Page 54 of Assistant to the Assassin

H rolls his eyes. “Uninvited guests.”

“But guests nonetheless, who are helping us, by the way, so the least we can do is make their stay enjoyable.”

The look he gives me is skeptical. “What are you planning?”

I reply to his skepticism with a mischievous grin. “A game.”

J’veux Pas Mourir Toute Seule

“It’s called Monopoly Empire,” I explain, holding the small box of cards up. “It’s Monopoly, but instead of stupid streets, you can own McDonald’s.”

Henry, Ian, Ambrose, and I are sitting on the floor around the coffee table, with an episode of Downton playing in the background—one of the earlier episodes so H and I don’t miss anything while we play.

I designate myself as banker and begin setting up the pieces, allowing Henry to explain the rules. He and I had this game at the office to play if we ever got bored during a late night or were stuck there for weather, which happened a few times. We are both competitive people by nature, but when you sit us down to play Monopoly Empire, we become feral. We got a noise complaint once while playing this game; we were shouting so loud that it “disturbed the work of our neighboring businesses.”

Once the rules are explained and the money is distributed, we begin to play. It quickly turns competitive, and before long, the shouting and outraged cursing begins. The bottle of rum I opened for the four of us to share didn’t help. We’ve all paced ourselves, so we don’t get drunk, but we’re all tipsy enough that chaos is bound to happen.

I win the first round, H wins the second, and Ambrose has won the last two. Poor Ian hasn’t won once, and coincidentally he’s the one being the loudest. When Ambrose gets a chance card and gets to switch one of his properties with another’s, he picks Ian, who up until this point had the lead. His mouth falls open as Ambrose trades Hasbro for Coca-Cola, and then he bangs his fist on the coffee table, shouting, “Fucking Christ!”

Ambrose smirks, dramatically adding Coca-Cola to his ever-growing tower. “It’s not personal, Beast. Just business.”

Ian glowers at him, but I see some amusement in his gaze that Ambrose returns.

Henry clasps Ian’s shoulder, giving him a look of sympathy. “For a man so skilled in strategy, you’ve always been terrible at board games.”

As I roll the dice for my turn, I ask H, “You guys used to play games like this in the Navy?”

Ian takes another swig of rum, brushing Henry’s hand off his shoulder. “Not like this. Chess, checkers, and some card games. Poker was a dangerous game to play in our team; Grant could drain you of your life savings in a single game. No one could beat him. Don’t even get me started on playing blackjack with this one.” Ian points his thumb to H, who takes the bottle from his hands and grins into the rim before taking a drink himself.

I glance at Ambrose, who is softly smiling at Ian from across the table. “Are you good at cards?”

My words pull him from the trance he was trapped in, and he gives me a shaky smile, like a kid caught stealing from his parents. “No. I’m good at chess though. My brother and I used to play it all the time growing up.”

“Are you and your brother close?” I ask, passing Ian the dice.

Ambrose shrugs, his smile faltering. “We were. Then he became an FBI agent, and I became a smuggler.”

Yikes. “I bet he doesn’t approve of your job.”

Ambrose laughs, shaking his head. “Not in the slightest.”

Ian lands on one of Henry’s properties and has to pay him four hundred dollars, which he does while grumbling every curse word I’ve ever known. As Henry takes his turn, I let my curiosity get the best of me and I ask Ambrose, “How did you get into smuggling?”

He looks at me then, and in his gaze, I see an exhaustion I know all too well: the all-consuming physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion you feel having a chronic illness. “I worked for a cyber security company that did freelance work for various corporations. One of our client companies was Elias Rose.”

Elias Rose is one of the three biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and the leading supplier of insulin in the United States. “I bet that was hard for you.”

While Elias Rose and other pharmaceutical companies have done a lot of good, they are also one of the biggest pains in the ass any disabled person has to deal with. They have infamously high prices for insulin that far exceed the cap at $35. Before I worked for Henry, I was paying a $50 co-pay every month for just my insulin alone, not including my pump supplies and my CGM. Even with insurance, I had to pay around $300 a month, and even then, sometimes my insurance would refuse to cover my supplies. It’s ridiculous.

He sighs, grabbing the dice off the game board. “It was. I had to be in meetings with the very people who made me pay a fortune every month to survive. We were hired to tighten their security because of people hacking into their system and stealing money, and I eventually discovered that the hackers were not only stealing money, but insulin as well. They would sell it for an even higher price in countries that didn’t even have access to insulin. I gave all this information to my brother, who had them all arrested…but those people scammed still didn’t have access to insulin that was affordable to them, or any supplies for that matter. Since I was already in the Elias Rose system, I got into contact with some people in their shipping department, people who helped those hackers, and offered them a new job: help me smuggle supplies and I’ll pay them double their current income. They agreed, and I started my smuggling business.”

“Did you get caught?”

He nods, placing his game piece in jail, ironically enough. “My brother found out. He told me that if I didn’t leave the country in twenty-four hours, he’d arrest me, so I fled down here. I bought a bar with the money I’d saved, and it’s been the base of operations for my smuggling ever since. I’m not just taking from Elias Rose anymore; I take from all of them, sending crates of insulin and other medical supplies along the African and South American coast. My customers don’t pay more than five dollars.”

I stare at him in awe, my admiration for the man next to me growing tenfold. “That’s truly incredible. You’ve got yourself a new client.”

Ambrose winks at me, making Henry stare daggers at the back of his head. Upon my own glare directed his way, Henry’s peeved expression fades, though he still doesn’t look happy.

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