Mayex ran.
He carried Benny through the labyrinthine streets at a breakneck sprint. Her arm was completely concealed beneath one of the old man's oversized heavy jackets—snatched from the hallway closet on his way out and thrown over her trembling shoulders before anyone on the outside could spot the blood or the wound. To a casual passerby, she was simply a tired child being carried home by her older brother. Nothing more.
He didn't slow down. He couldn't. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic rhythm driving him forward until the nondescript entrance of the underground monastery basement finally came into view.
"I wish I could turn back time," he muttered, his voice cracking from exhaustion and the bitter taste of adrenaline.
Benny shifted slightly against his shoulder, her voice small and tight against his ear. "Don't worry... the others will be waiting at the house. They won't leave you behind."
Mayex managed a tight, fragile smile despite his burning lungs. "Yeah. You're right. We're a team. They'll be there."
---
Boran's Perspective
"So," Boran said, crossing his arms tightly over his chest as he paced the length of the living room. "Do we sit here, or do we go out and look for the old man?"
"I thought the plan was to wait for Mayex," Adam replied, leaning against the kitchen counter, his eyes fixed on the floor.
"We are waiting. But standing around doing nothing is driving me insane. We need a lead. We need to do something."
Boran glanced toward the sofa. Elara sat there, entirely undisturbed, slowly sipping from a juice box as if the violence of the last twenty minutes had happened to someone else, in another lifetime.
Boran stared at her, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "...Is that the level of detachment we're aiming for?" Adam asked dryly, following his gaze.
"Evidently." Boran exhaled heavily, turning his attention to the center of the room. "In the meantime, we have a guest to interrogate."
He walked over to the tied-up figure on the floor and crouched down. "He's still out cold."
"He's faking it," Adam said flatly.
Boran glanced back, frowning. "What?"
"Did you sleep through tactical training?" Adam sighed, stepping closer. "True neurological trauma doesn't keep a healthy fighter perfectly unconscious for twenty minutes without killing them or leaving them seizing. He went under, his body recovered, and he chose to stay down. Smart move on his part, considering we tied the ropes while he was out."
Boran didn't hesitate. He reached out and slapped the boy hard across the face.
"Wake up. I know you're listening," Boran growled. "Talk. Why did you attack us?"
The boy's eyelids fluttered open instantly. The dazed expression vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating smirk as he sat up against the base of the table. "A contract," he said simply.
"A contract to kidnap the old man?" Boran's eyes narrowed.
"The old man?" The boy tilted his head, a genuine flash of amusement crossing his features. "No. My instructions were simple: come in here, shatter the perimeter, and bleed you dry."
Adam's expression hardened. He took a slow step forward, his voice dropping an octave. "The person who gave you those instructions... was his name Johan?"
The boy's smirk flickered. For a split second, fear broke through his composure before he could mask it. "...How do you know that?"
"Because we're idiots," Adam whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. He turned to Boran, his face pale. "It wasn't a frontal assault. It was a diversion."
Boran stood up slowly. "Spell it out for me, Adam."
"Johan didn't send him to win; he sent him to cause chaos. He wanted the window broken, he wanted Benny hurt, he wanted a bloodbath inside this house. Why? To terrify the old man. To make him realize his teenage bodyguards were entirely out of their depth. Johan knew the second the old man panicked, he would bolt through that front door. And Johan was sitting right outside, waiting for him to run straight into his arms. It's brilliant. And we let it happen."
"Wait." Boran's chest tightened. "You're telling me Johan has been watching the house this whole time? Outside?"
The tied-up boy suddenly shook his head frantically, the ropes groaning against his movements. "No—that's impossible! He called me from a pub downtown! I could hear the bartender taking his order over the receiver!"
"When did he call you?" Adam demanded. "And how long did it take you to get here?"
The boy calculated rapidly. "...Forty minutes ago. It took me thirty minutes on foot to breach the perimeter." He stopped, the blood draining from his face as the timeline caught up to him. "Wait. That means—"
"He had a vehicle," Adam finished grimly.
"But he doesn't own a car!" the boy stammered, his confidence completely shattering. "He has a clean license, but no vehicle—he—" He went dead silent for a moment. "...Oh. He Stole one. Yeah. He does that. He does that when he needs to move fast."
Boran had heard enough.
In a single, violent motion, he lunged forward, grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt, and hauled him off the floor until they were nose-to-nose.
"WHERE DID HE TAKE HIM?!" Boran roared.
The sheer volume made Adam flinch. On the couch, Elara's eyes remained fixed on the wall.
The boy looked into Boran's eyes and saw a threshold he didn't want to cross. The arrogance was completely gone now. The room felt suffocatingly small, the silence thick and heavy as everyone waited for a single word.
"You want the coordinates," the boy said, his voice trembling slightly.
Nobody breathed.
"His location is..."
The boy swallowed hard.
"...nowhere. Because he didn't tell me a damn thing."
The silence held for one agonizing second. Then, Boran exploded.
He shoved the boy back to the floor, his face contorted in absolute fury. "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!"
---
Johan's Perspective
Johan hauled the old man out of the passenger side, his grip iron-tight around his upper arm as he guided him through the rusted threshold of an abandoned apartment complex.
"Is... is this the safehouse?" the old man stammered, his knees buckling under the weight of his own terror.
"Do you see iron bars or a blindfold?" Johan asked casually, not bothering to look back as they navigated the debris-strewn corridor. "If I wanted you hidden, you wouldn't know the color of the sky right now. So—no. It's an abandoned residential block."
The old man's stomach dropped.
Johan shoved him into the hollow frame of a defunct elevator shaft, leaning his broad shoulder against the concrete wall.
"Calm down," Johan murmured, checking his watch. "The elevator hasn't run in a decade. Neither has the plumbing. That's why we're here. I've summoned a few of my associates. They need to see you in my custody, and then we can conclude our business."
"Why?" the old man whispered, his voice shaking. "Why go through all of this?"
Johan was quiet for a long moment, staring out the shattered window at the gray German horizon.
"Because I have a point to prove," Johan said, his voice losing its casual edge. "My position in the syndicate is being compromised. Eleven years ago, we took in a stray. A girl. Red hair, green eyes. The handlers called her a curse—said she brought bad luck wherever she slept. I didn't care about superstition. I saw potential, so I took her under my wing. I trained her myself. Protected her from the internal purges." His jaw tightened, a rare flash of bitterness breaking through his scarred face. "And now, she's the board's favorite. The prodigy. The smartest asset we've ever produced. They've decided she should inherit my sector."
The old man frowned, emboldened by a desperate need to understand his captor. "...If she's a threat to you, why didn't you just eliminate her?"
The shift in Johan was instantaneous.
He lunged across the small space, his fingers wrapping around the old man's throat, slamming him against the concrete. His teeth were bared, his eyes burning with a sudden, vicious intensity.
"Do you take me for a savage?" Johan hissed. "I am not a piece of transactional garbage. I don't murder my own blood because of an administrative dispute."
He released his grip abruptly, stepping back and smoothing down the lapels of his jacket with trembling hands. He took a slow, deep breath, restoring his mask of calm.
"Let me clarify," Johan continued, his voice perfectly level once more. "I have no issue stepping down when the time is right. If she truly surpasses me, proving it shouldn't be an issue for her. But it will be on my terms, not the board's. I want to see how she handles a crisis of this magnitude. If she's fit to lead, she'll find a way to neutralize this situation. That is all this is. A test of intelligence."
The old man swallowed hard, his throat raw. "...So you want to outmaneuver her. Not outfight her."
"Precisely."
"And what if..." the old man hesitated, "what if her solution is to simply put a bullet in your head?"
The temperature in the room seemed to plummet.
Johan looked at him, and for the first time, the old man saw the true vacancy behind those burn-scarred features—a vast, simmering abyss that had been kept behind lock and key for years.
"Then I would enjoy hunting her down," Johan whispered.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed from the outer hallway.
Johan's expression brightened instantly. The darkness vanished as he turned toward the doorway, a welcoming smile stretching across his ruined skin. "Finally. I was beginning to think you gentlemen had lost the map—"
The words died in his throat.
Five men stood in the doorway.
There were no firearms. No greetings. Each man held a long, combat-grade blade, their eyes devoid of the loyalty Johan had bought and paid for over a decade.
Johan's smile didn't fade slowly. It simply ceased to exist.
"...Why?" he asked softly.
The five men didn't answer. They raised their weapons, their faces tightening into masks of cold intent, and lunged forward.