The Silent Reaper (Hollow Kings #2)

Chapter 1 Jace

Chapter One: Jace

The doors in the north lobby glide open. Three guards, one at reception, two making lazy circuits on opposite ends of the main floor. They’re not expecting me. Not tonight, not at this hour, not in this city, where security means muscle with guns rather than someone who can think.

I keep my head down, pace measured, hands visible. Black windbreaker, standard-issue courier bag, wireless comm in my left ear. They register me for half a second and dismiss, the way men always do when nothing triggers their lizard-brain alarms.

Even the security cameras, seven on this floor, two pointed at the elevators, will get a compressed, unremarkable feed. I made sure of it hours ago from the hotel across the street. There’s a reason Erasure pays so much for proprietary backdoor access.

The keycard from the target’s discarded gym bag lets me through the elevator lobby.

I use the manager’s override, bypassing the biometric lock with a pulse of encrypted code from the dongle in my pocket.

Inside, I stand with my back to the mirrored panel, watching the numbers rise, calibrating my breathing.

In. Hold. Out. Four seconds each.

This isn’t nerves. It’s habit—oxygenation means better performance, faster reaction times, sharper vision. They taught us that in the Foundry before we were old enough to spell the word “adrenaline.”

Forty-one floors up, the doors whisper apart.

The hallway is museum-quiet, carpeted in a thick geometric pattern that hides blood better than you’d expect.

I walk left, counting the doors, scanning for the magnetic tripwires the dossier warned me about.

Apartment 4112, the far corner with the two-hundred-degree view of the city.

The entry’s triple-locked: digital, deadbolt, and secondary chain.

All bypassed in under fifteen seconds, using tools I built myself.

He’s in the den, exactly where the schedule predicted. Alone, back to the glass, hands busy on a transparent slab of display. His reflection catches me first. He turns, confusion stuttering in his eyes, but not enough time for fear.

One step, two, three. Draw. The pistol is suppressed, tuned for close work. I plant the barrel behind his right ear, thumb already disengaged the safety.

“Wait—” he says, or tries to, but the .22 hollow point ends it with a hiss and a gentle thump as his body folds forward.

Like capturing a raccoon with something shiny.

Easy.

Pathetic.

I holster, check the sightline, then fish a pair of nitrile gloves from my bag.

The next ten minutes are forensics. He’s still twitching, some dumb reptile current trying to restart the meat, but I wait it out, counting the convulsions.

Once they stop, I tilt his head up and slip a hand under his chin.

The jaw’s slack, tongue lolling. Eyes starting to glass.

I check the pulse at the neck, pressing hard enough to feel for bounce back.

Nothing.

I lower him gently to the floor, arranging limbs so it looks like he collapsed mid-step. From the side, it reads like a seizure, or maybe a fainting spell.

From the front, it’s a different story. Brains leaking out of the hole in his forehead.

I wipe down the display panel, locking it with his thumbprint. I retrace my steps to the entry, using a UV torch to spot anything I missed. No prints, no stray hair, no skin cells. The only DNA in this room belongs to the dead man.

Rolling the nitrile gloves into a tight ball, I pack them in a double-sealed baggie, and add it to the biohazard container at the bottom of my bag. One last glance around—lamps off, TV on, random news channel in the background, echoing the same market numbers on repeat.

My comm buzzes, a single vibration against my jaw. I thumb the receiver.

“Harrison,” I say. My voice comes out flat, all vowels clipped, but that’s protocol.

The voice on the other end is less human, more algorithm. “Confirm status.”

“Erasure complete,” I say.

“Directive change. Report to Acquisition. Downtown division. Seventeenth floor. Immediate.”

“Copy.” I don’t ask why. I’ve never been paid to question; only to end.

I let myself out the same way I entered. The corridor is empty. The elevator delivers me to the lobby in silence. The guards don’t even look up. The glass doors on the street level melt open, and the city’s night air hits me.

As I walk, I file away the memory: the target’s posture, the smell of his sweat, the way his mouth fought to form a plea.

These aren’t emotional recollections; they’re audit logs.

The Board reviews everything, and if you don’t have a perfect recall, you’re obsolete.

That’s what they taught us in the Foundry, too.

Two blocks east, there’s a dumpster behind a Lebanese bakery.

I fish the biohazard pouch from my bag and bury it beneath a leaking sack of pita dough.

The gloves, the shell casing, the plastic sleeve with a tiny sliver of blood-spattered paper towel—all gone.

I use the bakery’s staff restroom to change shirts, swap my windbreaker for a too-bright tourist hoodie.

My face has never triggered a single security camera in this sector, but I run the wipe patch over my skin just in case.

Paranoia isn’t just encouraged; it’s required.

The Acquisition building is faceless, blank except for a sign that reads “Novus Strategic Holdings.” The main lobby is all chrome and glass, but the reception desk is empty.

The elevator responds to my touch without a keycard; House Holloway doesn’t need identification.

We just exist. The ride up is slow, deliberate, a measure of time designed to unsettle.

Seventeenth floor: the doors open into a corridor colder than the high-rise. A woman waits at the far end, tablet in hand, eyes sharp behind rimless glasses. I recognize her type—Acquisition’s handler caste. She nods once and gestures for me to follow.

“Briefing,” she says, and turns without waiting for my response.

We pass through two security doors, down a hallway lined with reinforced glass.

The rooms beyond are full of people: some in conference, some alone, some huddled in clusters.

Every one of them is scared, even if they don’t know it yet.

The kind of fear that’s built into your genes after a few generations of compliance.

The woman leads me into a briefing room and locks the door behind us. She stands at parade rest.

“You’re early,” she says, looking me up and down. “That’s not a compliment.”

I don’t answer. I never do unless I need to.

She sets the tablet on the table, face up. “Security detail. Asset auction. Client list is flagged for potential incursion, so you’re not to let any externalities disrupt the event. We’re expecting a crowd. A few of the guests are… familiar to Erasure.”

“Copy,” I say.

She studies me, searching for something she’ll never find. “You’ll be paid triple. The Board expects perfection.”

“Copy.”

She turns and opens the door, gesturing for me to leave. “They start staging in an hour. Make yourself presentable. No bloodstains.”

I touch the spot where a fleck of arterial spray must have landed. It’s already dry, a tiny speck, but her words make me check again.

She watches me, waiting for another answer. I give her nothing. It’s easier this way.

Back in the corridor, I blend into the flow of bodies: execs, handlers, runners, the faceless clerks who make the system run. Nobody notices me. That’s the point.

As I enter the holding area, I calibrate my breathing.

In. Hold. Out.

The blood on my hands is already gone, and the next job is waiting.

The corridor from the holding area leads to a chamber they call “the floor.” I count seven security points on my way in—badged doors, two biometric locks, a facial scanner disguised as wall art.

Beyond the final checkpoint, the air cools a degree, the pressure dropping as the hallway swallows sound. The transition is deliberate.

All Acquisition facilities are built to keep guests off-balance. No one is ever at home here, not even the staff.

The auction room is a stadium cross-bred with a surgical theater.

Tiered seats curve around a shallow pit in the center, all upholstered in black with the kind of lumbar support you only get in high-level boardrooms or top-tier confessionals.

No windows. The ceiling is too low, and the lights too bright.

There’s a hum from the HVAC, tuned just high enough to annoy but never enough to distract.

Buyers arrive in increments, each with a handler in tow.

They don’t talk to each other; they inspect their tablets, glance at the monitors cycling through “asset highlights,” and sip from glass bottles with imported labels.

Most of them are men in charcoal suits, hair shorn close, shoes polished to obsidian.

One or two women, same suits, same aura of disinterest. None of them look at the pit, not yet.

Nobody wants to be the first to stare at the meat.

I move to the back wall, tracking sightlines, checking for irregularities.

The security in here is subtle. No guards standing post, but I pick out the three enforcers in the seats.

There’s a fourth by the door, leaning casual with a hand in his jacket pocket.

None of them are from Erasure, but I know their kind.

Disposable, but not the first ones to be thrown away.

The lights in the pit stutter once, twice, then flare on.

The auctioneer descends from a glass stairwell, tablet in one hand, posture so straight it looks painful.

He wears a suit too, but it’s tailored to minimize, to vanish against the background.

He steps to the podium, taps the mic. A hush falls over the crowd—small as it is, nobody wants to be heard breathing.

“We’ll begin in five,” he says, voice cold enough to snap. “Please finalize your portfolios.”