Dublin, Ireland.

June 27th, 2011.

"Enjoy your stay, sir." The hotel attendant said to the young man before him, "I will." The young man said in response, grabbing up his black metal briefcase and then heading for an elevator. The hotel attendant watched the man, waiting until he stepped into an empty elevator and the doors to close to grab the telephone near him. He tapped several of the buttons quickly, eyes still on the elevator. "He's on his way up. He's alone." He said to whoever was on the other end of the line.

In the elevator the young man stood, briefcase in hand. He watched the numbers that showed which floor he was on change and change. First the lobby, then second, and so on. The button he had highlighted being the eleventh. As he watched the number change to nine he looked up. His eyes seeming as if they were searching for something.

Waiting on the eleventh floor were several armed men, all of them with pistols in hand. Waiting outside of the elevator for the young man. "Be ready, boys." One of the men said as the 'ding' of the elevator coming to a stop was heard. The men raised their pistols, opening fire before and while the doors were opening. Effectively eliminating anyone inside. Except, there was no one. It was empty. "Shit. Find him!" One of the men shouted at the others, sending them all scrambling in different directions. The hunt had begun.

Little did they know they were the prey. The young man was out for revenge. The man they knew only as a contract killer by the name of Nine. He wasn't there for money. He was there because less than a year ago these men tried to destroy the last of his father's legacy. His family.

He climbed up the elevator shaft using a ladder, looking down as the elevator he was on started to move. It went down just as he planned, he pressed every single button for every floor below the one he stopped on. A way to also make anyone on the lobby floor wait for at least a few minutes. "Four..." He muttered to himself, counting the amount of floors he had gone up. He was approaching the last floor, right about the fifteenth would have been the penthouse. It was locked down. It was probably a little more than suicidal for him to go up there and try to kill, fight, or talk to anyone. But he had gone too far to turn back. This was probably his only chance.

Nine came to a halt at the penthouse floor, staring at the elevator door as if contemplating his next move. "Here goes..." He said, grabbing a grenade from a pocket. Nine raised it up to his mouth, pulling the pin with his teeth as letting go of the ladder would lead to him falling to his death or dangling in an elevator shaft if he got caught on anything. He silently counted down, tossing the grenade at almost the last minute towards the elevator door.

The men on the other side were expecting someone to come through the elevator door. What they weren't expecting was the doors to be thrown down the hall, killing, injuring, and knocking out whoever was in it's path. This was his chance, Nine awkwardly jumped towards the elevator door. His right foot missing and almost sending him down the shaft, but he was able to grab hold of the wall and pull himself in. "Get 'em!" A man yelled, opening fire on the young man. "Erin would love this." He said with a chuckle, making a dash away from the armed man and anyone else who might be coming. He threw his body against a door, crashing into a room and coming across a scared couple who were probably on their honeymoon. "Might want to duck." Nine said to them, turning onto his back and pulling his pistols from their places.

He aimed them at the door, but no one came in. "Eh...?" He looked down, seeing the tip of a boot creeping out. "Gotcha." He said, turning his aim on the wall. Squeezing the trigger, gradually moving his aim back down towards the door and effectively killing all of the men hugging the wall.

"Sorry about this. I'll uh... make this up to you." He said to the couple as he reloaded his pistols. "Might want to keep ducking for now though." He said, getting up to his feet slowly. "Again, sorry." The young man told the two, heading out into the hall. "Seven." He muttered to himself, stepping over the bodies in the hall as he began to move. His eyes scanning the room doors for a specific number.

"Seven."

There it was. The door with the number seven on it. He was sure he was about to enter the room that would probably be the place he died. The last room he'd ever enter. Twenty-one years old and gunned down by Irish mobsters in a hotel. So much paper work for the local police force. Not that he cared. He took a deep breath. This was it. His moment of truth. His chance to exact some revenge on the assholes who killed his father and paralyzed his mother. He raised both weapons to the door, raising a foot to it and nearly knocking it off of it's hinges. Nine quickly moved into the penthouse room, his weapons aimed around searching for enemy gangsters. It was empty. His targets had escaped. He was too late. Too slow and he hated to be too slow.

"They said you'd be here soon." A woman's voice said from behind him, prompting Nine to turn to the sound of it. His weapons still raised. The voice belonged to a red-haired woman who looked to be in her late twenties dressed in all black. To Nine she looked like an extra from the Matrix and she wasn't all that bad looking to either. "I was expecting the trap to be a bunch of heavily armed men, not some Goth woman." Nine said to her, "The black is so the blood doesn't show after I kill you. Can't have people telling the cops that I was here." The woman said to Nine. The accent she had was American, but very distinct. She was Irish, but she wasn't from the country. "Boston?" Nine asked her, "Very astute. Stop talking now." She said, reaching back and finding a clean combat knife.

"We're using hands?" Nine asked her, "Yeah. I want this to be a challenge." She said to him with a cocky grin, "You do know I lived most of my life in South Central Los Angeles, right?" Nine asked, lowering his weapons to his sides. "Yeah, so?" The woman responded, "We don't fight fair when it comes to the fuckers who wronged us." He said, raising one of his pistols and firing off every round in it. Almost all of them hit the woman, sending her back and against a wall. Blood quickly pooling and then being absorbed by the expensive rug.

"I'm on a tight schedule. Don't have time for this." Nine said to himself, heading out of the room and back to the elevator. He couldn't go down, he was sure. The roof was the only way to go.

Sixteen stories up.