Chapter 8
LONARI
The Defrocked Nun never really sleeps.
Even when the lights dim to that soft, flattering gold and the music drops into something slow and sensual, the building stays awake in the way predators stay awake—eyes open behind half-lids, ears tilted toward trouble, hands never too far from weapons.
The Nun breathes through vents that taste like spice and smoke, it sweats profit through its walls, and it listens, always, for the sound of a knife being drawn.
So when the first sign of the hit comes, it doesn’t come with drama.
It comes with a tiny, wrong silence.
A half-second pocket where the crowd’s noise should be continuous, where laughter should spill and chips should clack and somebody should be arguing about odds like their ego depends on it. Instead, there’s this microscopic lull, like the room collectively inhales.
Then the front mezzanine window detonates.
Glass and holo-thread explode inward in a glittering arc, catching the light like confetti at a funeral.
The concussive blast smacks the air hard enough that the music stutters, the bass warping into a sick, distorted thump.
People scream, tables overturn, a dealer ducks, and I feel the shockwave in my ribs like a fist.
I’m already moving before my brain finishes naming what’s happening.
“CONTACT!” one of my captains roars into the comm.
The smell hits next—burned propellant, hot metal, ozone—and underneath it, the sharp copper taste of blood as someone near the blast gets sliced by shrapnel.
The Nun’s security protocols kick in, but whoever planned this knew the rhythms, because instead of sealing doors and trapping the attackers outside like amateurs, the system hesitates—just long enough.
That hesitation is the difference between a contained incident and a massacre.
“Lonari!” Renn’s voice barks in my ear, raw. “We got shooters—north mezzanine and—”
“Yeah, I got eyes,” I growl, scanning the chaos through the falling glitter of shattered window.
Figures in dark tactical gear drop from a cable line, boots hitting carpet with silent efficiency.
They don’t dress like Kaijen. They don’t dress like League cops.
They don’t dress like anybody who expects to be seen.
Mercs.
And they’re moving like the Yatori team moved—tight, disciplined, no wasted motion, no bravado.
Not Vakutan.
Not Coalition military.
Professional violence with an invoice.
I take three long strides onto the casino floor, my boots finally loud against the carpet because the room’s noise is shredded into panic.
My men are already drawing weapons, but the crowd is in the way—hundreds of civilians stampeding, bodies slamming into each other, perfume and sweat and fear mixing into a nauseating cloud.
“CLEAR THE FLOOR!” I roar, voice carrying without amplification because I’ve got lungs built for war. “DOWN! GET DOWN!”
A cluster of gamblers collapses behind a baccarat table. A woman in a glittering dress trips and hits the carpet hard, her scream high and thin. A Fratvoyan bartender vaults the bar with acrobatic ease, landing in a crouch with a shotgun in his paws and eyes like a happy lunatic.
“Boss!” he yells. “You want me to—”
“Not yet,” I snap. “Wait for my call.”
Gunfire cracks.
Not wild. Controlled bursts.
A security guard near the roulette wheel takes two rounds and drops, blood blooming dark across white shirt fabric like spilled ink. The crowd surges again. I feel my jaw tighten so hard my teeth ache.
Then a voice comes through my comm—female, sharp, pissed.
“Lonari.”
Jordan.
I whip my head toward the VIP corridor entrance where she’d been earlier. She’s not there. Of course she’s not there. She doesn’t hide when the world collapses; she tries to fix it.
“What?” I bark.
Her voice is tight but steady. “Your lighting grid—do you want it on or off?”
I blink once, processing. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Answer the question,” she snaps, and I can hear the metal in her tone. She’s scared, but she’s weaponizing it.
I glance up. The mercs are using the overhead glow to pick targets, cutting through chaos with thermal optics and disciplined movement. My men are trained, but not all of them are used to fighting in a civilian crowd where you can’t just open up with heavy fire.
“Off,” I say immediately. “Kill the lights.”
“You got it.”
A heartbeat later, the entire casino floor drops into darkness.
Not dim.
Not emergency red.
Black.
The kind of black that makes your stomach flip because your eyes suddenly don’t work and you remember you’re an animal pretending you’re civilized.
The crowd screams louder.
The mercs hesitate.
Just a fraction.
But a fraction is everything.
My men’s visors flare into night mode instantly; Kaijen gear is built for this. The mercs’ optics—whatever they’re running—stutter as the sudden grid shutdown forces recalibration. I see their silhouettes jerk, their heads tilt, their rifles sweeping as they try to reacquire.
“MOVE!” I growl into comms. “Teams Alpha and Bravo—left flank. Charlie—up the stairs. No sprays. No civilians. Put them down clean.”
I sprint across the floor, tail balancing my turns, feeling the carpet’s give under my boots, smelling sweat and panic and the faint electrical ozone from the lighting system dying.
My ears catch everything now—footsteps, gasps, the click of a safety being flicked, the soft whirr of a merc’s rifle stabilizer.
A merc turns toward me, rifle coming up.
Too slow.
I slam into him like a truck, my shoulder driving into his chest plate. The impact knocks the breath out of him in a sharp grunt. His rifle skitters across the carpet. I grab his wrist, twist, and the bone gives with a wet pop that I feel in my palm.
He screams.
I don’t have time for it.
I shove him into a table, crack my elbow into his helmet, and he goes limp.
Renn’s voice cuts in my ear. “Second team coming in from the service corridor!”
“Let them,” I say, already pivoting toward the north mezzanine stairs. “Funnel them. Don’t chase.”
The darkness turns the Nun into a maze. Neon from the outer windows bleeds in faintly, throwing warped color across the floor—greens, reds, purples—like the building is bleeding light.
Emergency strips should be activating, but Jordan killed the whole grid, and that means we’re running on minimal power.
Which is fine.
I don’t need pretty. I need advantage.
Gunfire snaps again. A Kaijen enforcer curses, then returns fire in disciplined bursts. Another merc drops with a soft thud. A civilian screams as they crawl under a table.
I hit the stairs, taking them three at a time.
The mezzanine smells different—less perfume, more gun oil. I see two mercs moving toward a private door that leads deeper into the VIP wing. That’s where Kel’s office is.
That’s where Glar was.
That’s where the Nine’s leash lives.
My blood goes cold and hot at the same time.
“Not tonight,” I whisper.
I pull my sidearm, a heavy slugthrower modified for shipboard use—no hull breaches, no explosive rounds, just brutal stopping power. I level it and fire once.
The slug hits the first merc in the back of the knee. He drops with a howl, leg collapsing. The second merc whirls, rifle sweeping.
I fire again.
Shoulder. He staggers.
A third shot—head.
He drops.
The wounded merc on the floor tries to crawl. I step on his rifle, pinning it, and crouch over him.
His helmet visor reflects my eyes—red on red—like two demons meeting in a mirror.
“Who sent you?” I ask softly.
He spits blood and laughs, wet and ugly. “You’re late, Kaijen.”
I grab his helmet and yank.
The seal breaks with a hiss. His face is human. Mid-thirties maybe. Cybernetic implant along his jawline. Pupils dilated but not drugged—enhanced, maybe.
He looks at me like I’m a paycheck.
“Who sent you?” I repeat, voice still calm.
He grins. “You think this is about you?”
The words land wrong.
Because he’s right.
This isn’t a hit on the Nun for profit. It’s too precise. Too coordinated. Too familiar.
It’s a message.
A warning.
A leash tightening.
I slam my fist into his throat hard enough to cut off air but not kill him. He gags, eyes bulging, hands clawing at my wrist.
“Try again,” I say conversationally. “Who sent you?”
Before he can answer, my comm crackles.
Jordan again, breath fast. “Lonari—there are more in the lower maintenance access. They’re trying to come up behind your teams.”
“Of course they are,” I mutter.
“How do you want me to—”
“Lock the maintenance bulkheads,” I snap. “Trap them.”
“I don’t have clearance,” she fires back.
“You do now,” I growl. “Renn—give her admin for ninety seconds.”
Renn’s voice, strained: “Boss, that’s—”
“Do it.”
A pause. Then Jordan’s voice again, softer, focused. “Okay. Got it. Override accepted. Bulkheads closing.”
Metal groans somewhere below as doors seal.
I look down at the merc under my hand, now wheezing.
“You’re boxed,” I tell him. “So here’s how this goes. You talk, you breathe. You don’t, you choke until you see stars. And I promise you, I’ve got patience. Prison taught me patience.”
His eyes flicker with something—fear, finally, slipping under the arrogance.
“You want names?” he rasps.
“Yes,” I say. “And I want the why.”
He swallows, throat bobbing against my grip. “We were paid through shells. League routing. Baragon-linked.”
My stomach tightens, not surprised, but angry that the pattern is so consistent it’s insulting.
“Baragon,” I repeat.
He coughs. “Not direct. Intermediaries. We don’t meet them. We get accounts. Dead drops. Contracts.”
“And Yatori?” I ask, voice low now, dangerous.
His eyes widen slightly.
That’s answer enough.
“You were there,” I say.
He tries to smile, but it’s weak now. “Heh. Yeah.”
My hand tightens on his throat. “Talk.”
He gasps. “Foreman—Morazin—he’s alive.”
The words slice through me sharper than any blade.
Morazin.
Jordan’s story. The station. The snapped voice. The overwriting logs.
Alive.