Mireille looked at the decoded email. It looked like SHIELD had a contract for them.

"Kirika?" She called. "We have a job."

After her partner was seated next to her, Mireille brought up the picture attached to the message.

"General Solohob. Formerly of the KGB, now a leading figure in the Russian mob. We've been tasked to bring him in for questioning about some of the people he does business with, preferably without anyone realizing who is really behind his capture."

"Where can we find him?" Kirika asked.

"Our client doesn't know, beyond that he's based somewhere in Moscow. Let's see if there's anything else in the profile that might help us track him down."

The two women flipped through the dossier. Name, height, weight, age, a rough overview of his military career, most of the information was unimportant to their mission. Then they came to a couple pieces of information that would be useful - a personal rivalry and a hobby. Put them together, and the mission was workable.

"We don't have to find him," Mireille smiled. "He's going to invite us in."

A week later, Mireille was lounging in the bar of a restaurant in Moscow waiting for her target to arrive. Solohob was apparently fond of blondes, and in the habit of having his aide Selnikov procure women for him. As Selnikov was fond of this restaurant, hopefully he would spot her and take the bait.

She was in luck. Selnikov was among the customers at the restaurant that night. After his meal, he wandered over to the bar, where between drinks he looked over Mireille and the rather revealing dress she was wearing and drew the conclusion she wanted him to make.

"Are you interested in going to a party?" He asked, "I have a friend who'd love to make your acquaintance."

"I'd be delighted."

After getting into Selnikov's car, she sent a quick text message to Kirika letting her know that the job was on, followed by a second text when they reached their destination saying where she was - a factory near the edge of town.

When she was taken to meet the General, she saw that he was in a meeting with two people. One of them - a large ex-soldier type who had replaced his right hand with a large spiked mace and was talking into a cell phone - was clearly a bodyguard. The other looked familiar to her.

After a few moments, Mireille realized who he was. Don Vincente Fortunato, a crime boss her father had once dealt with on occasion. Fortunately, it seemed that the old man didn't recognize her as the daughter of a long deceased business partner. Since Mireille had been seven the last time they had met, she supposed that wasn't really surprising.

"Magnificent," The general said as he looked her over. "Unfortunately, business must come before pleasure. Please take her to the other room until I am finished here."

As Selinkov lead her away, Mireille heard the man with the mace say "Something went wrong with the Bauer job, boss." before passing out of earshot. She was then lead to a break room used by some of the general's off-duty men and excused himself to deal with other business elsewhere in the city. Mireille patiently waited and listened to them gossip until a vibration from her cell phone told her that Kirika was in position.

"It's getting rather dull just sitting here," She said coyly as she played with one of the straps on her dress. "Isn't there something more fun we could be doing?"

The guards tried their best to maintain straight faces, no doubt knowing how much trouble they would get in if the general caught them toying with his plaything without permission.

Mireille edged closer to one of the guards and placed her hand on his cheek. "I bet you have some impressive equipment," She purred as her hand slowly trailed down his body.

"I can think of all sorts of things I can do with it," Her hand settled on his waist.

"Like this, for example." Her hand closed on his pistol, which she drew in one smooth movement as she spun and opened fire on the other men in the room.

Kirika walked up to the old factory with her hands in the pockets of her coat. The two men at the gate eyed her suspiciously, no doubt wondering why someone would go for a stroll in this part of the city. Before they could demand that she explain what she was doing there, she pressed a button in each of the pockets. The blades of the spring-loaded knives she had been gripping shot through the fabric and into the throats of the guards. Sending a call to Mireille's cellphone to signal the attack, Kirika made her way into the building.

Sandwiched between two foes, the defenders separating the two assassins were quickly eliminated. After they hooked up, they quickly tracked the general down to a loading dock filled with goods that he was planning to either buy or sell to the man he was with.

Even if the professional criminals that Noir had been sent after didn't know who they were, they clearly understood what they were. Solohob called for more of his men while the other man ordered his bodyguard to attack.

As Mireille covered one of the entrances that Solohob's men could arrive by, the man who was aptly named Mace charged at Kirika, the namesake weapon grafted to his wrist swinging. Kirika easily dodged the first two swings, but during the third, something sprayed out of the prosthetic into her eyes, and she staggered back in pain, blinded. The only thing that kept Mace from smashing her head in before she could recover was Mireille hurriedly emptying a full clip at him, forcing the man to fall back.

A group of men entered the room through a side entrance. Kirika heard one of them note her incapacitation. Aiming for the sound of his voice, she gunned him down. The others all charged at her, making nice, loud footsteps as they went. Yes, she was in pain. Yes, she was blinded. But she had been trained to be able to resist pain. She had been trained to be able to aim a gun using her hearing rather than her sight. The faster they tried to get to her, the easier it was for her to target them.

As the last of that group of men fell, Kirika heard a strange noise from the direction Mace had been in. She leapt aside on pure instinct as something large and fast rushed past her. Rolling to a kneeling position, she opened fire in the direction of the original noise, and was rewarded with a cry of pain.

"Are you alright, Kirika?" Mireille's voice called out. "I've got Solohob and Fortunato. Everyone else is down."

"Mace sprayed something in my eyes. I can't see anything beyond blurs."

"Alright, let me make sure these two can't make a break for it and then I'll help you to the car. Once we make it to the safehouse we can wash your eyes out. In the meantime, if you hear anyone trying to make a run for it, shoot them."

Apparently the knowledge that Kirika had been shooting blind for most of the fight terrified their prisoners into compliance, because they didn't try to run. But as they were loaded into a car, General Solohob did make one gesture of defiance.

"Do you think you can get away with this? Once the rest of my men learn what happened here, they will hunt you down and destroy you."

Mireille laughed, "What makes you think they'll be coming after us?"

Selnikov looked at the carnage. Only three people were missing from the slaughter: The general, his customer, and the prostitute. And since there was no reason why the latter would have been dragged away with the other two, she was almost certainly a spy sent to find the General and call in an attack. But for who?

Then he saw that two of the bodies had not been killed with a gun. Buried in their throats were the blades of a pair of spring-loaded Spetsnaz combat knives. And most of the Spetsnaz in the Russian Mob were employed by the general's old enemy Lermontov.

Selnikov called in the rest of Solohob's organization. If Lermontov wanted war, he was going to get it.

The day after Mireille reported the successful completion of their mission, SHIELD sent someone to collect their prisoners and what Mireille had been able to loot from Solohob's office.

"I've heard a lot about you, General," Natasha Romanov said. "We have a great deal to talk about." Then she turned to Fortunato. "And who is this?"

"His name's Vincente Fortunato." Mireille responded. "He's the head of a mid-ranked crime family in North America. He was trying to conclude a business deal with the general when we arrived."

"Fortunato... I think they might be on the list of families suspected to be part of the Maggia. Nice work.

"I believe you two need to be trained up in a few skills before you can be considered proper agents. Now seems like a good time to start that training." The Black Widow smiled coldly at the prisoners. "Today we'll be having a practical lesson in Interrogation 101."

Agent Koenig wrote down Agent Romanov's report and headed to the Director's office.

"We just got an update from Moscow, sir." He reported. "She's begun the interrogation process on both prisoners - in addition to the general, Noir also managed to capture a Maggia chieftain from New York as well - but it will take a while before we get all the answers we need.

"Miss Bouquet also reported overhearing two things that might be of interest. First, the New York chieftain apparently tried some action against someone named Bauer, an action which apparently failed. Second, some of Solohob's men mentioned their boss trying to conclude a deal with the Hoxha organization in Albania. That might be connected with what happened to Agent Mills.

"We also got a message from Agent Finch. Apparently the laptop seized during the raid doesn't contain any real information about either organization's operations, but it does contain banking information that was going to be used for a transaction that Noir interrupted. Apparently he thinks he can siphon money out of those accounts and into our own, though it might take some time to launder it sufficiently to avoid Samaritan's notice. Does he have permission to proceed?"

Director Coulson smiled. It looked like their money troubles were about to go away for a while. "Permission granted."

A/N: Solohob and Lermentov are figures in the Russian Mob who were mentioned by name during the interrogation scene in The Avengers but never appeared. Vincente Fortunato and Gideon Mace are Maggia figures from the comics.