Chapter 15 Bounties & Breakfast
FIFTEEN
BOUNTIES the screen fills with a dossier.
Photo.
Dark suit, darker eyes, expensive watch. Smug.
Name stamped underneath: VIKTOR LUKA.
“Luka,” Ozzy supplies when my brain whirs.
“Underground clearinghouse. Gun-running, cyber-brokering, little side business in contract hits. Likes staying one layer removed. He runs a network of middlemen who run networks of operators who run networks of idiots. You’ve tangled up some of his lower branches without knowing it. ”
Pieces start to slot in.
“VANTAGE,” I say slowly. “Mask. Then Mask plus Asset. All tagged by the same vendor ID. ALFA07.”
Dean nods once. “We traced ALFA07’s wallets upstream. Wasn’t easy. He’s using a rolling series of mixers. But money always leaves a scent. It comes together here—” he taps the screen just off frame “—shell corporations, burner accounts, and then real-world holdings.”
Arrow pulls up a different view—nodes and connections, a web of lines.
“In the last eight months,” he says, “Luka’s posted four ‘interference’ bounties.
Not just on you. On other ‘problems’ too.
Smaller fry. Journalist in Denver. Activist in Miami.
White-hat hacker in Prague. Those bounties went up, stayed up for a while, then went quiet.
The public threads got archived. We’re still trying to track what happened to those people. ”
Ice trickles down my spine.
“And us?” I ask.
Arrow zooms in.
Three nodes.
We’ve seen them before.
VANTAGE – 15 BTC
MASK-01 – 20 BTC
MASK-01 + ASSET – 35 BTC
Except.
Now the third figure isn’t 35 anymore.
It’s 60 BTC.
My stomach drops.
“He doubled it?” I say, voice flat.
“Almost,” Ozzy says. “He topped it up overnight. It pinged our watcher scripts. That’s why you’re getting the early call.”
“Why?” I demand. “We’ve been off-grid for days. We haven’t hit one of his clients since the last op. What triggered the bump?”
Dean leans forward.
“We think he got a better look at the asset,” he says.
For a second I don’t understand.
Then the penny drops.
“This is because they saw Lark,” I say, jaw going tight.
“Partly,” Dean admits. “But mostly because you’re not just an interference pattern now.
You’re a story. A symbol.” His gaze is steady on mine.
“The vigilante who won’t stay bought. The girl who helps him on the inside.
Crews like Luka’s hate that more than anything.
It encourages other people to stand up. He’s paying extra to make an example of you both. ”
Under the table, my hand curls into a fist.
I force it to unclench.
“Question,” I say tightly. “On a scale of one to catastrophic, how bad is it that the bounty board is now offering enough crypto to buy a small island for the pleasure of shooting us in the face?”
Ozzy whistles low. “Sixty BTC will draw attention. You’re not going to just get hobbyists anymore. You’re going to get specialists checking the listing on their lunch break.”
“Hitmen from all over,” Arrow says bluntly. “Different people, different methods. Some will be idiots with a gun and a dream. Some will be very, very good.”
I glance toward the doorway.
I can hear Lark in the kitchen.
Mug clink.
Cabinet creak.
She has no idea yet that her face is currently worth enough money to fund someone's retirement.
My vision edges dark for a second.
“Pull the listing,” I snap. “You’ve been inside that board. Just… edit it. Spoof it. Drop the payout to zero. Make them think it’s a scam. Something.”
Dean shakes his head once. “We can’t. We took a run at their infrastructure after River’s case, remember?
The minute we start brute-forcing threads or altering tags, we tip Helios/Luka that we’ve got a root past his curtains.
Then he burns it all down and builds somewhere we can’t see.
Right now, those bounties are ugly—but they’re also leverage. Evidence. Windows.”
“I don’t give a shit about windows,” I say, sharper than I intend. “I care about not having my girlfriend’s face printed out in someone’s glove compartment.”
Arrow’s eyes flick up again at the word girlfriend.
He doesn’t say anything about it.
Yet.
Then, I look at Gage, and he doesn’t look happy.
“Girlfriend?” he questions.
Fuck.
“We can discuss this at a later date. When you’re both safe,” Dean interrupts, and I’m thankful for the interruption. “Right now I want you to know we’re doing things.”
“We’re not sitting on our hands,” Arrow says.
“We’re moving on two fronts. First: containment.
We’re tracking chatter on all the sub-channels Luka’s people use, watching for anyone who bites on your listing.
Second: pressure. Dean’s in contact with people who don’t like Luka siphoning money through their pipes.
We squeeze his supply side, he gets distracted. ”
“That’s great for the long term,” I say. “Does nothing about the next forty-eight hours while every two-bit assassin with a Wi-Fi connection plugs our names into their GPS.”
Silence.
Ozzy clears his throat. “Look, man. We knew the second the bounty went up that this could escalate. You decided to stay in it anyway.”
“I decided to hunt people who hurt women for fun,” I shoot back. “I did not decide to make Lark a prize on some low-rent murder Etsy.”
“Knight.” Dean’s voice cuts through the rising volume.
Firm.
Not angry.
Just… grounded.
“You did not make Lark anything,” he says. “Lark chose to stand where she’s standing. She’s not a bystander. She’s part of this operation. You don’t get to rewrite her role just because it scares you.”
It hits home because he’s right.
Again.
I exhale, long and slow. “Okay,” I say quietly. “Then we treat her like part of the op, not like cargo.”
Dean nods once. “Exactly.”
Ranger leans forward, elbows on knees. “Option one,” he says.
“You stay where you are. We double the watch. We keep sweeping the perimeter every couple hours via satellite and drone. The cabin’s isolated, one road in, good sight lines.
Downside? You’re static. Sitting ducks if someone manages to trace you. ”