The Brotherhood's glory days had been few. The years spent getting beaten into the ground had been many. History was worth a skim — no Mentor expected their successor to dwell on every humiliation their predecessors had suffered. Know the broad strokes, don't repeat the same mistakes, move on.
What mattered was the present. If the Brotherhood couldn't pull itself back from the brink, Bella was going to end up as its last Mentor.
Money and manpower. Those were the two problems sitting directly in front of her.
The Brotherhood's cash reserves were a mess. Adding everything up across currencies — a headache in itself — she landed somewhere north of a hundred million US dollars, south of two hundred. A significant portion of that had come from William's South Dakota chapter and Gavin's Osaka chapter, which had contributed fifty million dollars and 3.1 billion yen respectively.
Under normal Brotherhood structure, chapters kept their own finances. No chapter had ever been required to contribute to central funds. That kind of one-way support was unprecedented.
The headquarters' own accounts were another story entirely. The Templars had swept the central apparatus clean. After a thorough search through a dozen secret accounts, Bella found a few tens of millions — barely enough to operate without the chapters' support.
The Brotherhood's cash reserves were thin, but its real estate holdings were not. Even after the Purge, properties still under Brotherhood control — safe houses, land, shops, fishing grounds, weapons workshops — were scattered across every corner of the world. Most were nominally headquarter assets. Bella couldn't touch them yet, though. There was no way to know whether the Templars were using them as bait.
Tight, but workable financially.
Personnel was the bigger problem.
William's South Dakota chapter was the largest: thirty members.
Osaka: twelve members.
Russia: nine members.
Georgia: five members.
Quebec: three members.
Two hundred and twenty-seven across the entire world, and scattered across it so thoroughly that each location had almost no presence at all.
"Pass the order along. We start recruiting," Bella said.
She saw the hesitation in both men's faces — the once-bitten, twice-shy reflex of people who had been badly burned before.
"I know what you're worried about. But we can't afford to stay frozen. We just have to be smarter about it." She looked between them. "In clear water, the Templars can see exactly where we are. What if the water were full of sediment?"
William leaned forward. "What do you mean, Mentor?"
Bella smiled. "Let me ask you something first. Do either of you have any objection to working with killers?"
Both men blinked. Their founders had been killers. They were killers. What kind of question was that?
They shook their heads.
"Good." Bella snapped her fingers. "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to build a shadow organization beneath the Brotherhood — modeled on what the Templars have been doing for years. We'll recruit professional killers from around the world and use them as our eyes, ears, and hands. They'll handle targets for us. We can even bury high-priority kills inside a list of secondary ones to obscure our actual intentions and slow down any Templar investigation."
"If any of those hired killers prove exceptional — if they pass a thorough vetting — we bring them into the Brotherhood. Give them a genuine rank — even Elder status, if they've earned it."
"The Brotherhood itself stays in the shadows. What we provide is the infrastructure: safe houses, equipment, documentation, intelligence, and payment. A service network for professional killers."
"I'm going to call the outer organization the High Table, led by twelve Elders. The two of you take two of those seats — and I take one. Publicly, the three of us appear to be equals. That helps conceal the fact that I'm the Mentor. If someone targets leadership again, they have a one-in-twelve shot instead of a guaranteed kill. I won't pretend that doesn't increase the danger to both of you."
She laid out the framework methodically.
Neither William nor Gavin had any objection to the personal risk. They were loyal members of the Brotherhood to the core — the previous Mentor's death had gutted them, and if they could have traded places with him, they would have. The shape of the plan was sound.
"How do we actually aggregate the world's professional killers?" William asked. He wasn't objecting to the direction — the Brotherhood was walking on ice, and any move carried risk. Doing nothing was just slower death. Borrowing a shell identity and building outward made sense. He just wanted to understand the mechanics. The two organizations had been trading tactics for two thousand years. There was no shame in it.
Bella had already thought it through.
"The High Table opens hotels — a global chain. We call them Continental Hotels. On the surface, they cater to ordinary travelers. But they'll also accept professional killers as guests — who pay not with currency but with a specially minted coin. The Assassin's Coin. Want the coin? Accept our contracts."
She continued: "For the initial client base, I have some existing contacts. I'll handle those outreach conversations personally."
William and Gavin looked at each other. The plan was complete enough that they couldn't immediately find a flaw.
Bella moved to execution. "Mr. Miles — I need you in New York. That's where the first Continental goes up. Headquarters funds the construction. You run it from behind the scenes. I have someone called Hammerhead who'll be your visible partner — use his name for anything that needs a public face. I want the hotel operational as fast as possible."
She tore a page from a notepad, wrote down a phone number, and handed it to William.
New York was where she planned to eventually anchor the Brotherhood's true headquarters. Dense population, tangled competing interests — the ideal environment for operating unseen.
She had a personal ambition she kept to herself: as Queen of Assassins, she wanted to put roughly half of New York through some form of operational training. Street musicians, fish vendors, pigeon keepers — all of them cross-trained. By the time she was done, the Templars would have a problem. The Chitauri would have a problem. Everyone would have a problem.
"Understood. I'll leave for New York immediately," William said without hesitation.
Bella looked to her other side. "Mr. Banks — in addition to your regular duties, there's one more thing I need from you..."
Gavin's face fell. Regular duties. Right. She still expected him to run the candy company. Truly, no mercy.