His gaze is feral and smug at once. “You kill me and the truth becomes criminal propaganda. The Alliance will spin it. The IHC will bury it. Baragon will cry and call you terrorists. You’ll lose Jordan’s story under mine.”
He’s not wrong about spin.
He’s wrong about me.
I smile without warmth. “I’m not killing you.”
Morazin blinks. “What?”
I nod at Renn, who steps forward with restraint tech—high-grade polymer cuffs with shock dampeners, biometric locks, and a collar like the one Jordan wore but meaner. We clamp it onto Morazin before he can move. He jerks, snarling, trying to fight, but my men pin him clean.
Morazin spits, “You can’t hold me. You don’t have jurisdiction?—”
“I don’t need jurisdiction,” I say calmly. “I need proof.”
I gesture upward.
A public camera drone—one Jordan’s feed likely compromised earlier—hovers above, still broadcasting.
I tilt my head slightly, aligning my face to the lens.
“Attention,” I say, voice carrying, keyed into the drone’s audio feed. “This is Lonari Kaijen. Morazin is in custody. Alive.”
Morazin thrashes. “No?—!”
I keep speaking, voice steady. “This capture is being transmitted to both IHC and Alliance emergency channels. If Morazin ‘dies in transit,’ you’ll know it’s a lie. If he disappears, you’ll know who made him disappear.”
The drone feed pings as external channels latch—Alliance, IHC, even civilian nodes still hungry for the story.
Morazin’s eyes widen, real fear flashing now.
“You bastard,” he hisses.
I lean in close enough that only he hears. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s called me today.”
Morazin bares his teeth. “They’ll come for you. For Gur. For everyone you?—”
“Good,” I murmur. “Let them come. They can choke on the truth too.”
Renn hauls Morazin back toward the corridor, dragging him like a bag of trash that thinks it’s expensive.
Morazin screams, voice raw, “You can’t—Jordan is already?—!”
I cut him off with a look that makes him shut his mouth for half a second.
Then my comm crackles—Mira’s voice, urgent. “Boss! Jordan’s down on the platform. Execution squad moving. Cameras still live. We have… thirty seconds, maybe less.”
My chest tightens so hard it hurts.
“MOVE,” I roar.
We sprint back through the service corridors, boots pounding metal, air tasting like dust and ozone. My men fan out, EM disruptors primed, smoke canisters ready.
We burst onto the main platform.
The scene is chaos.
Drones buzzing overhead, some glitching, some stabilizing. Morazin’s audience feed screaming. Market tickers still flashing freezes and halts. Shooters closing in on Jordan’s collapsed body, rifles raised to finish.
