Thank God for that small mercy.
I stood alone in the rain, watching it disappear around a distant corner.
Gone. Safe. Protected.
That's what mattered here.
Not my safety. Theirs.
Ellsworth appeared silently beside me moments later, materializing from one of the trailing security vehicles like a well-dressed ghost in expensive wet clothes.
Choosing to stand with me.
The Sanctuary hired guns stayed wisely inside their armored SUVs. Engines running steadily. Weapons ready but still concealed from public view.
Waiting for clear orders. Waiting to see how this situation played out.
This whole scene was intensely, absurdly cinematic in its staging.
Rain pounding down around us with relentless force like the sky itself was trying to wash something fundamentally dirty clean and failing.
Like something directly out of a movie. A bad European thriller, maybe, but still dramatically effective.
Like in those films, a door opened smoothly on one of the black vehicles currently blocking our path.
A man stepped out first—clearly professional security, clearly experienced—and opened the back door with practiced, efficient movements.
Another man emerged slowly and deliberately from the dark interior.
Older. Distinguished. Powerful.
He was immediately flanked protectively by four men appearing from other vehicles. All tall. All broad-shouldered. Alldangerous in that quiet, supremely competent way that meant serious military or intelligence training.
Professional killers wearing suits.
But the man in the center was fundamentally, obviously different from his protection detail.
Impeccably dressed in a tailored charcoal suit that probably cost more than most people earned in six months. Regal bearing despite his obvious age—early seventies, I'd estimate—but he carried himself with the unmistakable, unshakeable confidence of a man who'd held real, substantial power for most of his life.
Authority and wealth worn as casually as his expensive watch.
Ellsworth and I walked forward through the hammering rain to meet them halfway.
Professional courtesy between dangerous men. Or maybe mutual, grudging respect for potential violence.
I was acutely, tactically aware that many weapons were currently pointed in both directions right now.
Hidden but ready. Fingers resting on triggers. Safeties disengaged.
A classic standoff in the rain. Good guys versus bad guys.
The older man stopped ten feet away from us.
Smiled slightly, rain streaming down his weathered face without seeming to bother him.
Comfortable in the storm.
"Kane Black," he said with certainty, like we were old acquaintances.
