Chapter 19 #4
I tried to move, tried to help her, but my body wouldn't respond, the blaster shots shorting out my nervous system. I could only watch as they struggled, as Hewes's hand closed around the blaster, as he started to bring it up toward her head—
A shadow moved in the warehouse's upper levels.
I saw it from the corner of my eye—a flicker of movement among the catwalks and support beams, too deliberate to be coincidence.
Someone else was here.
Watching, waiting.
Hewes got the blaster up, pressed it against Merrilee's temple hard enough to make her gasp.
"Got you," he panted, his face flushed with exertion and triumph. "Finally got—"
The tip of a blade emerged from his chest, punching through sternum and heart with surgical precision.
Just appeared—like the universe had simply decided Hewes needed a sword through his heart and had made it so.
He made a wet, choking sound, his eyes going wide with shock and incomprehension. The blaster fell from his hand, clattering against the concrete, and Merrilee scrambled away, putting distance between them.
Persico stood behind Hewes, his massive form blocking out the light streaming through the warehouse's broken roof, his dark eyes cold and merciless. Satisfied.
"You talk too much," the Kerzak said, his voice carrying that familiar note of disdain. Hewes mouth worked as if to argue with Persico, but only blood and foam fell from his lips.
Persico yanked the blade free with a wet sucking sound and brought it down in a single, brutal arc.
Hewes's head hit the ground and rolled, his eyes still wide with shock, mouth still open in a scream that would never come.
His body followed a moment later, crumpling like a puppet with its strings cut, blood pooling beneath it in an expanding circle that spread across the concrete like a dark mirror.
The warehouse fell silent except for the sound of our breathing—harsh and ragged and alive.
Merrilee stumbled toward me, and I caught her with my good arm, pulled her against me despite the agony in my chest and the blood still flowing from my wounds.
She was shaking. Or maybe I was.
"It's over," I managed, the words coming out wet and broken. "He's dead. It's over."
Persico cleaned his blade on Hewes's clothes, then sheathed it, the motion speaking of long experience and absolute comfort with violence.
"The ship is mine," he said calmly, as if he hadn't just decapitated a man. "I made sure Hewes found it. Easier to track him that way."
I stared at him through the haze of pain, my mind struggling to process his words. "You were tracking him?"
"From the moment he set foot on Palaydium." Persico's expression was unreadable. "I've been waiting for the right moment to end him. Waiting for clearance."
Something about the way he said it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Not the words themselves, but the tone—the casual mention of "clearance" like it was something he dealt with regularly.
Like he answered to someone.
"You're not just a crime lord," I said slowly, the pieces clicking into place even as blood loss made my thoughts swim.
Merrilee tensed against me, her head lifting to look at Persico with new wariness.
The Kerzak's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes—assessment, calculation, and then what might have been approval.
"Oh, I am a crime lord. Very much so. But I'm also a lot of other things." He reached into his coat and pulled out a small object, holding it up to the light.
A Welati stone.
Just like the one I'd given Merrilee, glowing with that same inner luminescence, those same swirls of blue and gold running through deep green like captured starlight.
"Asad Intelligence," Persico said, his voice matter-of-fact.
"I've been embedded here for twenty-three years, watching the power structures, tracking the flow of illegal goods and information, reporting back on potential threats to Alliance stability.
" He turned the stone over in his hand, the light catching on its polished surface.
"Playing the part of a crime lord so convincingly that even the real criminals believed it. "
"You're a spy." Merrilee's voice came out choked, disbelieving.
"I prefer 'deep cover operative,' but yes.
" He tucked the stone away carefully, treating it with more respect than he'd shown Hewes's corpse.
"Hewes was a problem. The Alliance wanted him eliminated, but they couldn't do it officially without causing a diplomatic incident. The politics were too delicate."
He looked at me, then at Merrilee, his expression unreadable.
"Hewes had embedded himself within several royal families across the galaxy.
Had leverage on beings who couldn't afford to have their secrets exposed.
Princes, ambassadors, military commanders—all of them compromised.
If we'd moved against him openly, the fallout would have destabilized half the Alliance. "
Persico's eyes went distant, calculating. "So we waited. Watched. Let him think he was winning. And when you two showed up—" He gestured at us with something that might have been respect. "Well it was as good excuse as any to end him."
"You used us," I said, and there was no heat in it. Just recognition.
"I gave you the opportunity to do what you came here to do." His voice hardened slightly. "Don't pretend you didn't want this, Ahrick. Don't pretend you weren't planning to kill him from the moment you set foot in Fange City."
He was right. I had wanted this.
"This way, when news of Hewes death gets out it will be attributed to his former spy and the Vaktaire warrior who had taken her under his protection." Persico appeared pleased. "Case closed."
But something in his tone, in the way he was looking at us, made me uneasy.
"There's more," I said. "Something you're not telling us."
Persico was silent for a long moment, his dark eyes studying us with an intensity that made my skin crawl.
"Hewes was a symptom," he said finally. "Not the disease. He was one player in a much larger game."
The warehouse suddenly felt colder.
"Who?" Merrilee asked.
"We don't know." Persico's admission carried weight. "The Prime needs to know that the threat isn't over. That Hewes was just the beginning."
"Why are you telling us this?" Merrilee asked.
Persico paused, something almost like regret crossing his features.
"Because I've been doing this for twenty-three years, and I'm tired.
Tired of playing the monster. Tired of watching good people die while I maintain my cover.
Tired of knowing that no matter how many Hewes I help eliminate, there will always be another one waiting in the shadows. "
The admission hung in the air between us, raw and honest.
"Get out of here," he said finally, his voice returning to its usual cold efficiency. "Both of you. There's an Alliance ship en route—they'll be here by morning. Go home. Live your lives. Let someone else fight this war for a while."
I shook my head, the old guilt rising up like bile in my throat. "I'm not leaving Palaydium. I have penance—"
"You have a death wish." He cut me off, his eyes sharp and knowing, seeing too much. "I know why you came here. I know what you've been punishing yourself for. And I'm telling you it's done. Whatever debt you think you owe, you've paid it a thousand times over."
"You don't understand—" My voice came out broken, raw.
"I understand perfectly." His expression softened, just slightly, just enough to show the male beneath the facade.
"I've been here a long time. I've seen what guilt does.
It eats you alive from the inside out, consumes everything you are until there's nothing left but the guilt itself.
" He paused, his eyes boring into mine. "You're one of the good ones, Ahrick.
I've seen enough bad ones to know the difference.
Don't waste that here. Don't let this place have what's left of you. "
His gaze dropped to Merrilee, his expression softening almost imperceptibly.
"You have a mate now. A future. Don't throw that away because you're too stubborn to forgive yourself."
The words hit harder than the blaster shot had.
Merrilee's hand found mine, her fingers threading through my blood-slicked ones, holding on tight.
"He's right," she whispered. "Ahrick, please."
Maybe Persico was right. Maybe it was time to stop punishing myself. Time to start living instead of just surviving.
"Okay," I said, the word barely audible. "Okay."
Persico nodded once, satisfied, then turned toward the ship.
"One more thing," he called over his shoulder. "When you see the Prime, tell her Persico sends his regards. Tell her to trust no one—not the ambassadors, not the military commanders, not even her own advisors. Someone close to her is compromised. I don't know who, but I know it's true."
He paused at the ship's entrance, his massive frame silhouetted against the interior lights.
"And tell her I'm sorry. For everything I couldn't prevent. For everyone I couldn't save."
He turned toward the ship, thick furry brows drawing together in a frown.
"I'll need a new hiding spot for this thing," he said, gesturing at the ship.
"Can't exactly park it here anymore, not after this mess.
" He glanced back at me, something calculating in his expression.
"The elder offered me a spot near the Welati village.
Said there's a canyon with natural cover, good sight lines. "
Then he climbed into the ship and was gone, the engines firing up with a roar that shook dust from the rafters.