Chapter One
The fury that lived perpetually inside me boiled and grew as I watched the depraved, pathetic men ogling me dancing. Considering I was an entertainer in the White Lamya cantina, it was naturally the point for them to stare, but that didn't make me hate them any less. I twirled and felt their eyes follow my lekku as they spun. It took everything I had to not break their noses. I dealt with this every day and yet somehow it only got harder to resist lashing out. I could not, though. I needed this job to survive, as much as I despised it.
This was not the first time I had worked as a dancer in a cantina; I would not have gotten the job without some impressive experience as there were many Twi'lek slaves out there who could be purchased for less than my pay. I suspected most of this price difference, though, was due to my red skin, an exceedingly rare trait among Twi'lek.
Finally, as the night wound to a close and the drunken patrons were ushered out, I changed into my street clothes and left for the day. I took my usual route home, a long, twisting path that kept me out of the ever-disputed territories of the violent gangs here on Nar Shaddaa. Like everyone else on the Smuggler's Moon, I carried a blaster with me wherever I went, but I had never officially been taught to use it and mostly only kept it as a deterrent to would-be thieves. I knew I could never win in a firefight against the blood-soaked members of any gang here. So, I did my best to avoid them instead. Fortunately, my boss at the cantina had played the game long enough that the gangs of this subsection respected him and didn't encroach on the homes of his employees.
The place I called home was actually meant to be a garage, but it was spacious enough and not in the territory of any particularly violent or xenophobic gangs so I had bargained it from the owner in exchange for a few credits and a particularly scarring evening. I slipped in through the side door and locked it behind me. I kicked off my shoes and plopped into the comfiest chair I owned, an ugly, puffy green thing that I 'liberated' from a careless shopkeeper. It was one of many pieces in this place that I had obtained illicitly. No one gets by for very long on Nar Shaddaa without resorting to criminal activity at least once. It was just a matter of how serious your crime.
After massaging my feet until they stopped aching, I spent a few hours blowing off steam with a little target practice on the makeshift dummy I had set up in one corner. Truthfully, I didn't really need the practice. I was an excellent shot; the reason I so studiously avoided getting tangled into any blaster fight was instead because I didn't know the proper technique to not get myself shot. That was the kind of thing you needed someone else to teach you and even after a few years on this moon, there was no one here that I truly trusted. I had a few superficial friends in the other dancers at the cantina, but I knew without a doubt that they would stab me in the back for a raise if the opportunity presented itself. They weren't exactly the kind of people one would visit to learn how to fight in any case.
When exhaustion started to sway my aim, I flopped onto my bed and curled up with my hand gripped around the blaster under my pillow. Sleep came fast, but was as uneasy as ever.
As every night, I went to the White Lamya the next evening just as business was starting. I nodded to the bouncer, who I knew had an unhealthy interest in me, on the way in and moved to the back to change. My anger started to boil the second I passed the threshold of this vile place. Mostly, it was the smells that did it; the scents of hundreds of pathetic people, the sweat of the dancers, the bitterness of the alcohol, and the ever so faint sickly sweetness of the spices that were secretly dealt and used here. These added up to create a vivid memory of hundreds of nights spent dancing for people who I would thoroughly enjoy punching. If I ever got out of this line of work, I would never willingly enter a cantina again.
The dressing room was, as always, full of mostly naked women of many different species all trading fake smiles of greeting with each other. The only pair that I suspected wouldn't sell each other for a few credits were two Nautolan females named Eawen and Eavren and they were sisters. Of course, family didn't always mean much on Nar Shaddaa so who knew?
I tried that night, as I often had before, to go blank while I danced, to not feel anything at all. Instead, as usual, I felt the anger and hate roiling. By now, it was a familiar companion, one that had been with me since the age of sixteen. I tried most of the time not to think of the event that had planted the seed of my fury, because it nurtured an urge to murder the first person I saw. Now, though, I unfortunately couldn't help myself:
I had been born on Naos III a slave. My mother was owned by a Rodian male who was actually one of the kinder people I had known in my life. What made someone who owned slaves kind? Well, the fact that he had purchased my mother at all, for one. Twi'leks were nearly always put to work as dancers when enslaved, but my mother had been born with the unfortunate deformity of missing a lekku. No one wanted to see a disfigured Twi'lek perform so she was almost put to death as a child when her first master realized how useless she would be to him. The Rodian, Jannik, bought my mother for a meager sum when he learned of his acquaintance's plan. He put my mother to work in the kitchen. The joke was on her first master, because when my mother gave birth to me and it was discovered that I did not share her deformity, I brought in profit as a dancer.
At the time, I did not much mind the work because Jannik was also kind in that he took care of us well. He ensured we had all the basic necessities and put in their place anyone who treated me disrespectfully in the cantina. When I was sixteen, though, and the Great Galactic War began, many people were displaced and credits became scarce. Enterprising groups and individuals, however, sought to benefit from the losses of others. So, when a Hutt's talent seeker and his entourage of scarred, ugly men came into the cantina, it was no great surprise. Much to my dismay, the seeker liked me and offered Jannik a large sum of credits to sell me. The Rodian grew even more in my eyes when he refused. The seeker did not, however, take kindly to this and very unsubtly threatened to destroy Jannik's business if he did not submit. One of the body guards shot another dancer as proof of the severity of his threat.
My mother, having heard the commotion, rushed out of the kitchen just as the burly men grasped my shoulders painfully. I struggled and shrieked as my mother tried to pull one off of me. The third and final bodyguard yanked her by her sole lekku to subdue her. She fell to the ground with an ear-piercing scream; pulling on a Twi'lek's head-tail is extremely painful and can cause brain damage. I fell silent and my sight washed red. Real, murderous anger flooded through me for the first time in my life and at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to slice open all of their throats and bath in their blood. I was pulled away in my moment of shocked complacency. The fury had been with me since that day and had only grown more powerful.
As this memory washed through me, I felt again, as if for the first time, that devastating anger. At that exact and perfectly inopportune moment, a drunken human man watching me reached up and fondled my thigh for a short second. The combination of remembered rage and ever-building wrath overwhelmed me. Unable to stop myself or even consider what I was doing, I lashed out and gripped the man's head between my hands. Twisting sharply, I broke his neck.
The atmosphere around the table froze, but the rest of the patrons were so much in their own intoxicated worlds that for a moment, no one else noticed anything. Coming to my senses, I recognized that I had to get away fast. I turned and sprinted off stage into the back room. I snagged my things just as I heard a high-pitched scream. As I ran for the back door, I tugged my street clothes on over my dancer's outfit and was outside within seconds. Once I was out of the building, I tried to calm down a little and forced myself to walk through the crowds instead of drawing attention to myself by shoving and running. I tucked my blaster away where it could not be seen but I could draw it easily and kept my head down as I weaved through the people toward my home.
It took an infuriatingly long time to get back to the garage, but once I did, I slammed the door shut and sprinted around, shoving anything I could grab into a bag. I had to get out of here fast. My boss knew where I lived so I had no doubt that he would be sending people very soon. Step one was to get out of this area. Since I still didn't know who the man I had just murdered had been, I could also easily be the target of any number of vengeful groups. Step two, then, was to get off this rock. Perhaps now that I had a bit more money, I could manage to get passage on a charter to Republic space. At least there I wouldn't have to worry about being targeted by slavers, but living in a refugee camp was also not a palatable thought.
The only warning I had before I was joined by an unwelcome visitor was a small rush of air as the door opened. I dropped my bag, spun around, and aimed my blaster at the intruder only to discover that he had prepared for this eventuality. Despite the fact that the human man who entered was getting up there in years, I could tell that he knew how to handle himself in a fight. His hands had a number of blaster scorch scars and along the bottom of the right side of his chin was what looked like a lightsaber burn. It was obvious from his appearance that he knew how to handle himself. That and the fact that he had come through the door with his blaster pointed at me. We were at an impasse.
As such, it shocked me greatly when he turned his blaster to point at the ceiling and held his free hand up in surrender. If I had not been so surprised, I might have shot him right then and there. "Easy, easy," the man cautioned in a voice so gruff that I wondered if his speech might have been scarred too. "I'm only here to talk."
"Then why point a blaster at me?"
"If I hadn't, you would have shot me the second I came in, no questions asked. I had to give you pause for a second so I had a chance to speak."
"You don't know me. How can you know what I would have done?"
"I saw you in the cantina. You killed that man without a second's hesitation. I know the type."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm a bounty hunter. Well, I was a bounty hunter, actually. I retired a few years back after a close call clued me in that I was getting too old for the job. But I can't stand retired life; it's driving me insane. I'm not quite suicidal enough to take it back up again, but I'll admit, I've considered it. Then you come along and murder that man right in front of me. It was your first kill, wasn't it? You have instinct and raw talent. It was superb."
"Superb?" I repeated. "I killed a man in front of dozens of witnesses dressed in the most conspicuous way possible. I have to leave Nar Shaddaa or risk torture and death by whichever faction he was allied with: the Empire, the Hutts, any number of violent gangs. It could not have been worse."
"Don't worry about that. I spoke to him beforehand; he had recently made a poor business decision that negatively impacted the Hutt cartel. If they weren't about to send someone to kill him, they're certainly not bothered that he's dead." The man shrugged. "But I'm talking about you! You have a lot of talent, but it's untapped. Since I can't go back out there myself, I thought, why don't I live vicariously through someone else? Namely, you. I want to train you to be a bounty hunter yourself."
Something sparked in me and it took everything I had not to jump up and say 'yes' a thousand times. If this stranger was sincere, then I absolutely wanted to. The problem was that I couldn't trust him. I had no way of knowing if he was being truthful about his motives or if this was some sort of clever trick to lull me into a false sense of security before attempting an assassination.
I don't know what I would have done next, because a pounding at the door interrupted my train of thought. Blast! It had been foolish to stay here this long. Even if the mysterious man was right and no highly trained assassins were coming for me, I should have known that my boss would still send people to teach me a lesson for disrupting the peace in his cantina and ultimately damaging its reputation. I imagined it was those bruisers banging on my door; no skilled assassin would announce his presence and intentions so obviously.
"Hide!" the man hissed at me and turned back to the door, hiding his blaster behind his back. It took me a moment to comprehend what he'd said, but then I dove behind my green chair, held my own weapon at the ready and waited. As the man opened the door, I peered around and kept my blaster aimed and ready to fire. There were three large Trandoshan males on the other side. The stranger gave a perfect fearful imitation. "I swear, I paid my protection fee last…"
"Where she?" The lead lizard interrupted in a guttural butchering of Huttese.
"S…she? Who?"
"Twi'lek works for Krix. We know she here."
"There are no Twi'leks here," the stranger insisted. They ignored him and shoved past, clearly considering him no threat due to his age. It was the last mistake they would ever make. As soon as their backs were turned, the stranger pulled out his blaster and shot the leader in the back of the head, killing him instantly. When the surviving fools spun around to retaliate, I reached out from behind my hiding place and shot another one. The stranger kicked the last one in what I assumed to be a weak spot for Trandoshans and took him down easily. It was all over within seconds.
"Hmm," the stranger said, surveying the bodies. "It seems you were right about needing to flee, though I would say leaving the moon is a bit extreme. Come, quickly! I have somewhere we can go."
I grabbed my bag and trotted through the door after him. Keeping my blaster close at hand, I followed the stranger through the busy streets, weaving inconspicuously among the people. We moved through the district for some time before finally arriving at a speeder pad. The stranger hopped into a sleek, black one and I climbed into the adjacent seat. It seemed we still had a ways to go. Though that was fortunate in that it would make it far more difficult for anyone to track me, I was beginning to wonder what had brought this stranger all the way to the White Lamya for an evening.
"So, my little bounty hunter, what's your name?" the stranger wondered.
"Melmira. Melmira Ven."
"Melmira, I'm Lurek Ardlon. And since I'm guessing you won't tell me anything about yourself yet, I'll go first." I blinked in surprise; this Lurek Ardlon, the retired bounty hunter, continually caught me off-guard. His gruff voice and grizzled appearance made him seem like a grumpy old man and yet the way he spoke revealed a curious and hyperactive inner child. It seemed his self-proclaimed boredom, instead of causing irritation at the world, had made new things exciting. Or perhaps his years of bounty hunting had forced him to appreciate the less-violent times in life. That, at least, I could understand.
"I'm from Coruscant originally. My mother was a Balmorran diplomat, before the Empire took over, and worked at the Senate tower most of the time. My father was a Commander in the Republic military. His parents were from the capital as well so he spent most of his off-duty time on Coruscant. They met at the Senate tower when my father was conferring with his immediate superiors and my mother was working some sort of diplomatic angle. They almost immediately got into an argument about politics and hated each other at first. Eventually, they fell in love and here I am.
"I was in the Republic military myself, once, trying to follow in my father's footsteps. It worked for a while until there was a… certain incident involving numerous misunderstandings and more than a few miscalculated words on my part. I resigned quickly and shipped off to avoid court martial. I ended up on the Smuggler's Moon and took work as a bounty hunter. Nar Shaddaa has been my base of operations ever since."
Lurek gazed my way, though whether it was to gauge my reaction or prompt a response, I couldn't be sure. Either way, I wasn't responding. The extroverted bounty hunter had quickly made me uncomfortable with all the personal life story talk.
He landed the speeder shortly thereafter in a much ritzier district of the moon. He quickly shut up as we hopped out and trekked along the less crowded streets. A few minutes later, we approached a very nice house, something a lower tier noble might have been used to. Lurek unlocked and opened the door, gesturing me inside. I gazed around wide-eyed at the interior. It was decorated fantastically and even my untrained eye could pick out more than one exceedingly expensive piece among the décor. I had never set foot in a place as nice as this in my life; the cantina I had grown up in had been by no means extravagant, the Hutt I was enslaved to preferred beauty in people to surroundings, and the White Lamya was a common man's cantina.
Seeing my expression, Lurek shrugged and explained simply with, "The job pays well."
We walked into a sitting room and the bounty hunter gestured to a chair, intending for me to sit. I did so, continuing to look around in awe. He disappeared around the corner for a few moments before coming back with two alcoholic drinks. He set one in front of me and took a sip from the other. "Here," he said. "You might need this. The first one usually hits hard."
It took me a moment to realize what 'first one' he meant. Finally, I remembered; I had killed a man earlier. In all the commotion, I had almost forgotten. Pinching the end of my lekku between my fingers, I pondered my own feelings. How was it affecting me? I discovered that I couldn't find any guilt, only hate and anger. To me, the man represented years of oppression. Even if that was unfair, I couldn't force myself to regret his murder. That was one of the reasons I pushed the drink away and said, "I'm fine."
Lurek raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
I nodded, feeling my lekku brush against my bare shoulders. "I can't do alcohol. The smell makes me sick. It reminds me too much of the cantina."
There was a short pause as he considered that. "You hate that place, don't you?"
"More than I can describe."
"Why did you work there then? You're not a slave, I see. Well, not anymore." He asked, nodding to my neck. My hand flew up to my throat, self-consciously rubbing the collar scars I bore from years of wearing one when I had been owned by Yemar the Hutt. "What's your story, Melmira? What do your scars tell?"
"You didn't say soul-sharing was going to be part of the bounty hunter deal," I snapped.
He shrugged, unperturbed by my mood. "I want to know what I can about someone before I go into business with them. If I know them, I can predict their actions and know when and when not to trust them. It's saved my life before. I shared my story, so if you want to stay, give me at least the short version of yours."
I pursed my lips and pretended to consider that for a moment, but I knew what my options were. If I let this opportunity pass me by, I would be stuck. I would have to leave Nar Shaddaa and go elsewhere. I would either end up in a cantina again or go to Republic space and likely fall into a refugee camp. This was my best option by far so if it cost a little personal revelation, it was a small price to pay. "I was born a slave on Naos III. My mother worked in the kitchen of a local cantina rather than entertaining because she had been born with only one lekku. I never knew my father, but I think he was a noble who'd had an affair with my mother when he came visiting from Ryloth. When I was old enough, I started dancing in the cantina. At the time, I didn't much mind it. When I was sixteen, a talent seeker working for Yemar the Hutt came in and saw me. He liked me and bought me. I was shipped off to Tatooine and forced to dance for Yemar. That's where I received these." I traced my collar marks and the whip scar cutting down across my left eye. "Through a series of lucky events, I managed to escape the Hutt and barter passage to Nar Shaddaa. I found work in that cantina because dancing is all I know." The rundown of my life that I gave him was as brief and to the point as the one he gave me. I glossed over the particularly traumatic events much like he avoided telling me the exact circumstances behind his forced resignation from the Republic military.
"So, the pieces fall together," Lurek whispered to himself. I wasn't sure what he meant, but decided quickly that I didn't quite care enough to ask. The old bounty hunter took a sip of his drink, then said, "Come. I'll show you where you can put your things."
The next few months were unlike any in my life before. Lurek taught me everything he knew from blasters to vibroknives, from hand-to-hand fighting to grenade throwing. Not only did he teach me things a killer would need to know, but he also showed me important skills of any shady profession: how to pick a lock, how to slice a computer, how to properly utilize a stealth belt, how to remain unnoticed in a crowd. He even instructed me on getting information from people, from flirting to lying to torture. Half a galactic year later, I could barely recognize myself. I had gone from a girl struggling to survive and ignoring the fact that she hated every aspect of her life to a woman fully trained and able to use the anger that had been bottled inside her for years.
Over that time, I had begun to trust and even admire Lurek. I'd had very little experience with men aside from those who watched me dance, especially human men. It surprised me that I was able to not hate him, let alone like him. He was slowly becoming something of a father figure to me, despite only knowing him a short while. Regardless, though, I made certain to never fully let my guard down around him. Sure, I trusted him with more personal details of my life, but I was careful to maintain my wariness. He was, after all, a bounty hunter and perhaps would betray me for the right price. Lurek knew exactly how I felt about him, but he wasn't offended; in fact, he seemed proud. He knew that, to survive, I had to be wary of everyone I met, no matter how they helped me. To that end, he began secretly launching attacks on me about two months after I arrived. Sometimes, I repelled his ambush, but I just as often 'died' in his assaults. Overall, they helped me to be ready for anything, anytime.
Lurek kept abreast of his contacts from his bounty hunting days, waiting for a job to come up that aligned with his assessment of my skills. Eventually, he found something.
"Melmira?" Lurek called through the house, interrupting my workout in the basement.
I grabbed a small towel from a nearby rack and trotted upstairs. "Yes?"
"I have something you'll like."
"Oh?"
He handed me a piece of paper with a name and address on it. "My contacts found this for me. That man is offering a reward for the head of a former friend. I don't know much else; you'll have to go speak with him for the details. It's not a hefty sum of credits, but you have to make a name for yourself before people will be willing to pay you more for a hit. And here." He pulled out a small, black blaster and handed it to me. "That was my favorite blaster before I retired. It got me through many a tough situation. I hope it'll do the same for you."
Out of habit, I checked the safety on it, tucked it into my pants and then I threw my arms around Lurek. "Thank you," I breathed, "for everything."
He patted my back awkwardly. "Oh, don't go soft on me," he replied gruffly.
I laughed and moved away. "Never."
I hopped quickly upstairs to change, my heart pounding with anticipation. I chose my clothing carefully, knowing that appearance was half the game when meeting a client. I did not want to put on anything too simple and look unprofessional nor was it a good idea to dress in full body armor and appear that I was hiding behind it. Having been imagining my first job for months, I already knew what I would wear.
I chose a sleeveless top almost the same crimson of my skin. It went down to just above my navel. I slipped on a pair of tight coal pants altered to have numerous secret places to store weapons. I clipped a shimmery black stealth belt around my waist, but allowed it to hang loose on one side so it rested on my hips. My shoes were dark combat boots, but less bulky than most. The head plate I put on was a bright gold with black stripes reflective of those decorating my head-tails. It wrapped around the back of my head, the base of both my lekku and ended with a point an inch above my nose.
The weapons I brought were, of course, just as important. I fastened Lurek's blaster to the left side of my belt and secured a dagger along the length. I also hid two more vibroknives in my pockets in case this potential client was stupid enough to try anything.
Lurek wished me luck as I left. I moved confidently through the streets toward the client's address. It took me about twenty minutes to reach the place. It was a fairly generically sized house, not the tiny garage I had been living in nor anything as grand as Lurek's home. I banged loudly on the door and listened to the patter of feet inside. After a few moments, a mousy human man with messy, light hair answered. "Can I help you?" he squeaked.
"I've heard you have a job that needs doing."
His eyes widened and he almost began shaking. How this pathetic creature had survived on Nar Shaddaa thus far was beyond me. "Come in, come in." He widened the doorway and allowed me to pass, then shut it behind me. "Would you like something to drink or…?"
"Just cut to the chase, Mr…"
"Gren."
"Mr. Gren. Who is the mark?"
"A man named Kex Laran. My wife cheated on me with him and I want him to pay."
I glanced quickly around the area. "And where, Mr. Gren, is your wife now?"
"I took care of her already. But Kex is too strong for me to deal with myself."
I understood then how this man had survived on Nar Shaddaa; he might not be tough enough to survive a direct conflict, but he had the ruthlessness necessary to keep himself alive here. "Where can I find him?"
"He spends a lot of time in a cantina across the sector, called The Pit. Be careful, though. He is a large man so you may not be able to overpower him directly."
"Let me worry about the details, Mr. Gren. Just have my payment ready when I return."
"Of course." He showed me a holo of this Kex character so I'd know who to kill. He was a Sullustan and, judging by his brown, multi-pocketed vest, he seemed to be a pilot of some description. How he ever got into a pilot's seat, however, was beyond me. Gren had not been lying about this man being big; fortunately, though, he appeared to be just hefty, not well-muscled. He was the sort that frightened others merely because of his size, not because he had any fighting skills to speak of. I didn't imagine I would have any trouble taking him down. I was beginning to wonder, however, if Gren's story had any truth to it at all. I couldn't imagine why a human woman would sleep with that monster of a Sullustan; he wasn't good looking even by his own species' standards. Perhaps there was something else to this grudge than Gren had said.
I nodded once at the hologram and left, not giving the issue another thought. It didn't matter to me why Kex had been marked, so long as I got paid. I made my way immediately to the cantina Gren mentioned. If this were not Nar Shaddaa, I might have had to return home first to exchange my blaster for less obvious weaponry, but on the Smuggler's Moon everyone carried at least that much. To go into even a cantina with no weapon at all would earn you more strange looks. So, I was dressed perfectly for the occasion. I did, however, readjust my lekku on the way so that the right one was wrapped around my neck to obscure my collar scars. There was little I could do about the whip scar over my eye, but it looked less like a slave mark than the ones around my throat.
It only took me a few minutes to make my way to the cantina. I started to smell that horrible scent of alcohol and spices and for a second, I froze. Memories of evenings spent dancing for desperate men flooded through me and I had to swallow back bile. I took a deep breath, allowing my renewed anger to fuel my drive to complete this contract. I shook out the kinks in my shoulders. I wanted nothing more than to blast this mark into oblivion.
Keeping my disgust channeled to a useful place, I altered my stride so it emanated flirtatiousness and stepped into the cantina. It was a fairly busy venue; colored lights flashed in my eyes and noise that passed for music threatened to burst my eardrums. This would make it harder to locate the target, but easier to hide in plain sight. I guess you can't have everything. I spent some minutes gliding through the throngs of people to find the mark, taking care to look like I was simply enjoying the atmosphere. Finally, I saw him; he lounged in an obnoxiously colored chair behind the ropes signifying the VIP area. He had a blue Twi'lek on one arm and a green Nautolan on the other. Kex was as ugly as the holo had suggested, so he must have offered something to Gren's wife and these other women, perhaps fame or fortune. Regardless, he clearly appreciated the fairer sex, so that would be my way to him.
Sipping the non-alcoholic drink I had ordered, I sauntered gradually closer to the VIP area. I caught Kex's eye, bit my lip and winked at him. Once I noticed him staring, I looked away briefly, then back again. He smiled. I nodded my head toward the bouncer guarding the VIP area and Kex replied with a small crook of his finger. Smirking sultrily, I moved over and was waved into the area. Kex shooed off the other Twi'lek and I took her place beside him, under her heavy glares. For a time, I merely flirted. I flitted my touch across his skin and laughed teasingly at his suggestions. To this day, I haven't the faintest idea what I said to him during that time; I fell quickly into an instinctive state to entrap my prey.
When I was certain no one was watching, I leaned over and dropped a fine powder into his drink. I continued to flirt until I observed him take a sip. It was finished now. The poison would take about an hour to kick in and the contract would be fulfilled. In the meantime, though, I needed to extract myself from this situation without looking overly suspicious. To that end, I started a catfight with the other Twi'lek and tricked Kex into taking my side. I could see her fuming that I won and I knew it irritated her even more when I left shortly thereafter, saying that she had made me uncomfortable. I knew that her anger would make her look guilty when Kex bit it in about thirty minutes. It would draw attention away from me at least and tangle the story for anyone who went digging.
I took the time, when I left the cantina, to weave my way through back alleys and throw off anyone on my trail. When I did get back to Gren's, plenty of time had passed for him to learn that his enemy was dead. The final conversation between us was short and choppy, but the pay was decent.
I returned to Lurek's to find him waiting at the door for me. "So, how did it go?"
"Flawlessly. Quiet kill, happy client, slightly richer bounty hunter."
"Excellent," Lurk smiled.