Chapter 17 The Extraction
POV: Nicander
The heavy brass wheel on the interior of the vault door spun with a violent, mechanical shriek.
Nicander didn't wait for the pneumatic seal to fully disengage. He ripped the encrypted data drive from the server terminal, the metal casing searing hot against his calloused palm, and shoved it deep into the pocket of his tuxedo trousers.
"Get behind me," he ordered, his voice a lethal, low frequency that vibrated over the whining atmospheric scrubbers.
Zinovia didn't argue. The hypoxia had stripped the color from her cheeks, leaving her skin like translucent porcelain, but the terrifying clarity had returned to her dark eyes.
She clutched his wool tuxedo jacket tightly around her shivering shoulders, stepping seamlessly into his shadow, perfectly aligning her body with his center of mass to minimize her profile.
The heavy steel door groaned outward.
A torrential rush of synthesized, heavily air-conditioned oxygen flooded the subterranean vault. Nicander’s lungs expanded violently, drinking in the air, but the relief was instantly shattered by the deafening roar of automatic gunfire.
A localized storm of high-velocity rounds chewed through the doorframe, sending blinding sparks and jagged shrapnel ricocheting against the black server racks.
Nicander slammed his hand against Zinovia’s chest, driving her down to the floor behind the impenetrable, foot-thick steel of the open vault door.
"Three targets," Nicander calculated instantly, drawing the scavenged tactical pistol from his shoulder holster.
He could smell the acrid, burning cordite cutting through the casino's cheap citrus pheromones.
"Matte-gray lapels. Casino security, but they’re using military-grade suppressive tactics.
Lusk must have them on a localized payroll. "
"Can you establish a firing lane?" Zinovia gasped, her breath hitching as the sudden influx of oxygen shocked her poisoned nervous system.
"I don't need a lane. I just need an angle."
Nicander dropped to a crouch. He didn't blind-fire around the corner—an amateur mistake that cost lives. Instead, he dropped entirely to his stomach, utilizing the three-inch gap between the bottom of the open steel door and the concrete floor.
He acquired three pairs of heavy, tactical boots advancing rapidly down the dimly lit corridor.
He fired three times in rapid, measured succession.
The heavy-caliber hollow points shattered the kneecaps of the two lead guards.
They collapsed instantly, their screams echoing off the reinforced walls, their submachine guns clattering uselessly to the floor.
The third guard panicked, breaking his tactical advance to dive for the cover of a recessed doorway, but Nicander was already moving.
He surged to his feet, a blur of lethal, kinetic motion, and rounded the vault door. Before the third guard could raise his weapon, Nicander fired a single round directly into the center mass of the man’s Kevlar vest, dropping him entirely.
"Clear," Nicander barked, ejecting the half-spent magazine and slamming a fresh one home with a sharp, metallic snap. He turned, offering his hand to Zinovia. "We have less than sixty seconds before the casino’s primary security grid seals the exits. Can you run?"
Zinovia didn't take his hand. She pushed herself up from the floor, her emerald-green silk gown sweeping over the bloodstained concrete. The vulnerability she had shown in the dark was gone, replaced by the chilling, untouchable heiress who had dismantled a man in the Dredge.
"I am wearing three-inch stilettos, Vargos," she said smoothly, adjusting the heavy wool jacket over her bare shoulders. "I intend to sprint."
They broke into a dead run down the corridor.
They burst through the heavy brass doors and onto the VIP concourse, colliding with absolute pandemonium.
The localized gunfire had triggered the Azure’s panic protocols.
Blaring red strobes washed over the glittering baccarat tables.
High-rollers were stampeding toward the main elevators, abandoning towers of chips and overturned cocktails in a desperate frenzy.
Nicander used the chaos as camouflage, driving Zinovia through the center of the panicked herd toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlooked the southern marina.
"The terrace!" he shouted over the wailing sirens. "It feeds directly to the private docks!"
They were ten yards from the glass doors when the mezzanine erupted.
A new squad of shooters hadn't bothered with the ground floor.
They were stationed on the sweeping, curved balcony above the craps tables.
These weren't casino guards. Through the flashing red strobes, Nicander recognized the matte-black carbon-nanotube rigs and the reflective compound visors. Morvath Lusk’s elite mercenaries. The ghosts from the cathedral.
A deafening volley of automatic fire rained down upon the concourse.
Marble statues shattered into clouds of white dust. The heavy crystal chandelier above them exploded, raining jagged, lethal glass down onto the gaming floor.
Nicander didn't think. Instinct, forged in the ashes of his mother's murder and sharpened by a terrifying, undeniable devotion to the woman beside him, completely took over.
As a mercenary tracked his laser sight directly across Zinovia’s chest, Nicander violently seized her by the waist. He threw them both sideways in a desperate, flying tackle behind a massive, overturned roulette table.
In the fraction of a microsecond before they hit the velvet-lined floor, an incandescent, searing heat ripped across Nicander’s left flank.
The kinetic impact of the bullet didn't knock him back; it felt as though someone had taken a red-hot iron hook and dragged it violently across his lower ribs. He grunted, a harsh, guttural sound, as they crashed into the carpeted floor.
"Nico!" Zinovia gasped, her hands immediately flying to his chest. Her dark eyes were wide, frantic, scanning his midnight-blue tuxedo for the source of the blood that was already rapidly soaking his crisp white shirt. "You're hit."
"It's a graze. Soft tissue," Nicander lied through his teeth. The pain was excruciating, an electric, localized fire that clashed horribly with the freezing lethargy of the Requiem Toxin still lurking in his veins. He grabbed her wrists, pulling her hands away. "I’m fine. But we are pinned."
The heavy mahogany of the roulette table splintered above their heads as the mercenaries laid down a blanket of suppressive fire.
"We need a distraction," Nicander gritted out, calculating the distance to the glass terrace doors. "I have two flashbangs left in my vest—"
"Save them," Zinovia interrupted, her voice dropping into the terrifying, clinical register he had come to crave.
She reached into the deep pocket of his wool jacket, still draped over her shoulders, and withdrew the small, lead-lined vial of the synthesized Dendrocnide moroides she had used on the ledger-thug.
"The air circulation returns on this floor pull directly through the mezzanine vents," Zinovia observed, her eyes darting to a massive, brass intake grate located just three feet to their left.
She uncorked the vial. "When aerosolized by a high-velocity impact, this compound becomes a volatile respiratory irritant. "
She didn't wait for his approval. Zinovia threw the glass vial directly against the brass intake grate.
The glass shattered. The amber liquid vaporized instantly, sucked directly into the casino’s localized HVAC system.
Five seconds later, the gunfire from the mezzanine abruptly ceased, replaced by the horrific, synchronized sound of three mercenaries dropping their weapons, violently coughing, and clawing blindly at their own throats as the botanical neuro-agonist convinced their lungs they were breathing liquid fire.
"Move!" Zinovia commanded.
Nicander surged to his feet, ignoring the screaming tear of muscle in his side, and kicked the floor-to-ceiling glass doors open. They sprinted out onto the teakwood terrace. The humid, salt-heavy air of the Ionian Sea washed over them, a stark contrast to the chemical nightmare inside.
Below them, a sleek, dual-engine mahogany speedboat idled in a private slip, guarded by a single, terrified valet.
Nicander vaulted the terrace railing, dropping fifteen feet down onto the floating dock. He absorbed the impact with a heavy grunt, his hand flashing out to grab the valet by the collar and toss him unceremoniously into the bioluminescent water of the canal.
Zinovia didn't hesitate. She climbed over the railing, and Nicander caught her effortlessly by the waist, swinging her directly into the leather-upholstered helm of the speedboat.
"Drive!" he roared, untying the heavy mooring line and tossing it onto the deck.
Zinovia slammed the twin throttles forward. The engines erupted with a deafening, throaty roar. The sleek vessel tore away from the Azure Casino, the bow lifting violently as they skipped over the choppy, dark waves, instantly swallowed by the sprawling, impenetrable shadows of the archipelago.
Nicander collapsed against the aft bench, pressing his hand hard against his bleeding ribs.
The wind whipped his dark hair into his eyes, but he couldn't look away from Zinovia.
She stood at the helm, the emerald silk of her gown snapping in the gale, her profile illuminated by the pale blue glow of the navigation instruments.
She was magnificent, ruthless, and entirely brilliant.
He leaned his head back against the leather upholstery, the hot sting of the bullet graze warring with the venom in his blood, and realized that even if they found Morvath Lusk and recovered the cure, the true poison was already terminal. He was completely, irrevocably addicted to her.