“Where,” I repeated, ignoring him while letting every syllable drop heavy. “Vladimir. Roman’s family. Where are they?”
He wheezed a laugh. Blood flecked his lips. “Too late,” he said. “Up or down. You won’t find them.”
Valkyrie’s jaw tightened beside me.
“Which floor,” I pressed.
“Thirteen. Fourteen. Maybe seven. Fuck you,” he grinned then, wide enough to show pink teeth. “We’ve set the stage. You Devils? You’re late to the show.”
“Enough,” I said,
His head lolled toward the SECURITY / OPS door. “We jammed your eyes first. Cut the cams. Looped what we wanted,” the man’s breath rattled. His gaze unfocused for a second, then snapped back, stubborn.
Priest and Turnpike showed up beside us.
“Heard voices,” they said.
The Serpent coughed then and sprayed more red across his chin.
”You’re just fleas that wandered into a bonfire. You’ll look good in the background shots when this goes viral.”
He started to say more. Or maybe he just opened his mouth to try and spit.
Either way, I shot him in the head.
The sound cracked in the hallway and then was swallowed by the concrete. His skull snapped backagainst the wall. The wet gurgle cut off mid-chuckle. Blood poured from the wound and out of his nostrils like an unfettered fountain.
Priest flinched, just with his shoulders. Nobody else moved.
“Jesus, Jersey,” Turnpike muttered.
“He was going to bleed out in minutes talking shit anyway,” I said, voice flat. “Now he’s quiet and we don’t have to listen to the rest of the monologue. He was stalling. Buying time. Whatever is happening, is happeningnow, and we need to move quick.”
Valkyrie’s gaze found mine. There was no shock in it. Just a cool, assessing weight.
“No mercy tonight,” she said quietly.
“Didn’t start it that way,” I replied. “Not going to start now.”
She gave the smallest nod.
“Snake Eyes, Spade, Priest, Turnpike—we need to find the security room. Now.”
“Actually,” Snake Eyes began to say over comms. “Spade and I just found it.”
We regrouped and met outside the door. In my head I thought it was convenient how it was on this same floor. Then I remembered something about Roman and the paranoid precautions he always took. He didn’t like the security room on the ground floor. Something he said once, “If we get hit from the ground, they’ll go for that first. Being higher up buys us time to react.”
Spade took a breath before he pushed the makeshift door open with the side of his boot. It creaked open a few inches and stopped against something on the other side.
He shoved harder. The chair on the other side gave.
Inside, the room was a nest of screens and equipment racks. Half the monitors showed frozen images—empty hallways caught at a moment and stuck there. Others were solid blue. Some played an empty looping feed we knew wasn’t true.
In the middle of the room, a Steel Serpent with headphones on his head was sitting in a chair. He turned just as we all entered, his expression shifting to “Oh fuck,” before Snake Eyes shot him in the face. The bullet struck him in the mouth. Splintered teeth fell to the floor as the man pinwheeled backwards into the console. A shower of sparks jumped from one of the panels. The Serpent clutched his face and fell to his knees, blood pouring between his fingers. I raised my gun up and shot him again, this time, center mass.
“Ops is hot,” Snake Eyes said calmly. “Well, was. Not anymore.”
Priest stepped in to make sure the Serpent stayed down. Spade went for the console, eyes already scanning the mess of buttons and cables.
