“Lonari,” my dock captain says, voice cracked. “They hit us.”
I’m already moving. “How many?”
“Six. Maybe eight. Fast. In and out.”
“Casualties.”
A pause that tastes like grief.
“Dren’s dead.”
I stop for half a heartbeat. The world narrows.
Dren.
Loyal. Loud. Used to sneak extra rations to the staff’s kids when nobody was looking. A bastard with a soft spot, which is the worst kind of death sentence in this business.
“What did they leave?” I ask, voice too calm.
“They left a mark,” the captain whispers. “On the wall. Like… like a burn.”
My chest tightens. “Send me a picture.”
The image pings into my slate a second later.
A blackened symbol scorched into concrete, edges still smoking faintly.
The Nine.
I stare at it until my vision goes sharp around the edges.
“Alright,” I say softly. “Alright. So that’s how we’re talking.”
The captain’s voice shakes. “What do we do? We can hit back. I’ve got people ready?—”
“No,” I say.
Silence.
“What?” he blurts. “They killed Dren?—”
“I said no,” I repeat. “We don’t swing blindly. That’s what they want. They want us loud and stupid so the whole sector can point and say,See? Criminals.”
“Then what?” he demands, almost pleading. “What do we do, God— Lonari?”
I close my eyes and inhale. In my head I can smell the warehouse: salt air, oil, blood cooling on metal. I can hear Dren’s laugh like it’s still alive somewhere.
Then I open my eyes.
“We hurt them where they don’t get to bleed theatrically,” I say. “We hurt them in the part of the body they actually worship.”
“Money,” the captain whispers.
“Supply,” I correct. “Routes. Access. Convenience.”
I pull up a map of our black-market flow. ???? of contraband, medicine, weapons, luxuries—everything civilization pretends it doesn’t need.
There’s one route the Nine leans on without owning. A quiet pipeline for high-grade stimulants and nanotech patches that keep their operatives sharp and their addictions quiet. They don’t like getting their hands dirty with logistics.
