"Ah hell," our driver, Charles, said as we approached an abandoned warehouse. "What are they doing here? They were supposed to be at the dock right now. Should we turn back?"

"No, Chuck," Jessica snapped and made a rough grab for the wheel before the driver could U-turn us back around the narrow alleyway somewhere in the wrong part of New Jersey. "We are doing this today even if we have to take out a few witnesses along the way."

"This isn't a two-man job anymore."

"There are three of us here."

"No way. Little Miss Tweety doesn't count."

"Yes, Chuck," Jessica repeated, keeping him once again from turning the wheel around. "We are three able-bodied Evenhell members here today."

"Are you nuts? Has the botox dissolved your last brain cell? If they take the car, we're a bunch of sitting ducks. Also, how do you know Miss Tweety here isn't going to sing like a canary as soon as you turn your back?"

"That's not your problem. You stand guard by the car. She'll be my extra set of hands. Don't worry. Everything will go smooth as butter. They won't even know we were here."

"Shit, shit," Charles repeated as he stealthy parked the car near an unguarded back door. His head was hunched over in fear, and he was sweating bullets. I suddenly wished he had won the battle of wills with Jessica, and we headed back to face Uncle J's fury. At least a bullet to the brain would be better than going down in a haphazard gunfight. "Did you see the trucks parked outside? There are at least a dozen of them here. They're going to see us. When they do, they're going to fucking come at me with a goddamn grenade."

"Just sit tight," Jessica hissed and kicked open the passenger side door. I'm not going to let them take us down. Princess Twee? What's going on? Are you waiting for a royal invitation?"

I rolled my eyes and angrily got out of the car. My life was now in the hands of a smarmy hooker with too much cleavage and not enough red-hair dye to cover her roots. I was definitely going to die today. My right hand clutched the miniature pistol Jessica had handed me earlier. Did I even know how to take the safety latch off? We had skipped so many steps in this mission that I couldn't possibly see how we were making it out alive.

"Don't worry, just follow me. This may look like a warehouse to you, but this is the site of their manufacturing base. We're going to plant a package inside their main control room and bury the whole thing in ashes and blood. Got it?"

"W-what is my role in all this?"

"We're going to enter the storage area. There is an air vent that leads to the main control room. I need you to boost me up so that I can reach it. That's it, easy peasy."

I swallowed hard. That didn't sound so hard. Could my role really be that simple?

Jessica picked the lock to the back door with a set of pins she hid inside her chunky bracelet. She kicked open the door and strolled inside as though she had been there before. In the distance, I could hear the sound of men talking and laughing. For a second, I thought that for certain they had heard us. The sound of our footsteps seemed thunderous to my ears. However, within seconds, we ducked into a nearby utility room. From there, we crossed over into a dark storage space. There was nothing there except one plastic fold-up table, which had caved in at the center.

Whoever the Ten Dragons were, they sure were a violent people. There was a chair smashed against the wall, and a stack of moldy cardboard boxed collecting dust by a nearby window. The entire room smelled of rotten eggs, hard liquor, and urine.

"Over there," Jessica said as she pointed to a vent. "I don't know if you can find a place to hide until I get back. If they find you, it's all over."

I glanced around. The room was flooded with light from the narrow slit of a window. No, not unless I wanted to cower under the cardboard boxes. There was nowhere to hide.

"I'll hide inside the vent," I offered, my voice barely audible with fear. "I can climb in after you."

Jessica raised an eyebrow at me as though she didn't quite believe me.

"I did gymnastics in college. Hopefully, I still have the upper body strength," I joked.

"Really?" Jessica said as she kicked away the remainder of the rotting cardboard cluttering the floor by the vent. I dragged the broken table over and held it steady while she climbed over it. She stepped from its unsteady surface onto my shoulders and then jumped into the vent. The gate made a loud scraping noise as she pushed her way inside. She held it open for me.

I probably wouldn't have been able to do it. However, she was sitting inside the vent with such a look of disbelief that I felt like I had to prove myself. I left my shoes behind, under a pile of cardboard. I forced myself to balance on the table and made a wild leap for the vent from my tiptoes. I narrowly caught the edge of the vent but Jessica grabbed my wrist and pulled me up behind her.

"Now that was something. If I could make a jump like that, I wouldn't need a back up. You sure you don't want to join us when this is all over?"