Page 1 of Vice

1

Viper

Here’s the thing about being part of a criminal organization: There’s not as much violence and killing on the regular as movies that glorify this lifestyle would have a person to believe. My days are not filled with violence and killing, although I participate in a lot more violence and killing than most. It’s not my preference, but it’s entirely possible to be part of a criminal organization and never have to personally pick up a weapon and kill someone. Hell, to not even ever have to throw a punch.

If everyone were as trigger happy and reckless as people believed we were, there would be no mafia, crime lords, or criminal empires to speak of. No person born into this would ever make it to adulthood. The people who want to take us down wouldn’t ever have to lift a finger to do it. We would implode from the inside.

What most days are filled, what most of my days are filled with, is having a bunch of meetings topreventsituations from escalating into violence. Violence and killing is almost certainly always an option, of course. And there’s not a person involved in this life who would have many qualms about committing, ordering, or silently endorsing said violence. But outsiders would be shocked how many situations don’t actually end in violence. By how many situations generally just end with a warning. People would be shocked how many situations are diffused by people sitting down around a table, in a living room, on a beach—wherever—and deciding based on information gathered from spies and sit downs that acting on a situation is more trouble than it's generally worth.

And while I rationally know all that, it doesn’t prevent me from preferring to use my fists first and talking later. Which is precisely why Stephen Pray made me his chief enforcer in the first place.

But if I’m going to take Pray’s place one day. If I’m going to run this criminal empire even more efficiently than he does, sitting around in meetings with the hopes of avoiding a violent conflict or war is something I’m going to have to learn.

Hence why I’m sitting around a room with Pray and all his chief lieutenants in a private box at a horse race. I’m in a very unique position among them, though. In that while these are the men who make sure Pray’s business all over the world is running smoothly, I’m the only one among them that is also an assassin that gets sent out into the field to take care of things only someone with my… propensity for violent solutions can. Sure, the rest of them have their dedicated field men just like I do. But I’m the only of them who usually always has his hands covered in blood. The rest only shoot a gun when they absolutely have to or sit in the background and watch their underlings do it for them.

Most of Pray’s lieutenants are too cowardly to ever get their hands soiled with blood. They prefer to sit around tables and talk about whether or not we need to resort to violence or if a “peaceful” solution will do. And as far as any of them know, so too does Adrian Blake. At least, the Adrian Blake who is practically Pray’s successor. Because that’s who I am today. Not Viper, Pray’s enforcer.

Really, though, I am bored out of my mind.

Bored, mostly, with all the back and forth and talking in circles and the unfortunate politics that comes with this business. The horse racing just makes it all worse because I can’t even focus on that when the talking gets too dull. It’s not adrenaline inducing enough for me. So, I turn my focus back to the men sitting around the table, tuning them out as I categorize them into people I can likely get on my side and people I’m going to have to have killed and replaced.

Most of them are easy to categorize. But there are a few that, though I want to kill, would be a pain to find replacements for. One of them being Jason Travis.

If there’s anyone who comes as close to my favor with Pray, it’s Travis. And unlike the other cowards around this table, he is anything but. I can give him that.

Travis is not afraid to get his hands dirty. To give the order and then carry it out if his field men are too slow about it. I also don’t particularly hate him. But he’s dangerous. Because while I outrank him by virtue of the fact that I have more kills and never fail to get the job done at any cost, he has more of a propensity for the people and political side of this. The getting in people’s heads and getting them on his side. It’s the very reason Pray keeps him around. And, in some ways, that makes him more dangerous than even me.

I could keep him around. I could make use of him. But the problem is that he’s too ambitious. He tolerates being subservient to Pray because he knows there’s no way he can be better than Pray no matter how much he wants to be. No matter how far he gets in his burgeoning political career. But I’m not trying to be Pray even if I’m trying to take his place. And Travis undoubtedly thinks he’s better than me. That it’s just a matter of time before I slip up and lose Pray’s favor for him to become the man’s right hand.

If I leave Travis alive, he could possibly rally Pray’s allies, the people I need if I want to pull off this takeover, to his side. And then I’ll have only killed Pray for everyone to fall in line behind Travis or to start one of the biggest mafia civil wars in history. And that’s something I’d like to avoid.

But killing him when he’s so useful and has only been loyal might have the same effect. In essence, Travis isn’t disposable. So, I’m going to have to find a way to make him disposable.

Travis speaking gives me a chance to more carefully consider the man. Tall. Dark hair and eyes. Handsome. I’ll talk to Cres about getting one of her girls on him. There’s got to be something on him that I can use to discredit him to Pray’s allies. To make them fall in line behind me when Dele and I eliminate Pray.

“Sir, I think we also need to talk about Vicious.”

I snap out my mutinous thoughts, though, I make sure to continue to appear just as disinterested as I have the entire meeting to now.

“Vicious,” says Travis with a laugh and a roll of his eyes. “We need to talk about a common whore who likes to bar hop and cause trouble everywhere she goes and who our men have a strange proclivity toward?”

I have to say that I agree with Travis. Since when was Vicious a conversation for meetings like these? As far as I know, she’s nowhere near the radar of threats that would be dire enough to bring up at a meeting like this.

But that’s the thing. As far as I know. Because Pray could have very well put someone who he thought was a lesser lieutenant on it. And of course, he would. It’s not even suspicious. Why would he bring a woman who, as far as he knows, is just a girl who likes to flirt for free drinks to me to even send someone out for information on? I take care of bigger fish than that…

Unless Pray begins to think she’s a bigger fish.

“There’s nothing common about her,” says Revnor. He looks at Pray and says, “With your permission, sir, I’d like to deliver to you my findings on the task you told me to get my people on. I think it’s important enough to be brought up today.”

Revnor, a bald, rugged, stocky man of few words, is one of the few that I intend to keep alive and promote when this is all over. Not particularly ambitious, but loyal. Straightforward. Respectful. Stays in his lane. But also knows when to take risks and disagree when needed.

And he hates the way Pray is running this business. Has little respect for the lack of loyalty that Pray has for people. The way he uses and manipulates them and promises them things and then takes those promises back, if he doesn’t completely throw you away. Like he did with me.

He’s also a former Sole. One of the few I allowed to live and brought to Pray because he could be useful. It helped that he was one of the few friends Dele had with the Soles. Who left not long after the whole debacle with Dele being temporarily cast out. Like I said, he respects loyalty.

He’s very quickly worked his way up to a chief lieutenant in that last five years.

“She’s taken out every man I’ve sent to tail her or get information from her. This isn’t a woman hitting men over the head with beer bottles. She can fight.”

---