John silently slipped over the back fence of the run-down property on sixth street in Summerlin. He had heard from one of his contacts that a low-level drug importer used the house as a stash house to hold his imported product before selling it to various dealers around town. According to Johns source the guy was independent the only person John would have to worry about pissing off by hitting the place was the importer himself.

When he had asked another associate of the family, Franky, if he wanted to join in on the action his friend had warned him it was unlikely that any importer would be working solo in Vegas and that he should walk away from the job – or at least involve the full family so that they would have the weight and protection of the family behind them. Involving more people meant splitting the profits more, however, and Johnny was sure it would all work out ok.

Now, as he made his way through the dark yard toward the house John began to wonder if maybe in his youthful confidence, he had bitten off more than he could chew. Both of the two windows in the back yard had thick steel bars that would require tools John didn’t have with him to get through. The door looked like it was a reinforced steel door with multiple locks – even with that, however, John was confident he could get through it – John prided himself on his lock-picking abilities after all.

No, what gave him pause was the voices he heard inside. There were several men joking, trading light insults, and laughing – not what John expected to find at an independent guys stash house.

Letting the allure of a large pay day overcome any concerns he might have – John hunkered down in some bushes near the window silently waiting for the men to either leave or go to bed for the night. The plan was simple in John’s mind – slip in quietly after the went to sleep, grab as much product and money as he could, and slip back out; oh, and make sure and pummel the no-good rat who sent him to a well defended house into a bloody pulp.

After about an hour the noise had died down and John could hear the men saying their good nights and making their way out of the room directly attached to the back door – what John assumed must be a sitting area or maybe a kitchen. Creeping up to the door John made quick work of all four of the locks and as silently as possible opened the door.

Stepping through the now open door John felt something hard slam into the back of his head, as he was trying to shake loose the cobwebs he felt himself being lifted and heard a gruff voice, “I told you I heard something out back didn’t I?

John felt himself being dragged into the next room before being slammed into a hard chair and feeling two vice like hands grabbing his shoulders and holding him down – though he wasn’t sure he could stand even if he wanted to and the blood he felt trickling down his neck made him a bit concerned about the condition of his head.

As he tried to keep the nausea and darkness at bay a middle aged man with dark but greying hair grabbed him by the chin and forced his head up to look him up before chuckling and saying to the other men in the room – “he’s just a fucking kid – what are you 15?”

A smart man would have held his tongue but John had never been known for his brains when his anger flared and being called 15 on top of everything else – after all those 2 years were important damn it! – made his blood boil. “I’m old enough to kill you if you don’t let me go – do you have any idea who your messing with?”

Laughing the man took a step back and signaled to another who taking a swift step forward slammed a baseball bat hard into John’s left knee. Pain flooded through John as he heard a bone crack.

The dark-haired man stepped up again and yanked John’s head back by the hair, “Alright smart ass, who sent you? Your obviously too stupid to figure this out on your own.”

As John was trying to clear the haze the pain he was feeling was causing he heard the back door fly open again and looking around saw three men with tommy guns come through the door with Franky at the front. The men in the room quickly drew their own weapons as Frank began to speak.

“Alright now gentlemen, there seems to have been a bit of a misunderstanding here. Our friend here got some bad intel and didn’t realize that this joint was being run by the Sixth Street Shooters and you didn’t know you were man handling an associate of Rising from Ashes.”

As Franky spoke John noticed a number of the men in the room pale slightly and look warily between the dark-haired man and John.

“So, what do you say we not mention the fact that you roughed up Johnny boy here to @Ms_Nikki and you let our friend here go without any further harm. Now, you might be thinking you outnumber us and can kill us before we leave the room – and hell, you might be right – but what do you think happens when word gets back that you killed four associates of one of the families? How far do you think you could run before you got sized for concrete shoes?”

Glancing around and seeing the fear on the faces of he men John new luck was on his side tonight even before the dark-haired man lowered his gun and signaled his men to do the same. Stepping to one side of the room he allowed Franky and one of the other men to come and help John up. As they were about to carry him out of the room the dark haired man asked, “Will you at least tell me who the bastard was that sent you here? He had to of know it would be a death sentence for you and that tells me he was hoping to stir shit between us and your boss.”

The thought of telling the man to go fuck himself briefly entered into John’s mind – after all, he was no snitch, but then it occurred to him that these men would likely bring far more pain to the asshole than he could before finally burying him.

“His name’s Alfonso Ritchie, do me a favor and tell him I said hello.”

As John was carried out to the waiting car it occurred to him that Franky had gotten there rather fast and well armed and that he obviously knew who was calling the shots in the house. Looking at Franky he asked, "If you knew that this house was being run by a local gang why didn't you tell me?" 

Shaking his head slightly Franky gave a small sad looking smirk before responding, "You wouldn't have listened - you thought you were too damned good. The only way I could have stopped ya was to get one of the bosses involved and then you would have just been pissed at me and not learned anything, I figured a bit of time in the school of hard knocks would do ya some good. Didn't mean for your leg to get busted up like that though - I thought they were just going to beat ya up a bit first but that mouth of yours seemed to piss him off. Hopefully it will remind you to be a bit more prudent in the future though." 

John wanted to be furious but he realized Franky was right. Shaking his head at his own stupidity and rashness he settled back in the seat as the car rumbled down the street and back toward the safety of headquarters - and hopefully a decent doctor.