Chapter 92 Rourke Hale
Rourke Hale
The city turns on you before the people do.
That’s the first lesson.
Cards decline.
Doors don’t open.
Reservations disappear.
Systems that have always bent suddenly refuse.
By the time the news hits the networks, I already know.
Eleanor is down.
Worse — she didn’t just fall.
She broke.
I sit in the back of a moving car and watch three different routes fail in real time on my tablet.
Accounts frozen.
Two safe houses flagged.
One asset not answering.
“Change the car,” I say.
My driver doesn’t argue. He takes the next exit.
That’s the second lesson.
Loyalty lasts exactly as long as comfort does.
My phone vibrates.
A burner.
Bad sign.
“They hit Pavel,” my assistant says. “And Chen. And the storage facility in Riverside.”
“Of course they did.”
“They’re moving fast.”
“Yes,” I say.
“They shouldn’t have made the grab,” he says carefully.
I close my eyes.
Just for a second.
“You told me it would work,” he says.
“I told you it might.”
“Saint Lawson is not a man who absorbs threats,” he say. “He retaliates. You tried to take his baby.”
“He’s a Ranger, not a god,” I say.
“No,” he agreed. “But he’s very good at killing things like us.”
The car slows.
I look up. “Why are we slowing?”
The driver’s hands tighten on the wheel.
“We need fuel.”
“That wasn’t the plan.”
“There’s a roadblock ahead.”
That’s the third lesson.
You don’t see the net until it’s already under you.
“Turn around,” I say.
He does.
Too late.
The mirror fills with flashing lights.
“I have to stop the car,” the driver says.
“No,” I reply calmly. “Don’t.”
He hesitates.
Then I shoot him.
The car swerves, clips a barrier, and dies in a cloud of steam.
I’m out and running before it fully stops.
I don’t look back.
I don’t need to.
I disappear into a service corridor I paid for three years ago.
By the time they reach the car, I’m already gone.
Breathing hard.
Angry now.
They were not supposed to move this fast.
I duck into a maintenance tunnel and switch phones.
“Everything is burning,” I tell my assistant. “Initiate scatter.”
“What about the woman?”
“They are guarded. We failed.”
A pause.
“And Saint?”
I smile in the dark.
“Saint is about to learn what it feels like to be hunted.”
Even as the words leave my mouth, I know they’re a lie.
Because the fourth lesson is the only one that matters:
When men like him come for you…
You don’t get to choose how this ends.