Iona stood on the edge of a moon-bleached rooftop, her eyes fixed on the three men in the dark alleyway below her.

In all honesty, she had expected there to be more of them – the tip she received was phrased in such a way that seemed to imply there would be at least five – but no matter. She was still determined to get the information she wanted out of them. The process of actually doing so would just be less fun.

Oh well.

Pressing the earpiece lodged in her right ear, Iona activated the listening devices she placed all throughout the alleyway before the men's arrival. She could now clearly hear their conversation.

"If they think we're going to cough up forty percent of our profit, then they're crazy!" she heard a man's voice say.

Another man snorted. "They're beyond crazy," he said. "Oh, they're a crime family? Crime family, my ass! You don't just come into our territory and start telling us what to do as if you're some sort of fuckin' king."

This is the first time I'm hearing about a crime family…, Iona thought to herself. They must not be from around here…

"Well, until our bosses give the order, we can't do shit."

"We gotta," a third man interjected. "Or else we're all screwed."

You're screwed either way, dumbass.

"Whaddya suggest, genius?" the second man asked. "It's not like we can just run them out of town with the traditional methods."

"Exactly. We need somethin' creative, somethin' out of the box."

"And you have a plan of that kind?"

"Yup. I say we trick som' heroes into doing our dirty work for us."

I don't like where this is going...

"Wha!? Are you cray—"

"Hold on," the first man said, cutting off his colleague. "Let's hear him out."

"Thank you," the third man said. "As I was sayin', we got enough connections in every police department in this damn city to have them create a fake lead. No doubt that Siren bitch—"

I'm not a—okay, maybe I am...

"—will get a wind of it, and once she realizes how many criminals she's dealin' with, she'll call in the League. They charge in, guns a blazin', and that's the end of the Andreozzi Crime Family as we know it."

Andreozzi Crime Family? I've never heard of them…

"That's…not a bad idea…" the first man mused. "But we gotta do this secretly. We'll be dead meat if our bosses find out we're meddling with business."

Looks like that's my cue.

Without giving it so much as a second thought, Iona swiftly jumped off the rooftop and landed in the center of the circle the three men had formed. Before anyone of them could react, she snapped her leg upwards, the tip of her booted foot colliding with the lower chin of the third man. He crashed to the ground, the force of Iona's attack knocking him out.

"Holy crap!" the second man exclaimed. "It's the Siren!"

"I can see that, Johnny!" the first man yelled back, revealing a pistol from inside his jacket. "Now go blow her damn head off!" He fired several bullets, but Iona easily dodged them, somersaulting towards a dark green dumpster lined against the alley's wall. Grabbing the top off a garbage can, she waited until the man had to reload his gun before standing back up and flinging it at him. The lid hit him square in the neck, a sickening crack! echoing through the alleyway as his body became a crumpled heap on the ground.

Only Johnny was left.

He was scared shitless – as evidenced by the way he shook with no apparent reason – but, nevertheless, lunged at her. At the last second, Iona stepped to the side and Johnny stumbled forward, almost ramming into a wall. Iona promptly swept her legs underneath him and straddled him once he was on the ground, punching him relentlessly until his entire face was swollen and soaked in blood. Crimson dots speckled her masked face, and she wiped them haphazardly with the back of her gloved hand, but all that did was leave streaks behind for others to find...

Iona heaved herself off Johnny's body.

She remained still for a moment, listening to the distant din of Canadian traffic as she waited for her fast-beating to slow. Once that had been accomplished, she stepped over Johnny and surveyed the scene around her. The man she had chucked the garbage lid at lay a few feet away from the dumpster, his body bruised and unmoving. He's clearly dead, and the man beside him wasn't getting up any time soon, either.

Looks like I've done my job. The cops should find these bastards in the morn—

Iona gasped in pain. She looked down and saw a sharp blade protruding from the center of her chest, soaked in her blood. A metallic taste filling her mouth, her body began shaking violently as blood slowly trickled down the right corner of her mouth. She gasped for air but it was of no use – she knew she was going to die.

"You just had to mess with my toys," she heard a soft female voice say in her right ear. "I thought the threat on your daughter's life would be enough to convince you to stop meddling in our affairs but you obviously don't care for her life – or yours."

Iona tried to speak but the words were caught in her throat. Tears began pouring down her cheeks as endless streams when she realized she would probably never see her daughter again.

The female voice spoke again. "Shh…" she cooed. "Don't cry. The death part of this is much less painful. And don't worry; once you're dead, we'll leave your precious daughter alone."

"But just remember this," the woman added. "No one crosses the Andreozzi Crime Family and lives."

With that, the blade was pulled out of Iona's chest, and she fell into the darkness below, her short life brought to a cruel end.