Jim liked to keep a calm composure when dealing with matters head on that caused a certain spark of anger to form. The calmer he was, the more he should be avoided. Those that had worked for him for an extended period of time understood this. Understood the difference between calm, and composure. Sebastian Moran knew especially, but he didn't have the luxury of avoiding Jim at the moment.

"Sebby, darling, I told you to take them out cleanly." Jim said, voice even and collected until he slipped and hissed the last word.

"They had more security than we were expecting," Sebastian defended, and Jim's dark eyes narrowed dangerously. If the mercenary hadn't been working for him for as long as he had, and if he wasn't the best sniper that was at his disposal, then Sebastian Moran would be dead. Jim would have even killed the man himself because of the mess that had been created due to the sniper.

" They were his sons." Jim snapped, then took a breath to calm himself. It should have been simple. The consulting criminal didn't control all of the criminal underworld. Just most of it. Those that weren't under his thumb provided problems for obvious reasons. When he was pulling the strings for so many organizations of schemes he didn't want some third factor to come in and ruin the planning he'd done or steal the markets he'd created. Taking out the nuances was much preferable, and normally there were no issues. Of course Sebastian would be the one to finally miss something.

The man wasn't unintelligent. Jim knew that. The problem was that he was far too confident in his abilities at times because he was such an excellent sniper, and the result was rushing into things rather than making sure that the information given to him was right. In this case, it had ended with three of Jim's other snipers dead and Sebastian barely making it out with only a scratch or two. The sons of the drug lord he'd been after were dead, but rather than being able to make a clean getaway a fire fight had broken out. The criminal was just grateful for small mercies as the incident had occurred outside the country so he wouldn't have the Holmes brothers bearing down on him. Not quite yet, anyway. The real problem was that Sebastian had been seen and identified rather than remaining a faceless shadow. With his children dead, Jim fully expected retaliation against the mercenary as revenge and if he were honest the criminal didn't feel like going through the effort to protect Sebastian. It had been the man's own fault…but now that he was down three snipers it was far better to keep his best one out of harm's way. ..For the sake of business.

"Stay at your flat, and don't show your face to the nice CCTV cameras so the Iceman doesn't point anyone in your direction." Jim ordered. The elder Holmes was not above consorting with criminals if it meant striking a blow at Moriarty. A fact that was amusing until it actually became a bit of an annoyance.

"Got it, Boss." Sebastian said, and Jim dismissed him with a glare. Now that he was left alone in one of his many flats he leaned back in his chair where he sat at his desk. A hand moved to run through his dark hair as he thought. He really needed to find someone to replace Sebastian.

They hadn't lingered in the flat for too long as Sherlock seemed satisfied with what he'd been able to gather. He went so far as to contact Lestrade via text to inform the DI of the location before they were off again. The detective silent as he presumably worked through the small bits and pieces of evidence he'd found. Meanwhile, the shell casings from the assassin's rifle were burning a hole in John's pocket. He already had plans for them, of course. Now that he had the things he planned to wipe them down carefully and use them to plant somewhere else later. He didn't normally frame anyone for his assassinations, but considering the fact that Sherlock was on the hunt and he still had Moriarty to deal with…

Halfway back to the flat John's phone went off. It seemed like his day was getting better and better. As if he didn't have enough on his plate already, but he'd been expecting someone to call with a contract sooner or later. As it were, John had to admit that he might actually need a contract to calm himself. Interesting really, as most people wouldn't find killing people calming.

"Give me a minute, Sherlock?" John questioned as he pulled out his phone, checking the number briefly to see if he recognized it. He wasn't really worried about the call being traced. Sherlock had tampered with it at one point to ensure that Mycroft couldn't listen in on any calls he made, unknowingly aiding the assassin as he did so. Thankfully John had been given enough warning at the time to remove the small implant in the phone he'd cashed in a favor for. It made pinpointing his location near impossible thanks to some software that was military grade. Experimental, highly classified, and completely and utterly alive in the black market already.

When Sherlock paused to give John an almost irritated look-he'd interrupted the detective's thoughts-the assassin waved a hand for the man to just keep going. "I'll catch up." He said before walking in the opposite direction. Once he was far enough away to be able to speak he slid his thumb over the screen of his phone to answer the call.

"What do you need?" he questioned, and compared to how he'd spoken with Sherlock there was a large difference in tone and inflection. Now there was little friendly warmth and companionship. It was cold. Business-like. He almost sounded like a different person as he spoke lowly into the receiver, and through the medium of the phone the person on the other end would probably be unable to recognize it. Even if that person were to know him well, or at least well enough to recognize his voice.

"There's a man that I need killed," the other said, a man by the sound of it but-thankfully-no one John knew like, say, Moriarty. "His name's Sebastian Moran."

So…This is what happens when I have time and I get a bunch of reviews! Two updates in the same day! This was bugging me all day so I'm sorry for the poor quality but I really needed to get this out.

I'm throwing our favorite consulting criminal back into the mix again, and don't worry, still Johniarty.

Oh the drama.

Have a good day!

Reaperess ^_^