Renn hesitates only a heartbeat, then executes the command.
The console hums, then emits a low, ugly sound—like a vault door slamming shut in the Nine’s face. Numbers stutter. Accounts freeze. Reserve values drop like a body falling off a ledge.
Half our wealth evaporates into punitive triggers.
It hurts.
I let it hurt.
Because autonomy always costs.
And I’m done renting my own house.
We returnto the Defrocked Nun like a storm.
The casino floor is still running, because criminals are stubborn and gamblers are suicidal, but tension has turned every laugh into something brittle. People sense the fracture. They smell the blood under the perfume.
I march through the main doors with Renn at my side, blood still on my sleeve, ears still ringing, and my men fanning out in disciplined lines.
Music dies mid-note.
Heads turn.
Security shifts.
Captain after captain appears along balconies and stairwells, watching, waiting to see if this is theater or revolution.
I don’t give them a slow buildup.
I head straight for Kel’s private elevator.
Two guards move to block me.
I look at them.
They move aside.
The elevator rises.
My stomach is a knot of rage and purpose and something else—fear, sharp and personal, because Jordan is out there, and the Nine will strike at her again if they can. They already did.
The doors open to Kel’s chambers.
I enter with Renn and two guards. The impostor sits in his chair, mask hissing. His eyes widen when he sees the blood on me, the set of my jaw.
“You can’t—” he starts.
“Yes,” I say. “I can.”
I grab him by the front of his robe and haul him up. He weighs less than Kel would’ve—lighter bone structure, less mass. My disgust sharpens.
He stumbles, terrified.
“Lonari,” he whispers, “please?—”
“I’m done with please,” I snarl.
I drag him down the private corridors, ignoring the way staff flatten themselves against walls, ignoring the murmurs rippling like fire.
