“I know,” I whisper, hating that he’s right.
I glance back toward my room, toward the Kaijen servers waiting like a hungry machine.
“I found more,” I say. “Baragon intermediaries. Shell payments. This wasn’t random.”
Lonari’s eyes darken. “Yeah. It wasn’t.”
For a moment, we stand in the corridor, the air thick with perfume and violence and the faint sweetness of the Nun’s curated lies.
And I realize something, reluctantly, painfully:
My old prejudice—my blanket resentment of Coalition-aligned species, of criminals, of anyone outside IHC “order”—was a shield. A simple story I told myself so I wouldn’t have to deal with complexity.
But complexity is standing in front of me, wearing a tailored suit and a death sentence smile, drawing lines in blood and calling it protection.
I don’t trust him.
But I can’t dismiss him as easily as I wanted to.
“Come on,” Lonari says finally, nodding toward my room. “Back inside. Keep digging.”
I hesitate, then nod.
As I turn, I catch my own reflection in the glossy wall panel—hair a mess, eyes haunted, face smudged with dust and fury—and I barely recognize the girl who used to believe the IHC would keep her safe if she just followed the rules.
I follow Lonari anyway, because right now, the truth is the only thing I trust.
And he—damn him—is pointing at it with steady hands.
CHAPTER 8
LONARI
The Defrocked Nun never really sleeps.
Even when the lights dim to that soft, flattering gold and the music drops into something slow and sensual, the building stays awake in the way predators stay awake—eyes open behind half-lids, ears tilted toward trouble, hands never too far from weapons. The Nun breathes through vents that taste like spice and smoke, it sweats profit through its walls, and it listens, always, for the sound of a knife being drawn.
So when the first sign of the hit comes, it doesn’t come with drama.
It comes with a tiny, wrong silence.
A half-second pocket where the crowd’s noise should be continuous, where laughter should spill and chips should clack and somebody should be arguing about odds like their ego depends on it. Instead, there’s this microscopic lull, like the room collectively inhales.
Then the front mezzanine window detonates.
Glass and holo-thread explode inward in a glittering arc, catching the light like confetti at a funeral. The concussive blast smacks the air hard enough that the music stutters, the bass warping into a sick, distorted thump. People scream, tablesoverturn, a dealer ducks, and I feel the shockwave in my ribs like a fist.
I’m already moving before my brain finishes naming what’s happening.
“CONTACT!” one of my captains roars into the comm.
The smell hits next—burned propellant, hot metal, ozone—and underneath it, the sharp copper taste of blood as someone near the blast gets sliced by shrapnel. The Nun’s security protocols kick in, but whoever planned this knew the rhythms, because instead of sealing doors and trapping the attackers outside like amateurs, the system hesitates—just long enough.
That hesitation is the difference between a contained incident and a massacre.
“Lonari!” Renn’s voice barks in my ear, raw. “We got shooters—north mezzanine and?—”
“Yeah, I got eyes,” I growl, scanning the chaos through the falling glitter of shattered window. Figures in dark tactical gear drop from a cable line, boots hitting carpet with silent efficiency. They don’t dress like Kaijen. They don’t dress like League cops. They don’t dress like anybody who expects to be seen.
