Chapter 7 #2
The Baragon intermediary tag emerges again, clearer now, like a signature someone thought was too buried to be found.
My pulse quickens.
“Got you,” I whisper.
I cross-reference the tag against Kaijen internal blacklists. A file pops up—fragmentary intel, rumors, compiled by syndicate analysts who probably look like accountants until they break your kneecaps.
Baragon. League shadow consortium. Time-lost boogeymen in some stories, real money movers in others.
I sit back slowly, letting the implications settle into my gut like cold lead.
This is bigger than a prison moon.
This is someone pushing the galaxy toward war because war is profitable.
My compad vibrates suddenly—an incoming local message.
I flinch, then see the sender: Lonari Kaijen
A single line.
You alive?
I stare at the words, heat prickling behind my eyes.
He’s checking.
Not because he has to. He already knows I’m useful.
So why?
I type back.
Barely. Your “friends” are charming.
His reply comes almost immediately.
They’re not my friends. Stay in the room. Don’t open the door for anyone.
I snort softly.
What, no bedtime story?
A pause.
Then:
If I tell you a story, you’ll ask questions. I don’t have time to lie right now.
I stare at that, surprised despite myself.
Honest, in his own blunt way.
Before I can respond, another message pings—this one not from Lonari, but from a system notification: SECURITY ESCORT AVAILABLE — REQUESTED BY RENN
Great. A babysitter.
A knock sounds at the door, soft but insistent.
“Miss James?” a male voice says. “Escort. For your safety.”
I keep my voice flat. “Tell Renn I’m working.”
A pause. “Godfather requested you remain—”
“I’m remaining,” I snap. “In this room. Working. Go away.”
Silence.
Then footsteps retreat.
I exhale, then return to the data, diving deeper because it’s the only thing keeping me from spiraling.
Time passes strangely in the Nun. There’s no natural light, only curated glow and constant sound bleeding through the walls—distant music, laughter, occasional shouts that could be celebration or violence.
My senses keep catching little details: the faint vibration of bass through the floor, the smell of cooking spices drifting up through vents, the soft hiss of the air system cycling.
And beneath it all, the awareness that I am surrounded by predators who smile.
Eventually, hunger hits me like a wave. My hands cramp from typing. My eyes blur.
I push back from the desk and pace the room once, twice, trying to shake out tension.
And that’s when I hear it.
Not inside the room—outside, down the corridor, muffled but clear enough to catch tone.
A man’s voice, pleading.
Another voice, calm, amused.
Then a sharp sound—like a fist hitting flesh.
I stop pacing.
My stomach tightens.
I move to the door and press my ear to it, careful not to touch the panel where someone might detect me.
The voices sharpen slightly through the seam.
“—I told you, I’m good for it,” the pleading voice says, breathy with fear. “Just give me another week—”
“You said that last week,” the calm voice replies, almost gentle. “And the week before. I’m starting to feel like you don’t respect my calendar.”
A wet cough.
“Please,” the first man whispers.
A soft chuckle.
Then: “You know what I think? I think you’re confusing kindness with weakness.”
Another impact.
My throat goes dry.
I open the door before I can talk myself out of it.
The corridor is dim, lit by gold wall sconces. Two Kaijen enforcers stand there—one male, one female—both in tailored suits, both with weapons holstered like accessories. Between them is a man on his knees, hands bound behind his back, face swollen, blood dripping from his nose onto the carpet.
He looks human.
Older. Desperate. Eyes wild.
The female enforcer glances at me, expression blank. “Miss James.”
“What is this?” I demand, voice sharp.
The male enforcer smiles faintly. “Business.”
“That’s a person,” I snap.
The man on his knees looks up at me like I’m an angel he doesn’t deserve.
“Please,” he rasps.
The female enforcer sighs, like I’m an inconvenience. “He owes.”
“Owes what?” I ask.
The male enforcer shrugs. “Credits. Favors. Time. Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” I say, stepping forward despite the way my skin prickles with danger. “You can’t just—”
“Oh, we can,” the male enforcer replies, still smiling. “We do it all the time.”
The man flinches as the female enforcer crouches, gripping his jaw.
“Last chance,” she says calmly. “Where’s the money?”
He sobs. “I don’t have it. I don’t—”
She backhands him with efficient force. His head snaps sideways.
I feel nausea rise.
“Stop,” I say, voice shaking now. “Stop! This is insane.”
The male enforcer’s smile widens. “Welcome to Gur.”
I turn, searching the corridor—guards at the far end watching, indifferent. No help.
Then Lonari’s voice cuts through the scene like a blade.
“That enough?”
He steps into the corridor from the shadowed intersection, taller than everyone, his presence instantly changing the air.
He isn’t dressed like a prisoner now. He’s in black—tailored, fitted, expensive-looking without being flashy.
The fabric moves with him like it knows its job.
A heavy ring glints on one clawed finger, subtle but unmistakable in the way only real power can be.
His eyes sweep the enforcers.
They straighten instantly.
“Boss,” the male enforcer says, smile faltering.
Lonari’s gaze flicks to the man on the floor. “This one a predator or just stupid?”
The female enforcer hesitates. “Debt runner. Keeps skimming from the girls upstairs.”
The man whimpers. “That’s not—”
Lonari lifts one hand, and the man’s words die.
I stare at Lonari, anger boiling up through my fear.
“You call this business?” I snap.
Lonari’s eyes slide to me, unreadable. “I call it Tuesday.”
“That’s not funny,” I hiss.
“No,” he agrees, and his voice drops into something colder. “It’s not.”
He steps closer, stopping beside me, and the scent of him hits me—cleaner than before, soap and leather overlaid with the faint iron note that never leaves him. He looks down at the kneeling man.
“Skimming from the girls,” Lonari says softly. “That true?”
The man shakes his head frantically. “No— I swear— I—”
Lonari crouches, slow, controlled, bringing his face closer to the man’s. His tone stays almost conversational.
“If you’re stealing from them,” he says, “you’re not stealing from the house. You’re stealing from people who can’t afford to lose anything. You understand the difference?”
The man sobs. “I— I was going to pay it back.”
Lonari’s eyes narrow slightly. “Everybody’s gonna pay it back. Eventually. That’s kind of the point.”
I swallow hard. “Lonari—”
He doesn’t look at me. “Jordan. Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I snap. “Don’t care?”
He finally turns his head toward me, and the look in his eyes is sharp enough to cut.
“Don’t mistake me,” he says quietly.
I hold his gaze, breathing hard. “Then explain yourself.”
He straightens, towering again, and gestures with a small flick of his hand.
The female enforcer releases the man’s jaw and stands.
Lonari says, “We don’t hurt civilians.”
I blink. “You just—”
“Civilians,” he repeats, emphasizing it. “People trying to live. People who pay what they owe. People who don’t prey.”
He points one clawed finger toward the kneeling man.
“This,” he says, voice low, “is a predator. He steals from girls who work the floor because he thinks they’re too scared to fight back. He’s not a victim. He’s a parasite.”
The man sobs harder. “Please—”
Lonari doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t posture. He just says, “Put him in the ledger cage. Two days. No food from the house. Let him sit with his hunger and his choices.”
The male enforcer nods quickly. “Yes, boss.”
They haul the man up.
The man looks at me one last time, eyes pleading.
I don’t know what to do with that look. My chest aches with it.
As they drag him away, I turn on Lonari, voice shaking with fury and something worse—confusion.
“You’re a monster,” I say.
Lonari’s mouth twitches slightly, not quite a smile. “Yeah.”
“That’s not—” I struggle, searching for words that don’t sound naive. “You can’t just decide who deserves pain and call it morality.”
He steps closer, and now he’s close enough that his shadow covers me, his presence pressing into my personal space without touching.
“I don’t call it morality,” he says quietly. “I call it a line.”
“A line,” I repeat bitterly.
He nods once. “There are people who hurt others because they can. They build little empires on the backs of the weak. If nobody stops them, they keep going until there’s nothing left to take.”
His gaze holds mine.
“I stop them,” he says.
My throat tightens.
I want to hate him. I do hate what he is. I hate the power. I hate the casual violence. I hate that the IHC would call him a criminal and stamp it on paper and feel righteous.
But I also can’t ignore what I just heard: “skimming from the girls.”
Predator.
Parasite.
Lonari isn’t pretending he’s good.
He’s pretending he’s necessary.
And that’s somehow worse… and somehow more honest.
I swallow, voice quieter. “So you’re the hero of Gur.”
Lonari’s laugh is low, brief, humorless. “No. Gur doesn’t get heroes.”
“Then what are you?” I ask, genuinely, because my blanket resentment of Coalition species and criminals and syndicates suddenly feels too simple to hold.
Lonari’s eyes soften by a fraction—just enough to be noticeable.
“I’m the thing that makes other monsters flinch,” he says.
The words settle into my gut like a stone.
I look away first, staring down the corridor where the enforcers vanished, where the music from the casino floor drifts up like nothing happened.
When I look back, my voice is hoarse. “I tried to contact the IHC.”
Lonari’s gaze sharpens. “And?”
“They cared more about where I am than what I have,” I say, anger resurfacing. “They started talking about containment teams.”
Lonari’s jaw tightens. “Told you.”
“I know,” I whisper, hating that he’s right.
I glance back toward my room, toward the Kaijen servers waiting like a hungry machine.
“I found more,” I say. “Baragon intermediaries. Shell payments. This wasn’t random.”
Lonari’s eyes darken. “Yeah. It wasn’t.”
For a moment, we stand in the corridor, the air thick with perfume and violence and the faint sweetness of the Nun’s curated lies.
And I realize something, reluctantly, painfully:
My old prejudice—my blanket resentment of Coalition-aligned species, of criminals, of anyone outside IHC “order”—was a shield. A simple story I told myself so I wouldn’t have to deal with complexity.
But complexity is standing in front of me, wearing a tailored suit and a death sentence smile, drawing lines in blood and calling it protection.
I don’t trust him.
But I can’t dismiss him as easily as I wanted to.
“Come on,” Lonari says finally, nodding toward my room. “Back inside. Keep digging.”
I hesitate, then nod.
As I turn, I catch my own reflection in the glossy wall panel—hair a mess, eyes haunted, face smudged with dust and fury—and I barely recognize the girl who used to believe the IHC would keep her safe if she just followed the rules.
I follow Lonari anyway, because right now, the truth is the only thing I trust.
And he—damn him—is pointing at it with steady hands.