Behind me, boots thunder on the mezzanine stairs—Renn and two enforcers in night-vision visors, weapons drawn, faces tight.
Renn sees the merc pinned under my hand. “You got one.”
“Yeah,” I say. “And he’s talking.”
Jordan’s voice crackles in my ear again, breathless. “Lonari, the lights—do you want partial restoration? Emergency strips only? People are—there’s panic, it’s getting ugly.”
I glance down through the mezzanine rail. In the darkness, civilians are trampling each other, screams turning into sobs. My own men are holding lines, but chaos has teeth.
“Emergency strips,” I say. “Not full grid. Keep it messy for them, but give civilians a path.”
“Copy.”
A moment later, faint red strips glow along floor edges and exit routes, like veins lighting up under skin. The crowd begins to funnel, still frantic but less blind.
Renn crouches beside me, voice low. “Boss… Godfather’s asking if this is connected to Yatori.”
I feel my mouth curl into something cold. “Tell him to stop asking questions he doesn’t want answered.”
Renn hesitates. “The Nine?—”
“Yeah,” I snap. “I’m aware of the Nine. I’m also aware somebody just tried to turn my house into a graveyard.”
The merc under my hand wheezes, eyes darting between us.
I lean back down. “You said shells. You said Baragon-linked. Give me a tag. Anything I can trace.”
He coughs and spits, then forces out, “K-String… KZ-443… and… and a routing hub called ‘Cinder Vault.’ That’s what the contract header said.”
Cinder Vault.
It sounds like a joke. Like a fake name someone uses when they think they’re clever.
But the merc says it with the certainty of someone who’s seen it on a screen a dozen times.
I release his throat just enough for him to breathe. He sucks air in like he’s been reborn.
“Good,” I murmur. “Now you’re going to help me.”
He stares, terrified. “Help you how?”
“You’re going to walk,” I say, standing and hauling him up by his collar. “And you’re going to show me every dead drop you’ve ever used on Gur. You’re going to open every account you’ve been paid through. And if you try anything cute, I’ll put your head through the nearest table and feed your teeth to the slot machines.”
His eyes widen. “Okay—okay.”
Renn looks at me, grim. “We got two more mercs pinned in the bulkhead corridor. Jordan locked them in. What do you want?”
“Alive if you can,” I say, because now I want answers, not corpses.
Renn nods and moves, barking orders.
I drag the merc toward the VIP corridor, because I want him secured somewhere quiet before the casino returns to full roar and the story gets rewritten in real time like it did on Yatori.
As we move, the smell of smoke thickens, mixing with spilled alcohol and fear sweat. The Nun’s music starts again, softer, warped, as if the building is trying to pretend everything is normal.
Jordan appears at the corridor intersection, hair messy, face pale, eyes blazing with furious focus. She’s holding a compad and a maintenance tool like she’s ready to stab someone with it.
She sees the merc and stops.
