Page 157 of Villainous Intent

Her voice. That raspy, drugged voice calling my name as Havoc carried her away. I’d heard it. I’d wanted to turn around. I’d wanted to go to her.

I pushed myself to my feet, glass and metal crunching beneath me.

Ash had tried to turn her terror into a public spectacle. He had leaked the footage from the security cameras to the morning programs and underground forums. The media outlets had sanitized the broadcast just enough to slip past the censors. They cut the feed before his hands shoved her dress up. They hid the true, sickening extent of his assault on her. But they still showed his hands wrapping around her throat. They showed her struggling.

I eradicated the footage from the public domain with absolute prejudice. I made sure anyone searching for the video found nothing.

The only copy left in existence belonged to me now.

“Computer,” I said, my voice raw, “access security footage from Colosseum sub-level B, tunnel 7, timestamp 14:37 to 14:52.”

The holographic display flickered among the wreckage, showing Baron Ash looming over Annie. I watched again as his hand shoved her skirt up, as she fought with drugged, uncoordinated movements, as he reached for her mask.

I watched myself arrive, watched the fight that wasn’t really a fight at all.

“Pause.”

The image froze on Baron Ash’s masked face as I’d scooped Annie up to get her to safety before the service tunnel collapsed.

I stared at that masked face for a long time, remembering the exact sensation of my hands on his neck in the arena, the precise resistance his spine had offered before giving way.

“Delete the footage,” I said finally.

Some things didn’t need to be preserved. Some nightmares didn’t need to be revisited.

I stared at the wreckage of my lab, the dried blood on my knuckles, and felt a cold clarity descend over me.

Baron Ash was dead. But that wasn’t enough. He hadn’t acted alone. He couldn’t have accessed those tunnels without inside help. Couldn’t have obtained Somnolax without connections. Couldn’t have orchestrated a kidnapping from the Colosseum without proper backing.

Someone had helped him. Multiple someones.

“Number Three.”

“Sir.” The response over comms was immediate.

“I want everything on Baron Ash. Every fucking associate. Every contact. Every piece of shit who ever breathed the same air as him. I want names and locations.”

“Understood, sir.”

I cut the connection and moved to the display that had somehow survived my rampage. With a gesture, I brought up a map of Chroma Bay, my mind already plotting routes, calculating timing, factoring in Alliance response patterns.

Tonight, I was going hunting.

The numbers running through my head were a familiar refuge from the storm of emotions I couldn’t process.

I didn’t know what to do about Annie. Didn’t know how to handle the way my chest constricted when I thought about her or how to process the fact that she’d seen the monster and still embraced me.

But I knew how to kill. I was exceptionally good at it.

My communicator chimed. Number Three had already sent the first batch of data. I scrolled through it, memorizing faces, names, locations. Baron Ash’s network spread through Chroma Bay like a cancer. Corrupt security personnel, black market dealers, underground fight promoters.

Baron Ash had been the visible cancer. Tonight, I would excise every last metastasized cell.

I caught my reflection in a fragment of shattered glass. Eyes cold, jaw set.

My communicator chimed again. More data. More targets.

I smiled.