The docks at midnight were a kingdom unto themselves—a place where the laws of the Commission held no weight, where men who belonged to no Family conducted business that existed in the spaces between. The air was thick with brine and diesel, the distant groan of cargo ships mixing with the lap of black water against rotting pilings.
Hector belonged to no faction and survived on gray business. His reputation was consistently terrible. No one trusted him, yet no one dared to refuse him outright. He was a fixer, a ghost, a man who had survived three Family wars by being useful to everyone and loyal to no one. For me, that made him the perfect choice.
I found him in the back room of a fisherman's bar, smoke curling from a Turkish cigarette, his weathered face half-hidden in shadow.
"I need a way out," I said.
He studied me for a few seconds, his eyes the color of old iron, reading something in my face that I had not yet spoken aloud. Then he gave a smile that was hard to read—not cruel, not kind, simply knowing.
"That depends on how far you want to go."