“You know, this ain’t nobody’s fault but yours, doll,” Big Sal opined, taking a drag of his cigarette. Activity never truly ceased around the Umbra City docks, the coming and going of ships and their cargos never-ending, but even had the mafioso and his crew been conducting their business in a crowded municipal park in broad daylight, none would have dared snoop in or interfere. The Pauletti crime family owed this town, their influence felt in a thousand acts of graft and extortion and even outright murder, and anyone stupid enough to cross them was usually found floating a few days later by the very docks on which he’d parked. Shame this broad never learned that lesson. “If you had just done as you’d been told, I wouldn’t have had to get nasty, and you’d be on your way to the boss in style. Now…”
The only response from the svelte Asian beauty squirming in the trunk of the car was an angry, brown-eyed glare, not a sound escaping the length of cloth bound tightly over her mouth. Sal had to admit that the boss had peculiar tastes in dames: with all the lovely ladies Umbra City had to offer, why this one woman had caught his eye like she had, he’d never know. Still, he had to admit she was a looker, especially in that tight, full-length sapphire-blue cheongsam, the slits up the side giving him a great view of her long, stocking-clad legs, raven-black hair cascading down to the small of her back. She’d been foolish enough to spurn an offer from the boss to become his latest squeeze, declaring that she’d sooner die then spend a moment in his company, and now she was paying for that. A chloroform-soaked rag over her nose and mouth as she left the lounge where she worked as a singer, and that was the end of that, the ropes securing her wrists and ankles just an extra bit of insurance to see that she couldn’t run off when he delivered her to the boss. Sal smirked, resisting the urge to unbutton the dress and get an even better look at the goods. “You’re a lucky one, you know that, right? Ain’t every day a broad like you gets a… personal invitation from the boss. Maybe if you start acting like you deserve to be his big squeeze, he can really help your career, you know? Make sure you and that sweet voice of yours get to the big time?”
Said sweet voice uttered a muffled curse in answer. “Have it your way, doll,” the gangster replied, reaching for the trunk’s handle.
Above the clamour of the labour gangs and the distant blare from the horns of approaching ships, the gunshot rang out, and the thirty years Big Sal spent as an enforcer for the Paulettis ended in a whimper, the gaze of his intended victim never flinching as he fell to the pavement, dead. Only when the shadowy figure stepped out beneath the flickering glow of the lamppost did she allow the shield of her resolve to fall, urgent, muffled pleas escaping through the gag. “Sorry I kept you waiting, Dianna,” her rescuer murmured, quickly severing her restraints, before offering a gloved hand. “Can you forgive me?”
Smiling, Dianna Chang threw her arms about the Spectre, offering him a loving squeeze. “I think I can be persuaded…”