Chapter Ten
Black Ravens
Meridian
Meridian sat loosely in his leather seat as his stealth hawk helicopter ate up miles of wintry Chicago sky.
The pilot began to drop below the gray smear of clouds, low enough for him to see the snow-dusted rooftops.
Across from him, Ex was rolling a .50 caliber bullet back and forth across his knuckles, looking bored as hell.
Beside him, Grace sat like carved stone, with one brown, snakeskin boot resting over his opposite knee. Mirage occupied the space at his partner’s side, hood up, knee touching Grace’s.
Every now and then, Grace tipped his head in Mirage’s direction, his lips barely moving in some form of hushed communication.
Behind the four of them, their joint field teams filled the bay, double-checking gear and readying weapons and coms devices.
“All right, brothers,” Meridian said, his voice low and a little annoyed. “Let’s not waste too much time on this.”
All eyes were on him.
“We’ve got real situations on the board,” he counted off. “Arms routes to shut down, insurgent cells, trafficking syndicates, world threats that actually fuckin’ matter.”
Grace nodded.
“But we can’t move on any of it until we drag the Whites outta whatever hole they’re hiding in and teach them which way to point their rage. So this”—he flicked two fingers toward the Chicago South Side grid on the large flatscreen—“needs to be quick and mean.”
Rory’s voice was crystal clear through their Hart Communicator comms pieces.
“Intel confirms this chapter of the South Side Kings has been running fentanyl, meth, and guns. They’re associated with over a dozen shootings that’s resulted in multiple deaths, including nineteen bystanders and six minors—terrorizing their own neighborhood.”
A group photo of men and women in black and red with bandannas covering half their faces, pointing their handguns and rifles toward the sky, flashed across their screen.
It looked like a senior class picture where everyone was voted most likely not to graduate and become a criminal.
“I don’t need you guys to clean up their city.” Jo’s cool voice cut in, riding the channel from headquarters. “Just bring me Scar as ordered.”
“So we’re not allowed to have any fun,” Ex muttered. “We’re owed something for this inconvenience.”
“You’re allowed to send a disciplined, tactful message,” Jo stressed. “But not so loud that it draws a SWAT team and hostage negotiator. No police scanners lighting up.’”
“Understood,” Mirage said in a dry tone.
“We go in, ask a few polite questions,” Meridian smirked. “If we get answers, they keep breathing. If we don’t…”
No one needed him to finish that.
“Touching down in the designated landing zone in thirty seconds,” their pilot said.
Meridian stood and shrugged into his new trench, adjusting to the weight of the graphene-laminate panels and the high reinforced collar around his throat.
The bay light went green and the side door slid open.
The winter night punched into the cabin, and the cold hit him like a steel-toed boot. Sharp and unforgiving. It was the kind of cold that penetrated leather and went straight to the bone.
They dropped to the roof in a practiced flow, boots crunching on ice and gravel.
An armored black Navigator—with windows tinted so dark they looked like mirrors—was waiting in the alley at the stairwell’s access door.
Two weapons specialists, a mission’s coordinator, and their stealth tactics leads from each field team jogged past them, wheeling gear crates.
They’d establish the staging hub in the gutted building to run overwatch and help get them out if shit went south.
“Transports loaded. I have access to the city’s mainframe. Spectre’s running flank,” Corvo said in their ears. “The AO is live. Mission code reads green-zero. Black and Browns are full-command active. All auxiliary teams stand by in shadow protocol.”
Ex chuckled as he yanked open the back door and slid in. Green-zero meant it was a green light on the mission, but there was zero risk, threat, or danger.
Grace and Mirage took the third row, and Meridian folded his long frame into the seat beside his partner.
The neighborhoods were run-down, the homes and businesses painted in a depressing shade of gray and poverty.
Every other house lining the block had either bowed porches, boarded windows, bullet holes in the siding, or ten-foot leaning chain-link fences in an attempt to keep out burglars.
Meridian watched it pass as he thought about a gang that would rather shoot up their own run-down neighborhood than help clean it up.
“Violence has rules…purpose. This is just tantrums with casualties,” he noted quietly.
Spectre clicked in. “The pool hall is two blocks out. It’s well-known King’s territory and only South Side is allowed inside.”
Grace brushed his big hand across Mirage’s shoulder, asking a silent Ready? Mirage didn’t answer aloud, just barely tilted his hooded head.
Meridian’s pulse slowed as his focus sharpened.
The Navigator turned onto a narrower street. The pool hall was a low brick building with blacked-out windows and red-and-black graffiti crowns on the walls.
A speaker above the entrance thumped bass hard enough to rattle the glass of their SUV.
Two men leaned against the door, smoking weed. One had a shotgun, the other had two Glocks in his waistband as if that and his red bandanna made him dangerous.
“Let us out at the corner,” Meridian said.
The driver rolled to a smooth stop. They spilled out, one after the other, pulling their hoods up.
They were four immaculately dressed men who didn’t belong in this state, nevertheless on this block.
The shotgun guard clocked them about ten yards away, the second one pushed off the door, shoving his hand deep into his coat.
“You seein’ this?” Ex murmured, amused.
“At least they have good instincts.” Mirage shrugged.
“Just get rid of them and get inside,” Spectre said boredly.
They didn’t pick up speed or slow down.
At five yards, the guard with the shotgun held up a palm. “Yo. This is King’s house, so leave now and—”
Mirage’s hands flashed forward and two silver arcs cut through the darkness like shooting stars.
The blades sliced through the air, crossing in a wicked X mid-flight, before driving hilt-deep into the throats of the two guards with a grotesque, wet schlick.
Meridian pushed through the door with his brothers close behind him.
Every eye in the bar turned toward them. Conversations dropped. Men rolling dice froze and pool cues halted in mid-shot.
Men glared at their women, who were grinning and licking their lips, some dragging hungry gazes down their bodies as though assessing new merchandise. The smarter ones frowned, sensing the wrong kind of danger.
Across the room, fists clenched, and guns were being pulled, half-drawn but not raised, because even the dumb ones recognized something about them wasn’t normal trouble.
Someone yelled to cut the music.
On instinct, he and his brothers fell into their fight formation.
Meridian in the front and Ex a half step behind him on his right.
Mirage slipped behind Grace, completely swallowed by his frame, becoming the invisible heart of their machine.
A thick wave of bodies parted ahead of them.
From the back, four men stepped forward.
Meridian assumed they were the highest-ranked of the crew.
Their swagger was all bluster, shoulders pulled back, eyes flicking toward the door, as if wondering why the doorman had allowed them to pass.
The one in front bared his gold teeth in what he thought passed for intimidation.
“Y’all must be lost,” he drawled in that gritty South Side cadence.
“Well, we set our GPS to ‘find some ignorant, fake-ass thugs,’ and this is where it brought us.” Ex glanced around. “I’ll be damned. Nailed it.”
Mirage snorted under his breath, Grace didn’t blink, and Meridian’s lips twitched.
More men drew their pistols because, of course, they did.
“Yo, eliminate these fools!” the leader yelled.
“Here we go,” Ex chuckled.
Meridian and Grace dropped down to one knee, trenches flaring wide, as a hail of gunfire rang out.
Ex and Mirage squeezed in close to their partners, chest to chest, as bullets hammered his and Grace’s coats.
The pool hall erupted into chaos. Chairs scraped and glass shattered as more shooters poured onto the main floor.
The ineffective metallic pings against his armor felt like dull taps against his ribs.
“9mms,” he muttered as he kept his head ducked and mouth against Ex’s ear. “So primitive.”
Someone yelled, “They’re cops. Take ’em out.”
Another guy screamed, high and panicked, “Let’s get the fuck outta here!”
Ex drew his Magnum and aimed between Meridian’s ribs and elbow, gun resting on his spine.
Mirage mirrored him behind Grace.
Rounds started to slow, not because they ran out, but because they realized it wasn’t doing a damn thing. They hadn’t expected the bullets to bounce off.
Mirage moved behind Grace.
Four knives whispered out from beneath his coat, silver arcs slicing through the smoky air.
Each blade found a throat, wrist, or artery. Men dropped mid-trigger pull, choking, hands flying to their wounds.
Grace pulled both handguns from his holster—two matte-black Eagles, modified with a custom suppressor—and fired once, twice, three more times.
Six puffs of death. Six men who’d been slammed back into walls and tables.
“Cease fire,” Spectre ordered. “That’s enough. We need someone alive to talk.”
A man hugging the wall near the bar lunged toward the front entrance, thinking he could slip past.
Meridian drew Whisper and paused, allowing the desperate man a taste of hope and safety before slashing the blade through the air in a wide arc.
Carbon steel kissed meat, cutting clean through bone and tendons.
The runner’s leg separated at his lower thigh as he collapsed forward and slid across the floor behind his severed limb.