Chapter 14 #2
“Fyr!” Renn roars.
I drop to one knee beside him, grabbing his suit jacket. It’s wet.
Too wet.
Blood, dark under the emergency light.
Fyr’s teeth are clenched so hard I can hear them grind. His breath comes in ragged pulls.
“Don’t—” he rasps. “Don’t you dare—make this sentimental—”
“Shut up,” I snap, dragging him behind the transport’s armored flank. The metal is warm under my palms, vibrating with engine rumble and gunfire impacts.
Renn crouches with me, eyes wild. “Boss, we gotta move—”
“I’m moving,” I growl, and I slap a pressure patch onto Fyr’s wound, feeling the heat of his blood through my gloves. “You’re not dying here.”
Fyr laughs, wet and pained. “I’m not… dying. I’m just… pissed.”
“Good,” I snarl. “Stay pissed.”
I grab my weapon and rise.
The fight is still going. Loyalists are breaking now, some running, some dropping weapons, some screaming into comms begging for permission to retreat.
I don’t give it to them.
My men sweep, arresting instead of executing—zip cuffs, stun binds, controlled containment. It’s not mercy. It’s strategy. Dead men don’t talk. Captured men do.
I stalk forward and kick a weapon away from a kneeling loyalist.
“On your knees,” I bark.
He stares up at me, shaking. “Boss—”
“Not your boss,” I say coldly. “Not anymore.”
We take the ledger vault in fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of controlled violence and screaming comms and doors being forced like bones being broken. Inside the vault, the air is cold and dry, smelling of servers and money.
I slam my palm onto the transaction authority console and initiate internal locks.
The system flashes warnings—punitive triggers, penalty clauses, Nine contract traps buried in the code like teeth.
Renn swallows. “Boss, if you detonate those locks, we lose reserves.”
“How much?” I ask.
Renn checks, face grim. “Half. Maybe more.”
I stare at the numbers, then at the contract clauses—designed to punish disobedience, to make autonomy expensive enough nobody tries.
I feel my jaw tighten.
“Do it,” I say.
Renn’s eyes widen. “Boss—”
“Do it,” I repeat, voice like steel.
Renn hesitates only a heartbeat, then executes the command.
The console hums, then emits a low, ugly sound—like a vault door slamming shut in the Nine’s face. Numbers stutter. Accounts freeze. Reserve values drop like a body falling off a ledge.
Half our wealth evaporates into punitive triggers.
It hurts.
I let it hurt.
Because autonomy always costs.
And I’m done renting my own house.
We return to the Defrocked Nun like a storm.
The casino floor is still running, because criminals are stubborn and gamblers are suicidal, but tension has turned every laugh into something brittle. People sense the fracture. They smell the blood under the perfume.
I march through the main doors with Renn at my side, blood still on my sleeve, ears still ringing, and my men fanning out in disciplined lines.
Music dies mid-note.
Heads turn.
Security shifts.
Captain after captain appears along balconies and stairwells, watching, waiting to see if this is theater or revolution.
I don’t give them a slow buildup.
I head straight for Kel’s private elevator.
Two guards move to block me.
I look at them.
They move aside.
The elevator rises.
My stomach is a knot of rage and purpose and something else—fear, sharp and personal, because Jordan is out there, and the Nine will strike at her again if they can. They already did.
The doors open to Kel’s chambers.
I enter with Renn and two guards. The impostor sits in his chair, mask hissing. His eyes widen when he sees the blood on me, the set of my jaw.
“You can’t—” he starts.
“Yes,” I say. “I can.”
I grab him by the front of his robe and haul him up. He weighs less than Kel would’ve—lighter bone structure, less mass. My disgust sharpens.
He stumbles, terrified.
“Lonari,” he whispers, “please—”
“I’m done with please,” I snarl.
I drag him down the private corridors, ignoring the way staff flatten themselves against walls, ignoring the murmurs rippling like fire.
When we reach the casino floor, the crowd parts like water around a blade.
I shove the impostor onto the central dais—where the holo-saint usually blesses gamblers and sinners. Tonight, the saint flickers and glitches, as if the Nun itself can’t decide what story to tell.
I turn to the main cameras.
I broadcast.
Every captain watching from every node, every safe room, every street feed—they get the signal, because Kaijen comms still answer to me.
Renn’s voice cracks in my ear. “Boss, you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure,” I say.
I hold up the death certificate fragment and the succession memo.
“This,” I announce, voice carrying, “is proof.”
The casino is dead silent now. Even the slot machines seem to quiet, their little chiming songs choked off.
I slam the papers onto the dais in front of the impostor.
“Tell them,” I growl.
He shakes, mask hissing louder. “Lonari—”
“Tell them,” I repeat, and my voice drops into something that makes even seasoned killers flinch.
The impostor looks out over the crowd—captains, soldiers, civilians frozen mid-breath.
His eyes glisten.
“They—” he whispers.
“Louder,” I demand.
He swallows hard and speaks into the broadcast mic.
“I’m not Kel,” he says, voice trembling. “The real Godfather Kel was assassinated. The Nine installed me. They controlled tribute. They demanded the Kaijen family become a destabilization tool. They… they threatened civilians. They implanted detonators. They—”
A wave of sound surges through the casino—gasps, curses, angry shouts.
Loyalty lines snap audibly.
Some captains go pale.
Some look furious.
Some look relieved, like they’ve been waiting for permission to admit the rot.
I grab the impostor’s authority symbols—the ring, the sash, the crest pin—and rip them off in one brutal motion.
“Authority stripped,” I say coldly. “He doesn’t speak for Kaijen.”
Then I turn, scanning the balconies.
“Captains,” I call. “You swear to me, to the family, and to civilians—or you flee. There’s no third option.”
For a beat, the world holds its breath.
Then Captain Jessa steps forward and raises her hand. “I swear.”
Another captain follows. “I swear.”
A third hesitates, then spits on the floor and storms away, barking for his crew to move.
“Let him run,” I say. “We’ll arrest him later.”
Renn blinks. “Arrest?”
I glance at him. “Strategy over spectacle. We’re not the Nine.”
Some of my old guard look confused. They want blood. They want theater.
I don’t give it.
I give them rules.
“Immediate arrests of the worst loyalists,” I order. “No executions unless they force your hand. We need information. We need leverage. We need the city to see we’re not terrorizing our own.”
Renn nods, grim but obedient.
The impostor is sobbing quietly now, shoulders shaking. I lean close enough that only he hears.
“You stay alive,” I murmur. “Because you’re proof too.”
His eyes widen in terror and relief.
I step back and address the room one last time, voice hard.
“The Nine tribute accounts are severed,” I announce. “We lost half our reserves to their punitive triggers. That’s the price of autonomy. We pay it.”
A low murmur ripples—shock, anger, admiration.
I don’t let them linger.
“New doctrine,” I say, voice carrying like a verdict. “Protect civilians. No collateral. Anyone who terrorizes locals out of fear gets executed. We keep Morazin alive if possible—he’s a thread we pull to find the whole web. And we prepare for Jordan’s return.”
Renn glances at me sharply, but I keep my face steady.
Because Jordan is out there, and I can feel the Nine’s teeth closing around her path even from here.
“They will strike at her again,” I add, quieter but no less deadly. “And when they do—”
I let the silence sharpen.
“We bite back.”
The casino remains still for a beat, then the world surges into motion—captains barking orders, crews moving, civilians scrambling, the Nun turning into a war engine wearing a party dress.
I step off the dais and feel the weight of leadership settle onto my shoulders like armor.
Half our money is gone.
My family is fractured.
My city is burning.
And I’ve never felt more clear.
As I move toward the war room, my encrypted channel pings—a fresh report, urgent, distorted.
“Boss,” a voice says. “Intercept chatter—off-world corridor. A human witness—”
My blood goes cold.
Jordan.
I don’t let my face show it. Not here. Not now.
I just answer, voice like iron.
“Track it,” I say. “And if you touch civilians, I’ll skin you.”
Then I keep walking, because panic is a luxury and I can’t afford it—not while the Nine think they can buy my house and keep my girl like an asset.
Not while Gur screams.