Kasien
Present
The forest closes around us like a fist. Thick trunks, wet moss, cold air humming through the branches. It’s darker here than it should be. The kind of dark that’s actually perfect for us.
We leave the SUVs behind and move in a scattered formation, twenty-one men dissolving into the trees like smoke. The fog lingers low on the ground, curling around our boots. Even our breaths look muted here.
Marko signals one fist up and we halt instantly. Then I see it ahead of us—faint movement in a raised hunting stand. A guard with a rifle leaning against his shoulder, but he looks half-asleep.
Adrien climbs up the ladder silently, careful step by step, no creaks. A hand clamps over the guard’s mouth, a short struggle follows, then a single slice beneath the jaw.
The body slumps forward, blood pattering softly against the wood. Adrien slowly drags him out and lowers him down to us before we cover the body with a fallen branch.
We continue ahead, another guard stands by an old stone wall—smoking, bored, the light of his cigarette glowing in the dark like a firefly. Marko emerges from behind a tree, loops a garrote wire around the man’s throat and yanks him backward into the shadows. The legs kick once, twice, then nothing. He lowers the body and wipes his palms on his pants, eyes sharp and empty.
“Two down,” he murmurs.
A third lookout patrols the ridge above us, flashlight swinging lazily, cutting through fog. I gesture to the youngest of our silencers. He nods, crouches, and stalks up the incline. When the guard turns, confused by a sound that wasn’t there, the silencer shoots once, directly into his sternum and the guard drops like a bag of gravel.
Three kills and zero noise so far.
Nice.
We slip deeper into the woods and finally the estate wall rises between the trees. Tall, concrete, modern and wet with condensation. There are no cameras along the outer ring, just hidden motion sensors beneath the soil. We step over them one by one, exactly where Marko indicated. A wrong step here triggers a silent alarm and it’s over.
“Tunnel entrance ahead,” Marko murmurs.
We drop into the wide drainage trench, sliding down the damp bank on our boots. The grate is rusted, half-swallowed by roots. Adrien crouches and starts working on the screws.
“Give me a second,” he whispers.
I give him none and rip the grate off myself. It groans low, metal bending like bone.
“Idiot!” he whisper-yells.
I drop inside, everyone following me one by one. The tunnel is narrow and cold, with the concrete beneath us slick and covered by a thin layer of water. We crouch low, moving single-file. Every sound echoes here.
Halfway in, Marko raises a hand. A guard sits at the far end of the tunnel, nodding off periodically, watching something on his phone.
I whistle under my breath, just a soft noise to catch his attention, before I shoot a silenced bullet into his forehead.
Perfect.
The body doesn’t even fall, it’s eased down against the wall instead.
We slip through into a service basement, dimly lit by dying emergency strips. Pipes run along the ceiling and condensation drips onto the old concrete. It smells like oil, metal and mold.
The generator room is ahead. Two guards sit at the panel, half-turned toward each other, arguing about something.
Marko gestures to us. I take the left and Adrien the right. I slip behind the first guard, press a hand over his mouth, I slide the blade into the artery behind the collarbone. His body twitches once, then goes limp. Adrien does the same, even faster, but messier.
We drag them behind a stack of old equipment. Marko plants the charge under the coil.
“You ready?” he whispers.
I just nod and wipe the blood on my hands on my jacket.
He triggers it, the generator coughs and sparks, and everything goes black instantly.
