Seiran cursed under his breath and gritted his teeth as he lay on his back under an SUV in the parking garage. Another expensive tux gone to hell, smeared in grease and filth. He sighed. At least it wasn't blood this time.

He reached up into the guts of the engine and found a small wire leading to the starter. With a flick of his wrist, his pocket knife severed the wire, disabling the ignition.

That should slow them down a little, he smirked.

After making his way to the parking garage, he had skulked through the shadows along the edges of the weak halos cast by the overhead light fixtures. He moved from vehicle to vehicle, waiting for his opportunity to escape the security force guarding the garage. In the meantime, he availed himself of the chance to cripple as many of their vehicles as his intelligence had marked and that he could reach without being detected.

As he had calculated, the decimated numbers of security men on the upper levels, all casualties of his attack, required nearly the entire garage security contingent to be called up to replace their fallen brothers. Only a small group remained, including the two thugs who had pursued him down the elevator.

He tipped his head back where he lay on the ground and watched the upside-down view of his pursuers' scuffed dress shoes pacing back and forth, not 30 feet away from him. One was talking on his cell, so Seiran took the opportunity forced on him to listen in.

"I'm telling you, he's not in the damn garage," the thug complained. "We've been over every inch of the place, twice. He's still up there somewhere, and you know who he's targeting."

Seiran rolled his eyes. Dimwits. He wanted to kill them just because it was too embarrassing to be running from morons. Unfortunately, dead bodies lying around the parking garage of a posh hotel might get people talking, even in Atlantic City. Leaving corpses all over the banquet hall upstairs was dangerous enough. Still, he knew all traces of their existence would be erased by whatever hand was secretly pulling all these strings.

"Yeah, well, he got the others, all of them," the thug continued vehemently. "If you know what's good for you, you'll get your asses out of there and leave him to us."

Seiran nearly groaned out loud and rolled his eyes.

As he saw the scuffed shoes walk away at a quick clip heading for the elevator, he took his chance to roll onto his stomach and position himself to attack or to run, depending on what happened next. He waited, watching, calculating all the possible scenarios he could imagine.

The elevator doors opened, and instead of the dimwits going up, a bustling, noisy crowd of people got off. He strained to make out the high-pitched, panicked words that were exchanged, but they were too far away and chaotic to understand. Experience, however, told him that this level of activity and urgency meant movement of an important person. His mark, his final remaining target for this mission, the one that got away, was most likely now leaving the hotel under heavy security, slipping from his sites.

Yet, if he could catch a glimpse of his target, then he wouldn't count the mission a total loss. Part of the reason this target had eluded him when none of the others had was because Seiran didn't know whom he was looking for. He only knew that his mark was the heir to one of the largest crime syndicate families in the world, and that his identity had been closely guarded since the day he was born. His infamous father had recently died, and the kid had inherited the family business, just like Ryuuki had inherited their father's business and just as he himself had inherited his adopted father's work as the Black Wolf.

However, unlike them, this heir had yet to make himself known on the scene. Tonight was to be his debut during a major convention for the tourism industry under which many of the crime families operated as legitimate businesses. If Seiran had been successful, it should have been the kid's curtain call, too, right along with the others he'd taken down tonight.

Either luck or tonight's double-cross had saved him, but it was just a matter of time. Seiran was too thorough, or OCD as the shrinks at the penitentiary called it, to let him slip away for too long. Too bad this kid didn't have a big brother watching out for him like Ryuuki did. Too damn bad.

At that point, the elevators opened again, and everyone, including the two thugs, scrambled back onto the cars. The doors closed and the garage was silent. Seiran blinked and frowned, the gears of his mind whirring into action.

What the hell? What would cause them all to abandon the garage security? Seiran's mind cranked into overdrive to determine what was going on. He wondered if they weren't just circling the wagons around their young boss to fortify his personal security. Good luck with that, he smirked.

He waited silently for a few more minutes, his eyes on the elevators, but nothing happened. He determined that it had to be past 3 a.m. now, and even in Atlantic City, the hotel traffic died off eventually. Seiran exhaled and relaxed his tense muscles.

So, his mark had generously and foolishly decided to remain at the hotel, giving him another shot at his neck, literally. With a bloodthirsty quirk of his lips, the assassin decided he and his deadly lady would take another ride on the elevator, too. He'd hate to disappoint the dimwits.

With an eager grin, he slid out from under the truck and bumped into a pair of the tallest, reddest stiletto heels he'd ever gotten up close and personal with, and there had been a few.

He caught his breath when he heard a trigger cock above his head. His muscles coiled instantly.

Fuck.