He was an amateur, a local hire rather than Shaw's elite, and his stance telegraphed everything.
I stepped into his space and brought my cane down on his wrist. The gun clattered to the floor, and confusion crossed his face as he tried to understand how a man with a cane could move that fast. It was his final thought before my silver handle crushed his trachea.
My leg screamed at me for the rapid movement, and I ignored it.
I collected the radio units and security badges for Xavier to disable remotely.
"Camera loop confirmed," Xavier reported through our earpieces. "Reid's team secured the sublevel. Prototype location confirmed. Elevator access twenty meters ahead."
Reid's voice cut in. "East corridor clear. Moving to extraction with the package. You're clear to proceed to Shaw."
The elevator doors parted to reveal private access to the executive level, and Ling's keycard worked perfectly.
The interior featured gold-veined marble floors and mahogany panels, wealth designed to intimidate visitors before they reached Shaw. The gold Fibonacci spiral on the control panel mimicked my Spade Tower design, but the proportions were poor and the edges uneven in another failed attempt at replication.
"Identical security architecture," Maxime said, standing close enough that his breath warmed my neck. "Two generations behind ours."
Shaw's obsession with replication never included timeliness.
The elevator ascended. Twenty-six hours had passed since I'd marked him, since I'd claimed him, and his proximity still did things to me I couldn't afford. Not yet.
But soon. After the mission, after Shaw, after vengeance. The future had always been tactical objectives and acquisitions, but now it held other possibilities, dangerous ones.
"He builds his kingdom from our scraps," I said.
My watch vibrated with Reid's message: East sector clear. Security neutralized. Prototype secured.
Reid had the Banshee, and now I just needed Shaw.
The doors opened onto a gallery of insults. A Basquiat landscape hung on the left wall with a composition eerily similar to mine in Cincinnati, while a Hemming sculpture from the artist's lesser Blue Period stood opposite. Shaw had studied photographs of my collection and acquired whatever approximations he could find, treating art as inventory rather than revelation in another fundamental misunderstanding of power.
Maxime's shoulder brushed mine as we approached the corner. The bruises I'd left along his throat were visible above his tactical collar, purple-black against olive skin. He was mine.
"Two guards ahead," he whispered. "Local security. They look nervous."
The silver tip of my cane pressed into imported marble, and each step sent pain radiating up my damaged leg where metal ground against bone. I welcomed it because pain clarified and pain focused.
I nodded once.
Maxime moved, and the guard on the left registered the threat too late. Hand over mouth, strike to the nerve cluster, and the body went down silent. The second reached for his weapon, and I struck with my cane to the jaw and collapsed his throat before a second strike to the temple finished it.
We dragged the bodies behind an antique screen, and our eyes met briefly in the silent language of thirty-two years. I noted the dilation of his pupils and the slight flush beneath his skin. The hunt always affected him this way.
"Ready?" He withdrew his sidearm.
I nodded.
The doors swung open to reveal Shaw's private office. Floor-to-ceiling windows displayed Macau's skyline as casino lights pulsed across the harbor. The space was a masterclass in wealth without taste, with every element selected to mirror what he'd seen in my residences over the years.
Maxime drew his suppressed Glock, stepping into position at my right. The time for stealth was over.
The rosewood desk was custom carved to mirror mine but with the proportions all wrong. The Italian leather chair was a shade too orange to be genuine cognac. Black marble veined with gold stood where mine featured blue-black basalt, and the crystal decanter mimicked my antique Baccarat, but the cut lacked quality.
It was like a child's crayon approximation of a masterpiece.
Behind the oversized desk sat Gideon Shaw, with his silver hair immaculate and his tailored suit too tight across the shoulders. A crystal tumbler of amber liquid rested by his right hand, and the smile that spread across his face contained nothing but smug satisfaction.
"Algerone." He raised his glass in mock salute. "Your timing is impeccable as always."
