"You picked the lock of an apartment I'm currently occupying." The Glock stays trained center mass. "Everything in this room concerns me."
"The woman accessed information she shouldn't have." Flat. Recited. The tone of a man delivering terms, not having a conversation. "My employer wants the situation resolved."
"Your employer can fuck off."
A ghost of a smile moves across his face. "Black Helix doesn't fuck off. We resolve problems. Permanently."
Black Helix.
The name hits like a file opening—one I've read but never expected to activate. A syndicate that operates in the negative space between official designations, the kind of organization that exists specifically because governments need things done that governments can't be seen doing. Information brokering. Trafficking infrastructure. Wet work contracted at a level that most criminal organizations never reach and most intelligence agencies deny knowing about.
I know the name from Guardian HRS briefings and threat assessments. I know the shape of them, the reach, the methodology.
I've never personally intersected with them.
That changes right now.
"Kade?" Wren's voice from the bedroom—sleep-rough, disoriented. "What's?—"
He moves.
Not toward me. Toward her voice. I'm already moving to cut him off and we collide in the narrow hallway with a force that rattles the framed print off the wall.
He's good. Better than good.
The elbow he drives into my ribs as I deflect his weapon hand lands with the precision of someone who drilled that combination until it became involuntary—his pistol spins away into the dark, but the impact buckles my guard just long enough for him to use my own momentum against me.
He pivots, redirects, and slams me into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
We grapple in the dark. No wasted noise—just the brutal, economical exchange of two people who have done this before and understand that the one who’s still breathing at the end is the one who wins. He gets his hands around my throat. The pressure is immediate and serious, vision sparking at the edges.
I break the grip with a short, savage palm strike to the bridge of his nose. Blood. Warm and metallic, spattering across my forearm.
He doesn't make a sound. Transitions directly from the broken grip to a kidney punch that drops a curtain of white across my vision.
I'm losing ground. He's heavier, fresher, and I'm still burning off the fog of too little sleep—four hours, maybe less. My reaction time is a fraction slow. He's reading it.
Then Wren appears in the bedroom doorway wearing nothing but my shirt from last night, eyes wide, one hand braced on the doorframe.
Something in me goes very quiet and very cold.
I stop fighting defensively.
I headbutt him—forehead to the bridge of his nose, cartilage crunching on impact. His head snaps back. I take the opening, sweep his lead leg hard, and follow him to the floor with my full weight behind it.
The landing is ugly for both of us. I get my arm under his chin anyway, locking the rear-naked choke before he can recover his bearings.
He thrashes with the specific controlled violence of someone trained to escape this exact position. His fingers rake my forearm, nails deep enough to draw blood. He bucks, tries to roll me, gets nowhere.
I hold the pressure steady, methodical—not rage, just arithmetic. He fights it for twenty seconds, maybe twenty-five. Then the thrashing slows. His hands go from clawing to pushing to barely moving.
He's not done.
His right hand drops to his boot. Backup blade—he finds the handle in the dark with the ease of a man who has reached for it before.
I release the choke and roll clear, and the knife cuts nothing but air where my neck was half a second ago. He comes up in a crouch, breathing hard through his wrecked nose, the blade glinting in the low light filtering through the window.
The dynamic just changed. I'm unarmed at close quarters with a man holding a knife and the kind of training that knows how to use one.
