picked up some egg with his chopsticks.
“One gold coin.”
Elena rolled her eyes.
“I’m not rich enough to spend a gold coin on one meal. You think bounty hunting is easy? I crossed three districts today and took two bullets before I finished the job.”
“You got shot?”
Nate looked up.
“My bulletproof jacket stopped them. Just left bruises.”
She tugged down her collar enough to reveal a dark purple bruise near her collarbone.
“That job only paid thirty gold coins. Subtract what I spent on weapons and intelligence through the hotel, then add the cleanup fee because things got a little out of hand, and I walked away with seven.”
She pointed at herself with her chopsticks.
“And that doesn’t even include today’s room charge. Now you want me to spend another coin just to eat? No thanks.”
“Cleanup fee?”
“Yeah. You’re supposed to avoid causing mass panic. Cleaning up after a mess gets expensive.”
“What happened?”
“My target drove a car straight into a park.”
Elena paused.
“And used a fucking grenade.”
“…Okay. Yeah, that’s not exactly subtle.”
Nate took another bite before asking, “Didn’t you have a bounty on you? Why were you still out taking jobs?”
“Who do you think I killed?”
Nate paused.
“…Right.”
“The bastard who put the bounty on me happened to have one on his head too. Since I was killing him anyway, I might as well get paid for it.”
Elena raised a fist triumphantly.
“If you kill whoever issued the bounty, does the bounty get canceled?”
“Of course.”
“What happens to the money? The bounty should already be sitting in The Continental’s account, right?”
“That doesn’t get refunded.”
“Got it.”
Nate nodded and swallowed his food.
Finally, he moved on to what he’d actually come here to ask.
“Speaking of that, there’s still a lot I don’t understand about how this place works.”
He set down his chopsticks.
“The value of gold coins, the unwritten rules, things like that. Can you explain some of it? Right now I’m learning everything by stepping into traps.”
Elena chewed her food, looked at him, then picked up her glass and took a drink.
“Fine. Since you’re feeding me, I’ll give you a lesson.”
She put down her chopsticks and began counting on her fingers.
“First, gold coins.”
“Gold coins only circulate among people in our world, and they don’t have a fixed value.”
“Right now, every ten thousand dollars’ worth of completed contracts gets you one coin. Think of it as a perk. But if you run out of coins and walk up to the manager with a hundred thousand dollars asking to exchange it, he might still refuse.”
“And if you take one of those coins outside and try to spend it, almost nobody will accept it.”
“Sure, you could melt them down and sell the gold, but you’d be throwing away most of their actual value.”
“Their value comes from what The Continental can provide. Safety, services, intelligence, weapons, medical care.”
Elena shrugged.
“It’s a closed economy.”
“So the hotel can charge whatever it wants?” Nate asked.
“Exactly.”
Elena didn’t even blink.
“But you don’t have a choice. Around New York, this is the only hotel that can offer assassins a genuinely safe place to stay.”
She picked up her chopsticks again.
“That’s what a monopoly gets you.”
“Second, bounty contracts.”
Elena held up three fingers.
“There are three kinds. Unlisted, public, and private.”
“The last two are simple. Public bounties can be seen and accepted by anyone. Private bounties are assigned by the client to a specific person, and they tend to be more troublesome.”
“As for unlisted bounties, all information about them is kept confidential. The targets usually have sensitive identities, the kind where making the bounty public could trigger consequences nobody wants.”
“Those jobs are usually arranged personally by the manager. He finds assassins capable enough to handle them and invites them directly.”
“The pay is extremely good.”
“The harder the bounty, the higher the reward. Jobs below a hundred thousand are considered beginner-level and make up most of the contracts out there.”
“Once you get over a hundred thousand, things get dangerous. Plenty of veterans have died taking those jobs.”
“As for top-tier bounties, the targets are usually elite assassins or important figures in major organizations. Those start at several million dollars, and a lot of people tend to die chasing them.”
Elena shrugged.
“But they’re rare. You’d be lucky to see one every few years.”
“I have a question.”
Nate put down his bowl and raised a hand.
“Why did the two guys who came after me have bombs strapped to them? Are private bounties always that insane?”
“Pretty much. Clients who issue private bounties tend to have all kinds of weird requirements, which is why the payouts are usually higher.”
She pointed at Nate with her chopsticks.
“Even a rookie like you can be worth a hundred thousand.”
She continued, “Stay in this business long enough and you’ll eventually have clients who know you personally and specifically request you for jobs.”
“Those contracts are often a lot of trouble for not much benefit, but turning them down can be awkward.”
“They’re annoying.”
Elena took another bite.
“And like I said earlier, avoid causing widespread panic when you’re working. That’s why we usually run suppressors. The hotel’s custom suppressors paired with subsonic ammunition work extremely well.”
“Try not to kill civilians either.”
She gave Nate a meaningful look.
“That gets expensive.”
“Third, the unwritten rules.”
Her expression became noticeably more serious.
“Inside The Continental, every assassin is a guest. You don’t attack another guest.”
“Outside the hotel, they’re fair game.”
“But there’s another rule. You don’t conduct private business inside the hotel, and you absolutely do not leak the hotel’s location or client information.”
“Break any of those rules and the manager puts you on the blacklist.”
Nate looked at her.
“And blacklist means?”
“It doesn’t mean they kick you out.”
Elena’s tone remained calm.
“It means they kill you.”
“If you’re strong enough that The Continental’s security can’t take you down directly, they’ll put a bounty on you instead.”
“The amount is usually twice your established value.”
Nate’s chopsticks stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Twice my value? So eight hundred thousand?”
“Right. Twice the highest bounty anyone has ever put on you.”
Elena nodded.
“The more you’re worth, the more assassins you’ll attract.”
“Think about those top-tier assassins. Several million dollars for one person. Convert that into gold coins and you could stay at The Continental for a year.”
She spread her hands.
“Kill one person and you’re set for life. Who wouldn’t want that contract?”
They continued eating for a while.
Nate finished the rice in his bowl and was about to ask another question when the phone in his pocket vibrated.
He pulled it out.
Lily.
“One second.”
Nate stood and walked toward the window before answering.
The voice on the other end wasn’t Lily’s.
It belonged to an unfamiliar man.
His voice was deep and deliberately gentle.
“Mr. Lin. Lily and Henry are here with me.”
“I’ll send you an address. Come alone. Don’t tell the hotel.”
“If you don’t come, or you bring anyone else…”
Lily’s short scream came through the phone.
Then Henry’s rough, elderly cough.
The call disconnected.
Nate’s fingers slowly tightened around the phone.
He turned around.
Elena was watching him.
The casual expression she’d worn during dinner was gone, replaced by the alertness of a professional.
“Do assassins go after civilians?” Nate asked.
“It’s forbidden. That’s one of the reasons the police mostly stay out of our affairs.”
Elena paused.
“But you know how it works. Rules are rules. The moment someone creates one, someone else starts looking for a way to break it.”
“I’ve got something to deal with.”
Nate slipped the phone into his pocket.
His voice was remarkably calm for someone talking about his own friends being held hostage.
“I need to go out.”
Elena looked at the half-finished dishes on the table, then at Nate’s back.
She picked up her glass and took a sip.
“Want me to come?”
“No.”
Nate reached the door and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair.
“There’s still food left. Take care of it for me.”
“Come back alive.”
“I will.”
Nate didn’t look back.
He returned to his room and gathered his equipment.
He strapped the throwing knives and their forearm rig to his left arm, then concealed them beneath his clothing.
The Night Blade III and pistol went into his Loadout, hidden from sight.
He had no idea how many enemies were waiting for him.
If there were too many, what he had now wouldn’t be enough to keep him alive.
I need more equipment!