Chapter 11 Belmiras Intel
POV: Nicander
The icy rain of the archipelago slashed against the rusted, corrugated tin roof of the defunct tram station. Down below, the bioluminescent canals of the Dredge glowed like infected veins, casting a sickly, ambient violet light into the shadows of the abandoned maintenance loft.
Nicander sat on an overturned chemical drum, a scavenged micro-soldering iron pinched between his fingers. The sharp, toxic scent of burning rosin flux mixed heavily with the smell of isopropyl alcohol.
A few feet away, Zinovia sat perfectly still on a rotting wooden bench.
She was meticulously cleaning her titanium scalpel with a stolen medical wipe.
Nicander watched her from the periphery of his vision.
The violent tremor that had wracked her slender frame hours ago was entirely gone.
The temporary suppressor she had synthesized was working, holding the Requiem Toxin at bay, but Nicander could feel the unnatural, synthetic hum of it in his own blood.
It felt like a tightly coiled steel spring sitting heavy against his heart—a false, chemical vitality masking the creeping rot beneath.
He pressed the searing tip of the iron against the exposed green circuit board of a pre-paid burner phone, fusing a microscopic copper bypass.
"You told her you were going dark," Zinovia observed. She didn't look up from the blade, her voice a cool, detached murmur that barely carried over the drumming rain. "You severed the secure line to protect her. Using a cellular network now, even an encrypted one, is a tactical contradiction."
"We have a name," Nicander replied, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.
He didn't deny her logic; she was entirely correct.
"Olek. But Olek is a mid-level ledger-thug.
He doesn't hold territory. He doesn't operate out of a fixed palazzo. Without my sister’s access to the digital infrastructure of this city, we could spend our remaining twenty-six days kicking down the wrong doors. "
"And if the Veltris intercept the signal bounce?" she asked, finally lifting her dark eyes to meet his.
"I am modifying the SIM to route directly through your father’s commercial transit satellites," Nicander said, snapping the cheap plastic casing of the burner back together. "If Dante’s surveillance sweeps catch the frequency, they’ll assume it's their own encrypted logistics traffic.
They won't look for a dead man in their own data stream. "
Zinovia’s brow arched a fraction of a millimeter. A micro-expression of genuine, clinical respect. "Brilliant. And highly treasonous."
"I am a man of many talents," Nicander muttered.
He stood up, his massive frame casting a long, distorted shadow against the peeling concrete wall.
His chest tightened painfully, a phantom vice gripping his ribs as he stared down at the cheap, plastic device in his palm.
Every protective instinct he possessed screamed at him to throw the phone into the glowing canal below.
Contacting Belmira meant exposing her to the digital crossfire.
But the memory of Zinovia’s frozen, trembling hands earlier that day—the visceral reality of their ticking biological clock—forced his thumb down onto the call button.
He lifted the burner to his ear.
The line hissed with three seconds of agonizing, dead static before a sharp, digitally compressed click echoed through the speaker.
"I explicitly remember attending a funeral for this frequency," Belmira’s voice crackled, tight with an exhaustion that made Nicander’s jaw clench. She was trying to sound purely annoyed, but beneath the sharp cadence, the raw, frantic relief of a terrified sister bled through.
"I am notoriously poor at staying buried, Mira," Nicander answered softly, turning his back to the violet glow of the window.
"You routed this through a Veltri satellite," she noted, the rapid, staccato clatter of mechanical keyboard switches immediately filtering through the line.
"Showy. But effective. I have a localized trace blocker running on my end.
You have exactly two minutes before the automated sweepers flag the anomaly. What do you need, Nico?"
"A ledger-thug named Olek. Mid-level. He processed an offshore crypto-payment for a shipment of matte-black carbon tactical rigs three days ago."
"Olek," Belmira repeated, her voice dropping into the detached, hyper-focused register she used when diving into the syndicate mainframes.
The keyboard clatter intensified into a relentless blur.
"Common name. Uncommon transaction. Standard mercenaries operate on hard currency or established credit.
Crypto implies an off-book broker. Give me thirty seconds. "
Nicander listened to the rain, his eyes drifting back to Zinovia.
She had finished cleaning the scalpel and was currently watching him with an unsettling, predatory stillness.
She was trusting him to navigate this. The heiress to the botanical empire, who viewed trust as a terminal weakness, was waiting on the intelligence provided by the sister of her sworn enemy.
"Got him," Belmira announced, breaking the silence. "Olek Vane. He’s a ghost in the physical registries, but he’s loud on the blockchain. He bounced the payment through six different decentralized ledgers, but the final authorization pinged off a localized IP address."
"Where?" Nicander demanded.
"The Abattoir," Belmira replied, the faint hum of her motorized wheelchair whining in the background.
"It's a decommissioned subterranean meat-packing facility in the lower Dredge wards. Officially, it’s condemned.
Unofficially, the thermal imaging from the municipal grid shows massive heat blooms in the basement levels.
It's an illegal blood-sport ring, Nico. Unsanctioned fights. Heavily guarded."
"Understood."
"Nico, wait," Belmira’s voice pitched higher, stripping away the hacker persona entirely.
"Uncle Silas breached the heavy munitions armory an hour ago. He’s arming the dockworkers.
Dante has locked down the Veltri glasshouses with biometric shields.
The ceasefire is completely dead. If either side catches you in the crossfire... "
"They won't," Nicander lied smoothly. "Stay off the mainframes after this, Mira. Go dark. I mean it this time."
He crushed the burner phone in his grip before she could argue.
The cheap plastic shattered instantly under the localized, drug-fueled pressure of his fist, the lithium battery sparking violently before he tossed the ruined remnants out the shattered window and into the canal.
Nicander turned slowly, his chest heaving as the physical exertion fought against the chemical cold in his blood. Zinovia was already standing, the canvas of her oversized trench coat swaying slightly in the freezing draft. She didn't need to ask if he had the location.
"An underground blood-sport ring in a condemned slaughterhouse," Nicander rumbled, rolling the tension out of his shoulders. "Olek is going to be surrounded by men who get paid to break bones for entertainment."
Zinovia slipped the pristine titanium scalpel back into the hidden sheath strapped to her thigh. The faint, violet light caught the absolute, terrifying void in her dark eyes.
"Good," she whispered, stepping past him toward the rusted iron stairwell. "I could use the anatomy practice."