Chapter 20 #2
“Apartment,” he growls.
I don’t argue.
The elevator doors open with a hiss that feels too loud. The hallway looks normal.
I know better.
The moment the front door slides aside, I feel it like a slap.
Smoke.
Ash.
Heat.
Voltar steps over the threshold and sets me gently down inside what used to be my home.
Now it looks like a war crime.
The living room’s blackened along the far wall, paint bubbled and furniture charred beyond recognition. The security turret installed above the window is nothing but melted casing and frayed wires. Glass crunches underfoot. My coffee table is… gone. Just gone. Vaporized.
I stagger forward, breath catching.
It’s not just a wreck.
It’s personal.
Someone came here knowing I’d already been targeted once. Knowing Tugun walked away. This wasn’t a warning.
This was a message.
Voltar doesn’t say anything. Just scans the room with quiet fury, hands resting on the twin knives strapped to his hips. His movements are precise. Measured.
Not like before.
Not performative.
This is the soldier part of him. The deadly one. The part he only brings out when things cross a line.
I wander deeper into the apartment. My studio chair is scorched. The holoframe of me and Jacey at our cosmetology graduation is shattered, the edges of her face gone in the blast. The kitchen looks like someone tried to cook a grenade and serve it on fine china.
But what breaks me?
What guts me like a fish?
My bedroom.
My bedroom is a graveyard of melted fabric and scorched dreams. The walls are black with soot, and the bed is half-incinerated, the synth-fill smelling like a chemical fire. My eyes dart to the corner. I lunge for the heavy, scuffed fire-safe I’ve kept tucked under the nightstand for years.
The metal is hot—scorching enough to make my palms hiss—but I don't care.
I punch the manual code with shaking fingers.
The heavy door groans open, releasing a puff of trapped, cool air that smells like the life I had ten minutes ago.
There, nestled inside the reinforced walls, is the photo album.
The edges of the leather cover are warped from the external heat transfer, but the faces inside are still clear.
I pick it up with trembling hands.
Charred at the edges. Melted corners.
But still there.
Still intact.
Voltar kneels next to it, shielding arm extended over the page like a roof. “My defense net caught most of the blast. Blew inward, not outward.”
I pick it up with trembling hands.
Flip it open.
A picture of me at five years old. Missing a tooth. Holding a plastic hairbrush like a sword.
My mother, blurry in the background.
I run my fingers over the image, and they come away gray.
I sink to the floor, album clutched against my chest like a lifeline. Like if I hold it tight enough, none of this is real.
I feel Voltar lower himself beside me. He doesn’t touch me this time.
Just watches.
“They want to erase you,” he says after a long silence.
I look up.
His face is still. Like carved rock.
Not angry. Not wounded.
Ready.
And for the first time in days—hell, maybe years—I feel the same way.
No more hiding.
No more running.
Just this moment.
And what comes next.
I inhale slow. Deep.
Then speak.
“Then I’ll make damn sure I’m remembered.”
The words fall like stones. Solid. Irrefutable.
Voltar doesn’t smile.
He just nods once.
Clipped. Clean.
No arguments this time.
No lectures.
No fear.
Just the two of us. Scorched. Bruised. Unbroken.
The smell of burned upholstery still clings to my skin.
No matter how many times I wash my hands, I swear I can feel ash under my fingernails. It’s not just from the explosion. It’s deeper. In my lungs. In my blood.
It’s the scent of something ending.
I sit on the floor of what used to be my living room, holding that singed photo album like it’s a live wire. Voltar hasn’t moved much since we came in—he’s methodical, scanning every surface like the scorch marks are clues in some crime thriller. Maybe they are.
He’s not talking, and neither am I. Not until my comm beeps.
It’s short. Two pulses. Then silence.
Voltar turns before I even register it. “Encrypted?”
I nod. “Lazarus.”
I tap my compad and patch him through. His voice comes in rough and low, like a cigarette burn across synthwire.
“We’ve located Otto’s asset vault.”
Voltar straightens. “Where?”
“Old district. Edge of Sector Twelve. He owns a cluster of shell corporations propped up as luxury rentals. Looks like one of them hides the real stuff—hardcopy contracts, biometric deals, off-ledger bribes. Blackmail candy.”
I blink. “Wait—you’re saying Otto keeps actual paperwork?”
Voltar huffs a laugh. “Some of the Nine don’t trust digital. Too hackable.”
Lazarus grunts in affirmation. “It’s a nest. Rented by ghosts, guarded by AI drones posing as concierge bots. No judicial oversight. No Alliance flag. No warrant access. If we hit it, we’re breaking a dozen laws.”
“Just a dozen?” I murmur.
There’s a beat.
Then Lazarus says, dead serious, “It’s your call.”
Voltar glances at me.
I already know my answer.
“This is our war now,” I say.
No hesitation. No waver.
Just steel.
An hour later, I’m in front of the mirror.
And I’m not looking at myself—I’m looking at someone I don’t fully recognize.
Gone is the soft, shiny-haired woman in thigh-high boots and risky lipstick.
This woman wears matte-black armor molded to fit like a second skin. Not the kind of fashion-forward body plate that says cosplay assassin. No—this is real. Reinforced. Lethal. Heavy in the shoulders and light in the waist. Designed to move, not show off.
No heels. Just combat-grade mag boots.
I’ve never felt more like myself.
Voltar watches from the door. Arms crossed. Not saying a damn word.
I tug the chest plate tight. It clicks. My heart doesn’t race. It roars.
When I grab the weapons belt from the counter, he’s suddenly behind me. Not looming. Just… there. Big hands brushing mine as he helps guide the clips into place. Smooth, efficient.
His fingers graze my side. It’s electric.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs.
I glance at him sideways. “I’m pissed off.”
His mouth quirks. “That is beautiful.”
We’re silent again. Not the tense kind. The loaded kind.
Then I exhale, sharp. “How many guards?”
“Too many.”
“Turrets?”
“Auto-targeting and biometric scanners on all entries.”
“Windows?”
“Fake. Reinforced steel with glow panels.”
“Backup?”
He smirks. “Just us.”
I nod once.
Perfect.
The hover transport Lazarus sent is a stealth-class freight vessel stripped down for speed. No logos. No tail lights. Just matte gray paint and a humming silence that screams illegal.
Voltar pilots.
I sit shotgun, strapping myself in and triple-checking my weapon.
A modified electro-pulse repeater rests against my thigh. Not regulation, not legal, and very much mine. I palm a stun disc next, tucking it into the forearm slot of my armor.
Voltar watches me from the corner of his eye, one hand on the throttle.
“You’re not afraid.”
“Of Otto?” I scoff. “I just watched my life go up in smoke. You think I’m afraid of some corrupt landlord in a novelty suit?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.
My compad pings again.
TARGET SITE LOCATED. ETA: 7 MINUTES.
Lazarus sends the rest: digital schematics, guard cycles, internal heat signatures.
It’s a fortress dressed up like a penthouse. Thirty-two floors of marble hallways and fake concierge services, hiding a bunker wrapped in luxury wallpaper.
“Entry point’s the rooftop,” Voltar says, slowing the craft. “I’ll drop us on the maintenance grid. You take north. I take west. We converge on Floor 31—data vault.”
I nod. “Clean?”
“If it’s not, make it.”
The rooftop is slick with condensation and fake greenery. Some corporate idiot thought throwing potted trees up here would distract from the helipad and plasma turrets.
We slip between motion sensors, crawl along exhaust vents, and drop down the emergency shaft like a pair of ghosts with vendettas.
My heart pounds like a war drum.
Floor 31 is silent.
Too silent.
Until it’s not.
Three drones zip down the hallway, low and fast, laser scopes blinking to life.
I duck behind a column. Voltar pulls me close, his arm braced across my chest as if he can shield me from pure plasma. He waits, eyes locked on the lead drone.
Then he moves.
Fast.
Two flicks of his wrist—throwing blades pierce the drones in sequence.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
They fall like rocks.
He grins at me. “Still got it.”
I smirk. “Still compensating.”
We sweep forward.
I feel every inch of the hallway like it’s alive. The lights hum overhead. My boots thud softly, rhythm synced to my racing thoughts. My finger hovers over the trigger of my repeater.
Then—there it is.
The vault door.
Cold metal.
Biometric pad.
“No alarms yet,” I whisper.
“Lazarus fried the internal system. We’ve got five minutes tops.”
Voltar steps aside, pulling a cable from his belt and jacking into the control panel.
I hold watch.
The seconds tick.
When the vault door unlocks with a low hiss, my stomach flips.
Inside: rows and rows of physical data. Thumb drives. Crystals. Hardcopy ledgers.
And then—a case.
Black. Sealed. Labeled only with a gold “O.”
I grab it.
Voltar watches my back.
We’re out thirty seconds later, silent as shadows.
Back on the ship, we don’t speak.
Not until the data’s uploaded to Lazarus.
Then, finally, I let myself sit.
The adrenaline doesn’t crash this time.
It smolders.
Voltar slides into the seat across from me, one hand on his thigh, the other bracing the bulkhead.
He stares at me.
Not like I’m fragile.
Like I’m real.
Like I’m seen.
“I meant it,” he says quietly.
I raise a brow. “Which part?”
“All of it. But mostly the beautiful part.”
I smile.
But there’s steel behind it now.
“You better. Because this face?” I tap my cheek. “It’s about to be on every screen across three systems once Otto’s house of lies crumbles.”
Voltar leans in.
Voice low.
Almost reverent.
“Good.”