Chapter forty-six
Dion
Iknew that ring. That was the fucking problem.
Not vaguely. Not maybe. Not from some half-memory buried in the back of my skull.
I knew it. The silver band wrapped around the operative’s finger carried a black engraved crest I hadn’t seen in years, but the second the overhead light hit it, recognition slammed into me hard enough to make my stomach turn.
A cracked gladiator helmet. I’d seen it as a kid. Not in Stonebridge, but in Tokyo. My father’s office specifically. I went cold instantly. Beside me, Riven noticed. His eyes narrowed sharply in the darkness.
“What?” He mouthed. I ignored him.
Because suddenly I couldn’t hear the storm outside anymore. Couldn’t hear the dripping pipes overhead. Couldn’t hear the men inside the room talking about shipments and transitions and Hades like they were discussing fucking quarterly earnings. All I could hear was my father’s voice from years ago.
“You were never supposed to see this room.”
I was nine, maybe ten. Too young to understand what I was looking at, old enough to realize I shouldn’t have been there.
Naoya had dragged me out of the office so hard my shoulder bruised for days afterward.
And on the table behind him? Folders marked with the same crest. My pulse started pounding violently. Riven grabbed my arm this time. Hard.
“You good?” He whispered.
No, not even remotely. Because suddenly pieces started rearranging themselves in my head in ways I hated.
My father always traveling unexpectedly when we could barely afford to pay the bills.
The private meetings. The way Kingsmen territory overlapped perfectly with the oldest tunnel systems. The fact Naoya somehow always knew things before everybody else did.
No. No fucking way. The operative flicked ash onto the floor outside the doorway while the others inside kept talking.
“…North route remains unstable.”
“Then cut losses.”
“And the Kingsmen?” A pause.
“They’ll adapt.” My jaw clenched instantly.
They talked about the gangs like assets, disposable, replaceable. Not allies, but tools. Riven looked furious now too. I could practically feel the violence radiating off him from beside me. And honestly? Same.
Because every dead friend? Every race? Every territory war?
Every overdose? It was all engineered. Olympus built Stonebridge into a machine that fed itself suffering.
And we all fucking helped them do it. The operative outside the room finally pushed off the doorway and stepped back inside.
The second he disappeared, Riven moved fast. Too fast to stop.
I barely caught up before he slipped through the partially open steel door with his gun raised.
“Riven-” Too late.
The room inside looked more like a military command center than anything underground beneath Stonebridge should’ve looked. Monitors. Maps. Surveillance feeds. Files. Three operatives looked up in shock. Riven fired first, and the nearest man dropped instantly before anybody could react.
Chaos exploded. Gunfire deafened the room while one operative flipped the table for cover. Another reached for an alarm beside the wall. I shot him before he could hit it. Blood sprayed across the concrete.
“Move!” Riven shouted.
Like I needed the fucking reminder. The remaining operative disappeared through another door deeper in the facility while alarms immediately started blaring overhead anyway.
So much for stealth. Riven vaulted the overturned table and grabbed stacks of files while I covered the hallway.
Footsteps echoed somewhere deeper underground. More coming. A lot more.
“We need to go.” I snapped.
“Not yet.”
Typical. Fucking. Phantom. He ripped photographs from one wall violently.
Children, women, teenagers, and missing people.
One photo made him freeze. Nadia. She was a fucking kid in the picture, maybe twelve, and standing beside who I could only assume was her father.
She was not smiling. She looked numb. My stomach dropped.
Across the top of the file in bold letters:
HADES SUCCESSION POSSIBILITY
“What does that mean?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Because he couldn’t. Riven looked like he was about to fucking kill somebody.
Neither of us fully understood yet, but we understood enough.
Nadia wasn’t random. She never had been.
She wasn’t just Anton’s daughter. She mattered to Olympus.
Deeply. Riven stuffed the file inside his jacket just as shouting erupted down the hallway outside. Too close.
“We’re leaving,” I growled.
This time he listened. Barely. We bolted from the room as gunfire exploded behind us. Bullets ripped through concrete walls while alarms screamed overhead. Red emergency lights flooded the tunnels now, turning everything hellish. The entire facility was waking up.
Vehicles started, doors slammed, and voices shouted commands. Olympus was mobilizing. We sprinted back through the loading station while operatives poured into the tunnels from deeper underground. Not gang members. These were soldiers.
Disciplined.
Organized.
Efficient.
One stepped into our path near the rail tracks.
Riven shot him center mass without slowing down.
Another appeared behind stacked crates. I drove my knife into his throat before he could raise the rifle.
Hot blood coated my hands instantly. No time to think, no time to process.
Just survive. We reached the main tunnel, breathing hard.
Almost out. Then headlights suddenly flooded the passage ahead. A black SUV blocked the exit. My stomach dropped instantly. The doors opened slowly. Four operatives stepped out. And behind them?
Naoya Hattori.
Everything inside me stopped. Rainwater dripped from his dark coat as he stepped calmly into the tunnel entrance, as if he belonged there. Like this was all normal. His eyes found me immediately. No surprise. No panic. Nothing… but disappointment.
“Dion.” Riven raised his gun instantly.
I didn’t reply. Because my entire body had gone numb. Naoya glanced briefly toward the blood on my clothes before looking back at my face.
“You should not have come here.”
Not: What is this?
Not: You misunderstand.
Should not have come here.
Because he already knew exactly what this place was. The realization hit me so hard I almost staggered backward. Riven noticed too, and his voice turned deadly.
“You knew.” Naoya ignored him completely, still staring at me.
“I told them you were not ready.” My pulse roared in my ears.
“What?”
One of the operatives shifted beside him. Naoya silenced the movement with a glance alone. Authority, absolute authority. Cold crawled slowly down my spine. Because suddenly the pieces finally aligned into one horrifying shape.
The tunnels, the Kingsmen territory, the routes, the silence, the control. Riven understood it half a second after I did. I saw it happen in his face. And when he looked back at Naoya again, there was pure murder in his eyes.
“You.” Naoya finally looked at him. Calm. Controlled.
“You were always a distraction.” Riven lunged forward instantly, gun raised, but Naoya’s operatives moved first.
Gunfire erupted through the tunnel.