Chapter 35
JORDAN
The vault under the Defrocked Nun is the kind of quiet that feels engineered.
Not peaceful—controlled. The air is cool and dry, tasting faintly of metal and ozone like it’s been scrubbed through too many filters.
The lights are low, clean strips set into the ceiling so there are no shadows deep enough to hide in, but still enough dimness to remind you: this room was built for kings and traitors.
For people who aren’t allowed to vanish.
Morazin sits in the restraint frame like a man pretending he’s bored at his own execution.
His wrists are locked, ankles anchored, spine held in place by a collar rig that monitors his vitals in real time.
His mouth is healed enough to sneer again, though there’s still a rawness at the corner from where the tooth beacon used to live.
He watches me pace in front of him.
I can feel his eyes tracking every step.
“You’re making a lot of noise,” he says, voice silk over rot.
“Noise is kind of my brand,” I reply without looking at him.
I’m not here to trade insults. I’m here to prepare him for a hearing that could blow a hole through every institution in the sector.
And if I’m being honest—if I peel my own bravado back far enough to see what’s underneath—I’m also here to see whether he’s going to fold.
Because the thing about Morazin is… arrogance is his armor. His pride is how he stays upright.
But armor makes a particular sound when it cracks.
I stop at the terminal embedded in the vault wall and pull up the hearing scaffolding. Multi-feed distribution. Live transcription. Redundant audio capture. Automatic evidence release tied to Morazin’s biometrics.
A truth-delivery machine.
Morazin’s eyes flick to the holo display and his throat bobs once.
There. The crack.
I turn my head slightly so he can see my expression—calm, clinical.
“We’re almost ready,” I tell him.
Morazin huffs a laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Ready to parade me like a trophy.”
“Ready to keep you alive,” I correct. “Those are different.”
His lips curl. “You think that little dead-man trick makes me safe.”
“It doesn’t make you safe,” I say. “It makes you expensive to kill.”
Morazin’s gaze sharpens, and for a second I see something I didn’t expect—fear, brief and bright.
Not fear of me.
Fear of what waits outside this room.
He swallows, then forces the smirk back into place like he’s rebuilding a mask in real time. “The Nine will kill me anyway.”
“Maybe,” I say.
He laughs, sharp. “Not ‘maybe.’ They will. They don’t let liabilities speak.”
I step closer, slow, and crouch slightly so we’re closer to eye level. The vault smells faintly of antiseptic. Like it’s trying to keep violence clean.
“Then talk fast,” I murmur.
Morazin’s nostrils flare. His arrogance slips again, and this time it stays slipped long enough that I can see the shape of it.
He’s terrified.
The Nine isn’t a myth to him. It’s personal. It’s the thing he thought he could ride without being thrown.
He leans forward against the restraints as far as they’ll allow, voice dropping.
“I can give you High Lantern,” he says.
My spine stiffens anyway, even though I’ve been waiting for that sentence for days.
“Go on,” I say, careful.
Morazin licks his lips. “You guarantee me asylum. Outside IHC jurisdiction. Outside Alliance jurisdiction. Off-world.”
I let out a breath through my nose—half disbelief, half contempt. “You want a quiet retirement?”
“I want to live,” he snaps, and the sudden heat in his tone surprises me. His eyes flash. “You think I don’t know what happens to people who say the wrong name out loud?”
I straighten slowly.
“I think you’ve been saying wrong names out loud your whole career,” I reply. “You just thought you were protected.”
Morazin’s jaw works. Then his voice turns calculating again. “You can protect me.”
I almost laugh.
“You’re chained in a syndicate vault and you’re trying to negotiate like you’re still in a boardroom,” I say. “That’s adorable.”
His eyes narrow. “Don’t be stupid. You want the name. You want the bridge. You want the proof. I am offering it.”
“And you’re asking me to bargain away justice,” I say flatly.
Morazin’s smile is bitter. “Justice. That’s cute too. You still think institutions will do justice.”
My chest tightens, because the ugly part is… he’s not completely wrong. Institutions don’t do justice. They do risk management.
But I don’t say that.
I keep my voice sharp. “I’m not trading you for a promise I can’t keep.”
Morazin’s gaze flicks to the holo display again—the hearing framework, the dead-man release triggers.
“You can keep it,” he insists. “Kaijen has routes. Kaijen has ships. You have—” He sneers. “You have a godfather who thinks you’re special.”
Heat flashes through me. I step closer again, eyes hard.
“Don’t,” I warn softly.
Morazin’s smirk returns, smaller. “Ah. That one hits.”
I stare at him for a long beat, then exhale slowly and shift tactics.
“No asylum deal,” I say. “But I’ll offer you something else.”
Morazin’s eyes narrow. “Which is?”
“Survival through transparency,” I say. “You live if the truth becomes too public to bury.”
He laughs once, hollow. “That’s not survival. That’s a gamble.”
“It’s the only honest option,” I reply. “You want off-world immunity? You want a clean slate? That’s not on the table. But you want to live?” I gesture toward the holo. “Then you talk where everyone can hear. You become too loud to erase without consequences.”
Morazin’s throat bobs. His eyes dart, and for the first time he looks less like a predator and more like a cornered man.
“And if they still kill me?” he whispers.
My voice goes quiet. “Then you die, and the evidence detonates everywhere, and the people who killed you become visible.”
Morazin stares at me like I’m speaking a foreign language.
I realize, suddenly, that he has never believed in anything that wasn’t privately controlled. He’s never believed in visibility as protection. He’s only believed in backroom leverage.
Which is why he’s terrified.
His voice is raw when he says, “You’re insane.”
I shrug, almost gentle. “Maybe. But I’m not wrong.”
Morazin looks away. For a second, he closes his eyes like he’s trying not to be sick.
Then, softly, like it costs him: “If I do this… there’s no going back.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “That’s the point.”
I stand and turn toward the vault door. “We’ll be back. Don’t bite any more tracking devices into your skull.”
Morazin’s laugh is brittle. “No promises.”
I don’t smile. I just leave.
The operations room upstairs feels warmer, louder—even though it’s still underground by most standards. The air smells like coffee that’s been reheated too many times, warm electronics, and the faint perfume the Nun pumps through vents to keep gamblers happy.
Clint is at a terminal, shoulders hunched, jaw clenched, eyes scanning security overlays like he’s trying to see his own execution schedule hidden in the pixels.
Lonari isn’t in here right now—he’s coordinating the city shielding plan, moving pieces on a board that includes civilians whether we like it or not.
Which means it’s just me and Clint and the truth.
I slap a data pad onto the desk. “Run it again.”
Clint glances up. “Jordan—”
“Run. It. Again,” I repeat.
He exhales sharply, eyes tired. “The last time I ran it, the system flagged an internal breach. My channels are already lit up.”
“I know,” I say. “But the packet gave us more structure. More hooks. We might get a stronger match.”
Clint stares at me for a beat like he wants to argue, then he nods once—grim, resigned.
“Fine,” he says. “But if this trips another alarm—”
“It will,” I cut in. “We’re past subtle.”
Clint’s mouth tightens. “Yeah. We are.”
He plugs into the restricted interface again—different route this time, using a deeper credential chain he clearly hates touching.
His fingers move fast. He types the biometric trace in.
The screen hums. A progress arc creeps forward.
My heart pounds in my throat.
Then—
STRONGER MATCH FOUND.
My breath catches.
Clint leans closer, eyes widening slightly. “Okay… okay.”
A result window opens.
And where a name should be, there’s a black bar.
Not glitchy. Not corrupted.
Deliberate.
IDENTITY: [REDACTED]
ACCESS CLASS: EXECUTIVE OVERRIDE
ORIGIN NODE: ALLIANCE HIGH COMMAND LIAISON CHANNEL
My stomach drops.
“What—” I start.
Clint’s face goes pale. “That’s not technical redaction.”
I stare at him. “Explain.”
Clint swallows hard. “If it was a technical limitation, it would return partial. Or fail. Or spit an error.” He gestures at the screen with a shaking hand. “This is a deliberate executive-level block. Someone in the chain of command decided this identity cannot be revealed by query.”
My mouth goes dry.
“So even inside the restricted system… High Lantern is protected,” I whisper.
Clint nods once, slow. “Yeah.”
A cold fury rises in me, clean and sharp, like a blade being honed.
“It’s not just that they exist,” I say. “It’s that the system is built to hide them.”
Clint’s voice is rough. “Jordan, if we’re seeing an executive block, it means—”
“It means we’re close enough to scare them,” I finish.
Clint looks at me with something like dread. “Or close enough for them to decide you’re not worth the risk alive.”
I huff a humorless laugh. “They decided that weeks ago.”
Clint’s eyes flick to the door. “Lonari needs to know.”
“He does,” I agree.
I start to stand—
And my comm ping chimes softly.
A security alert.
Not from the city.
From inside the Nun.
My skin prickles.
Clint hears it too. His head snaps up. “What’s that?”
I pull the alert up.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS ATTEMPT — INTERNAL SERVICE CORRIDOR B
USER AUTH: STAFF — CATERING
OVERRIDE: DENIED
My stomach flips.
“Catering?” I whisper.
Clint’s eyes widen. “In the underlevels?”
I’m already moving.
I don’t shout for guards because shouting wastes time. I don’t run through the main corridor because running makes noise and noise makes you predictable.