"Phoenix just responded."
Chapter 20
In Plain Sight
Anton:
Through the gap between stacked containers, I watch the figure move. It flows through the shadows like water finding cracks. No wasted motion. No hesitation.
Professional.
My rifle scope tracks him as he approaches the tracker I left where I'd been standing minutes ago, when he thought he shot me.
I adjust my aim. Dead men don't talk.
Two clicks of acknowledgement come through my earpiece. Dominic and Alexei are ready at their positions, targeting lower.
"Now."
Gunfire erupts from three positions. The figure moves, dropping and rolling with reflexes that shouldn't be possible. He disappears behind a container stack.
Dominic's position goes silent first, then Alexei's. I'm already moving, keeping to the shadows, weapon ready. We converge on the tracker's location from different angles. Standard extraction protocol.
The ground where the figure fell is empty except for crushed metal and circuit board fragments.
I scan the container stacks, the narrow passages between metal walls, the darkness that feels suddenly too thick. Every person associated with anyone I killed that night seven years ago came back clean. Dead, relocated, or so thoroughly neutered they couldn't organize a vendetta if their lives depended on it.
But someone from that night is here.
That information was manufactured.
Movement catches my peripheral vision. The figure materializes between containers fifty meters out, standing there, facing me, shoulders loose. Confident.
Too confident.
My rifle comes up smooth, scope finding his thigh, finger moving to the trigger. Still aiming to immobilize. Still need answers.
Then, there's a sound above me. Not wind. Not metal settling—but a body dropping fast from the container roof. I track the movement, already pivoting. He's airborne, weapon raised, a knife, not a gun, descending with the full force of gravity and trained aggression.
My hand closes around a metal pipe propped against the container—two feet of solid steel, cold and perfect.
I swing as he drops, a controlled arc that catches his weapon arm mid-descent. The impact reverberates through my shoulders. His knife flies from his grip, clattering across concrete into darkness.
He lands hard but controlled, already rolling, trying to create distance. But I'm already on him.
The pipe hits his knee before he can stand. I hear a crack. He grunts, stumbles, and tries to turn on his good leg. I don't give him time. I swing the pipe again, this time catching his shoulder and sending him into the container wall. The metallic clang rings out across the shipping yard.
"Stay down," I say, my voice cold and steady. "Or the next one breaks your skull."
He slumps against the container, breathing hard, blood streaming from where his head hit the metal. But his eyes...
Green. Sharp. Familiar.
The Armenian from the warehouse. Sergei Petrosyan. "Gregor Markov sends his regards."
The name means nothing. Another ghost. Another manufactured lead in this elaborate fucking maze.
I take a step closer, pipe raised. "Who hired Markov? Who's pulling the strings?"
