I heard it before I saw it—a step where there shouldn't be one.
The night was too still. The sort of still that yells at your instincts, tells you something's amiss. I looked up the street as I walked toward my car, my hand already on the grip under my coat. The alley to my left was filled in shadow, brick walls dripping with the sweat of midnight.
And then a flicker—just barely in the corner of my eye.
I spun.
Too late.
A form burst out of the shadows, quick, smooth, all angles. I saw the flash of metal before the first strike landed—sharp agony across my ribs, blunt, not a knife. Baton perhaps. Meant to hurt, not kill. My body acted before my mind could keep up. I went low, rolled sideways, swung out. My elbow hit something hard—a grunt—and the figure stumbled back. But only for a moment.
They attacked me again. This time I was prepared.
We struggled, boots scraping the ground, fists pounding into flesh. I got hit in the jaw that made my vision blur and sent me reeling. But I hit one too—right into their stomach—and felt the wind leave their body. They wriggled free before I could catch their mask.
Gone.
Like smoke.
All that was left was the message. A piece of black card jammed under my windshield wiper. Embossed in red lettering:
DROP THE CASE. OR ELSE.
No signature. No need for one.
I stood there, blood from my lip mingling with the acrid taste of copper and adrenaline. My breathing labored. Not out of fear—no, I knew fear. This was something else. Recognition.
They weren't going to kill me.
Not yet.
They wanted me to sense how close they were. How simple it would be.
I drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other clutching my side. All the headlights in the rearview mirror resembled tails. All the shadows crept too close. By the time I arrived at my apartment, my nerves were buzzing like bare wires.
Who was it?
Wolfe? One of his ghosts? A tainted badge in the department? Or someone I hadn't seen approaching?
I didn't sleep. Just sat at the kitchen table with the lights out, reliving every move I'd made since Kreel's body landed on my desk. Somewhere, I'd walked on a landmine. Now I waited for the second click.
When the sun came up, I went to visit Dr. Poe.
Lillian peered up from her laboratory workstation, and her expression told me everything before I even said a word. She'd discovered something. And she didn't like what she'd found.
"You all right?" she asked, looking at the bruise spreading across my cheek.
"No," I answered. "What did you find?"
She hesitated. That was enough to make my gut churn.
"Jonas Kreel," she started slowly, "wasn't merely genetically modified. There's evidence of… previous surgeries. Neural implants. Cut out cleanly, no scarring. Someone sliced tech out of him after death. Or they sent someone in ahead of the kill."
"What kind of tech?" I asked, though I already knew the response would be worse than my imagination.
"We don't know. But it wasn't medical. Military-grade. Bio-signal tracing, perhaps memory storage. Whatever it was, it's gone."
They murdered him to destroy something. But what?
I hardly had time to register it before my phone rang.
Sylvie.
"I'm coming in," she said. No hello, just urgency. A few minutes later, she swept into the lab with a tablet clutched in her hand, eyes blazing.
"I discovered offshore accounts belonging to a company named Halvex Logistics," she said. "Defense contracts, used to be. Went dark a decade ago. Guess who's on their advisory board?"
"Wolfe," I replied.
She nodded. "And three other names. Detectives. All from case files of unsolved cases. Disappearances, planted evidence, wrongful convictions. You know the pattern."
My blood turned cold.
"You're too close, Sylvie," I said softly. "They'll come after you next."
She took another step, nose almost touching mine. "I'm not frightened of ghosts wearing suits. And I'm not going anywhere."
I wished I could scream. Get through to her. But the flame burning in her gaze recalled something I'd forgotten—why we do this.
Because if we don't, no one will.
I ran into Jax that evening in the parking garage under the old civic building. It was filled with the smell of mold and oil and broken promises. He stood there, not speaking, just lighting a cigarette with trembling hands.
"They know you're still digging," he said. "They figured you'd get the message after the warning."
"Yeah?" I grunted. "Well, they made a mistake."
Jax let out a slow breath. "You think you're still the hunter, Kane. But you're not. You're the bait. They're waiting for you to lead them to whoever's spilling the truth."
I tensed. "You think I've been compromised?"
"I think," he replied, flicking ash to the ground, "that you're the only one left who doesn't have any idea just how big this is."
I sat back against the chilly cement, heart racing. My hands hurt from the alley fight. My ribs hurt. But it wasn't the pain that had me wired—it was the fact that Jax was right.
They weren't hiding anymore. They were circling.
This wasn't about justice anymore.
It was personal now.
Not because they hurt me—but because they'd tried to intimidate me.
Because they'd attacked Sylvie.
Because they thought I'd back down.
I lit my cigarette myself, hand unshaking.
Let them try.
I wasn't giving up.
If they wanted to shut me up, they'd have to bleed for it.
End of Chapter 6