The morning rush at The Morning Grind was a symphony of chaos that Elena conducted with her eyes closed.
The hiss of the steam wand. The clack-clack of the portafilter hitting the knock box. The low murmur of college students complaining about midterms.
"Order for Jessica! Oat milk latte, extra foam!"
Elena placed the cup on the counter with a smile that was bright, welcoming, and completely manufactured.
"Thanks, Elena!" Jessica, a regular with purple hair and a nose ring, grabbed the cup. "You look tired today. Everything okay?"
Elena didn't falter. She wiped a smudge of cinnamon off the counter. "Just a long night. Daniel thought he heard a raccoon in the yard. Kept us up."
"Ugh, raccoons are the worst. My dad used to trap them."
"Yeah," Elena said, her voice soft. "They can be vicious if you corner them."
She turned back to the machine, her smile vanishing the second her back was to the customer.
Her phone buzzed in her apron.
She didn't check it. She didn't need to. She knew the rhythm of the café. She knew that at 10:15 AM on a Tuesday, the delivery truck from the bakery was usually pulling away.
But today, the truck hadn't come.
Instead, a black van with tinted windows had been idling in the loading zone for twenty minutes.
Elena grabbed a heavy bag of trash—mostly wet coffee grounds and empty milk cartons.
"Sarah," she called out to her assistant. "I'm going to run the trash out back. Watch the front?"
"You got it, boss!" Sarah chirped, not looking up from her phone.
Elena walked through the kitchen, past the gleaming stainless steel prep tables, past the walk-in fridge. She stopped at the heavy steel security door that led to the alley.
She took a breath.
In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.
She unlocked the door.
The air in the alley was stagnant. It smelled of wet cardboard, dumpster juice, and diesel fumes. The brick walls rose high on both sides, creating a perfect choke point. A kill box.
Elena stepped out, letting the heavy steel door click shut behind her. It locked automatically.
She walked toward the large green dumpster at the far end of the alley. She dragged the heavy trash bag, letting it scrape against the asphalt. Scritch. Scritch.
She didn't look at the black van parked at the mouth of the alley. She didn't look at the shadows near the fire escape.
She acted like prey.
Shoulders slumped. Head down. Distracted.
She reached the dumpster and heaved the bag up.
Movement. Seven o'clock. Heavy footsteps.
"Mrs. Reed?" a voice called out. Rough. Male. Confident.
Elena dropped the bag into the dumpster. She dusted her hands off slowly.
She turned around.
Three men stood between her and the exit.
They were dressed in generic workmen's clothes—carhartt jackets, heavy boots, beanie hats. But they didn't move like workmen. They stood in a triangular formation.
The man in the center—the leader—was big. Six-four, easily two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and bad decisions. He had a jagged scar running through his eyebrow.
It was the man from yesterday. The customer who ordered black coffee.
"You forgot your change yesterday," the man said, grinning. His teeth were yellow.
Elena looked at him. She didn't scream. She didn't reach for her phone. She simply cataloged the threat.
Target 1 (Leader): Heavy hitter. Right hand inside jacket. Gun.
Target 2 (Left): Skinny. Nervous. Holding a zip-tie restraint.
Target 3 (Right): The flanker. Holding a collapsible baton.
"I don't want any trouble," Elena said. Her voice pitched up, trembling slightly. The perfect terrified civilian. "Take the money in the register. The code is 1-2-3-4."
The Leader laughed. It was a wet, ugly sound. "We don't want the register, sweetheart. We want you."
He took a step forward. "The Boss wants a chat. He says queens don't retire."
Elena sighed.
The tremble in her voice vanished. The slump in her shoulders corrected itself. Her stance widened, her center of gravity dropping.
"You brought zip-ties," Elena said, her voice flat and cold. "That was optimistic."
The Leader frowned. "What?"
"If you wanted to take me alive," Elena said, "you should have brought an army."
The Leader snarled. "Grab the bit—"
Elena moved.
She didn't run away. She exploded forward.
She kicked a heavy plastic milk crate that was sitting near the dumpster. It flew through the air, spinning like a ninja star, and smashed into the face of Target 2 (The Skinny Guy).
CRACK.
He went down screaming, clutching a shattered nose.
The Leader fumbled for the gun in his jacket. Too slow.
Elena was already inside his guard. She wasn't a brawler; she was a scalpel. She drove the heel of her palm upward, striking him squarely under the chin.
His head snapped back. His teeth clacked together with a sound like a gunshot. He stumbled, his vision swimming.
Target 3 (The Flanker) swung the metal baton at her head.
Elena ducked. The baton whizzed through the space where her skull had been a microsecond before.
She grabbed his wrist mid-swing. Using his own momentum against him, she twisted his arm behind his back until the joint reached its limit.
SNAP.
Target 3 howled as his shoulder dislocated. Elena didn't stop. She kicked the back of his knee, forcing him to the ground, then slammed his face into the brick wall. He went limp.
Two down. Four seconds elapsed.
She spun around.
The Leader had recovered. He pulled a heavy handgun—a 1911—from his jacket.
"You dead b—"
He raised the gun.
Elena didn't have a weapon. She had a Bic ballpoint pen in her apron pocket.
She grabbed the wrist of his gun hand with her left hand, diverting the barrel toward the sky. BANG. The shot went wide, echoing harmlessly off the brick buildings.
With her right hand, she drove the pen into the soft tissue of his shoulder, right where the nerve cluster met the muscle.
The Leader roared and dropped the gun.
Elena swept his legs. He hit the asphalt hard, the air leaving his lungs in a wheeze.
Before he could inhale, Elena was on top of him. Her knee pressed into his throat, cutting off his air. She picked up the pen again.
She held the tip of the cheap plastic pen millimetres above his right eye.
"Who sent you?" she whispered.
The man gagged, clawing at her leg. His face was turning purple.
"The... The Broker," he choked out.
Elena's eyes narrowed. The Broker. A middleman. A coward who sold information to the highest bidder.
"How much?" Elena asked.
"Fifty..." the man gasped. "Fifty... million."
Elena froze.
Fifty million dollars.
That wasn't a hit. That was a war declaration. That was enough money to make every assassin, mercenary, and cartel soldier in the hemisphere come hunting for her.
She looked at the man. He was terrified. He wasn't a soldier; he was just a greedy thug who thought he'd found an easy payday.
"Tell the Broker something for me," Elena whispered. She leaned down, her lips brushing his ear. "Tell him the Queen is coming to collect his debt."
She shifted her weight and delivered a precise, measured strike to his temple.
His eyes rolled back. He went limp. Unconscious. Not dead.
Elena stood up. She straightened her apron. She checked her sweater for blood.
Clean.
She looked at the three men groaning on the ground.
She picked up the gun—the 1911—and ejected the magazine. She pocketed the ammo and tossed the gun into the dumpster, burying it under the coffee grounds.
She nudged the Leader with her boot. "Nap time."
She walked back to the steel security door. She punched in the code and slipped back inside.
The kitchen was bright and smelled of croissants.
"Hey Elena!" Sarah called from the front. "We're out of almond milk!"
Elena walked to the sink. She washed her hands, scrubbing until her knuckles were pink. She checked her reflection in the stainless steel fridge door.
Her hair was perfect. Her eyes were calm. The monster was back in the cage.
"Check the pantry, Sarah!" Elena called back, her voice light and cheerful. "I think there's a carton behind the oat milk!"
She walked back out to the front counter.
Jessica was still there, putting a lid on her latte.
"Did you catch the raccoons?" Jessica asked.
Elena smiled. A genuine, terrifying smile.
"I chased them off," Elena said. "I don't think they'll be coming back for a while."
She picked up a pitcher of milk and began to steam it. The hiss of the machine drowned out the distant sound of a van peeling away in the alley.
Fifty million, she thought, watching the foam rise.
She needed to go home.
She needed to check her stash.
And she needed to make sure Daniel never found out that his wife was worth more dead than the entire GDP of a small country.