Page 46 of The Chameleon

Ares pulled the trench coat he wore tight around his body. It was mid-December, and the weather wasn’t cold enough yet for snow, but it was heading that way very quickly.

He glanced at his watch.

11:58 p.m.

The man was late.

Ares looked up and down the dark alley.

Nothing but dark shadows and alley cats nervously watching the stranger who had invaded their territory.

His fingers played over the sleek edges of the gun he kept hidden inside the interior of the trench coat he wore. Quietlyresting, it waited. Hoping that one day it would do what it was created for and bring death to those unlucky enough to be standing before its barrel.

Staring down the empty alley, Ares wondered why his contact was late for their meeting.

Had the man fallen victim to some dark plot?

Had the man changed his mind and decided to protect the information he’d been hired to uncover?

Was someone onto their investigation?

There was no use speculating. If the man was late, there must be a good reason. At least, he hoped there was.

Would Ares have to add yet another name to the ever-expanding list of people he had to make disappear? He was running out of construction sites and was going to have to find an alternative dumping ground. Judging by the way business was going, he didn’t think people were going to stop trying to take away his business.

Fear equaled power. Power equaled control. And control equaled money.

Ares did what was necessary to achieve all four.

The sound of footsteps stepping through a puddle caught Ares’s attention.

Finally.

Out of the shadows stepped a nervous young man.

“Are we alone?” the man asked, his face was covered by the black hoodie he wore.

“Yes,” Ares replied, eyes glancing over the dark figure's shoulders to confirm that they were, in fact, alone. “You got it?”

The man pulled a beige file out from under his sweater and handed it to Ares.

Ares’s jaw tightened as he took the file and passed the man a thick white envelope. Five thousand euros. That was the going rate to find the identity of the person who betrayed you.

It had been almost a month since the Sabarinos had died in an explosion on his private jet—a jet that he was also supposed to be aboard. It had been a last-minute decision for Ares to stay behind so he could try and figure out how things went so horribly wrong.

Thinking back to that day, he felt both incredibly lucky and incredibly guilty for having survived that horrific crash.

Holding the thin file in his hand, his muscles began to tense. Contained within this folder was the name of the person who had betrayed him. A traitor. A snake hidden in the grass… waiting.

“You sure you want to open that?”

Ignoring the man’s question, Ares stared at the envelope.

“You know, once you look inside, you’ll never be the same.”

His contact was right. Ares had always prided himself on being able to read people and surrounded himself with people he trusted—or at least people who feared him enough that they didn’t dare to double-cross him. Yet, hidden within the confines of this thin folder was the name of the person who dared to betray him. Someone who did not respect or fear him. A Judas in the midst.

Someone was about to die.

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