Chapter 62

Chapter 62
Lina's POV

Footsteps suddenly echoed from the stairwell. I spun around alertly, my gun muzzle tracking toward the sound. Seeing it was Luca, I relaxed slightly, lowering my weapon forty-five degrees but not holstering it completely.

"Come on, third floor." He scanned the corridor's condition, his gaze lingering on each corpse before his expression darkened further.

I followed him up to the third floor, where blood footprints marked the metal stairs—judging by size and tread patterns, at least three people had passed through.

Reaching the third floor, we found the door blown open. The frame was warped outward, the lock completely pulverized, the door hanging askew from a single hinge, swaying slightly in the airflow with creaking groans. Plastic explosives had been used—not much, but precisely directional. The operator was professional, knowing exactly how many grams would blow the door without collapsing the entire room.

Inside, thick smoke rolled through the room. Soundproofing foam on the walls was burning, melted chemical fibers producing a sharp, acrid stench. Flames devoured documents and furniture piled in corners, papers curling into ash that danced upward in the heat currents.

Dmitri was long gone, leaving only a chair and fragments of the violently removed electronic ankle monitor.

Luca stood in the doorway as smoke poured out with the airflow. His eyes narrowed slightly, firelight playing across his face in flickering patterns.

"Too late."

Luca didn't respond, instead crouching to examine the floor. His fingers sifted through debris around the chair, then pinched up a small, irregularly shaped metal piece. After studying it closely, he handed it to me.

I took it in my palm—a prosthetic limb connector with obvious wear marks at the break. It was from the Raven's left leg prosthetic.

"He came personally," I said.

"He came personally," Luca repeated, standing and pocketing the metal fragment. "His inside man cut communications and alarm systems while he brought people through the east ventilation, clearing the second floor before moving to the third."

"I did a quick sweep of the second floor bodies—five total. Still missing three people."

Luca turned toward the stairs. "Let's go find them."

Returning to the first floor, we found the sixth body in a corner of the storage area.

This person's neck had been snapped, head twisted at an unnatural angle. The cervical fracture created an odd bulge beneath the skin, and his death position indicated he'd been ambushed from behind.

Though he wore Luca's crew uniform, his hand clutched an undrawn knife, its sheath's inner side carved with a spread-winged raven pattern.

So he was the inside man.

"Marco." Luca stared at the dead face, his voice flat. He crouched down, gazing steadily at those features. "Been here three months. Recommended by the Brooklyn district liaison."

"Right. Used and discarded—never leaves witnesses. That's always been his style." I studied the knife in Marco's hand, blade still undrawn. He hadn't even had a chance to resist before dying.

The Raven had him complete everything needed—cut communications, disable alarms, unlock the third floor's electronic locks—then, just when Marco thought he could evacuate with the rest, snapped his neck from behind.

People trusted by the Raven and people killed by the Raven were usually the same group.

Just as we prepared to search for the remaining two bodies, the screech of emergency braking came from outside—Luca's reinforcements had arrived.

Five black SUVs arranged in a fan pattern outside the warehouse's main entrance, over a dozen men in tactical vests pouring out. Leading them was a bald man, short and stocky, his neck nearly as wide as his head. He jogged over quickly and nodded to Luca.

"Search a three-kilometer perimeter," Luca ordered. "Look for a high-capacity vehicle—maybe a box truck or modified van. The Raven's left leg prosthetic limits his mobility; he needs transport to move Dmitri. The vehicle might still be nearby—the fire started recently, so they won't have gone far."

"Yes, sir!"

The bald man turned, raised his right hand in two circles, and the dozen men instantly scattered into three groups advancing in different directions. Some carried portable floodlights, their beams cutting moving corridors through the darkness.

I stood at the warehouse entrance, watching flames leap from third-floor windows. Fire tongues licked past window frames as glass shattered in the heat, fragments raining down like precipitation, creating sharp crystalline sounds against the concrete. Thick smoke rolled upward into the night sky, dispersing in sea winds only to be continuously replenished, like the warehouse itself exhaling an endless breath into the heavens.

With Dmitri taken by the Raven, Raven organization's power vacuum hadn't collapsed as we'd anticipated. There would be no infighting or internal consumption—instead, there might be new consolidation.

Within twenty-four hours of Dmitri's capture, the Raven had used action to prove something to the entire organization: the old king could be deposed, and the new king had the capability to reclaim the old king from enemy hands—or, depending on what story the Raven wanted to tell, "rescue" the old king from enemy torture.

Either version made the Raven the winner, and this was more dangerous than collapse. A fractured Raven was trouble; a reintegrated Raven was a threat.

"He'll contact us," I said.

Luca stood beside me, firelight reflecting in his pupils—two small flames dancing in his irises' depths, making his gaze appear simultaneously blazing and calm. Hearing this, he looked at me with some confusion, eyebrows slightly furrowed.

"What do you mean?"

"The Raven sending those coordinates to the communicator wasn't pure demonstration." I turned toward him. "He's establishing dialogue. He wants us to know Dmitri is in his hands—a living Dmitri is leverage to him; a dead Dmitri has no value."

"You think he'll trade Dmitri with me."

"Not with you," my voice cooled as I turned back, my gaze returning to that fire-lit night sky, as if I could see the clues the Raven had left in the chimney-like smoke.

"With me. I'm first on the kill list—he knows I most want to ensure Dmitri can never threaten my people again. He'll trade Dmitri's life for my concessions—like me no longer hunting him, or surrendering certain things. We'll know what specific leverage when he contacts us."

Luca fell silent for several seconds. During those moments, a muffled crash came from somewhere on the warehouse's third floor—probably a beam section collapsing from the fire, hitting the concrete floor and making the ground beneath our feet tremble slightly.

"What do you have that he wants?"

I thought about it. The Raven wanted independence, wanted to take over Raven's remaining forces, but takeover wasn't as simple as killing the old king. Raven was a transnational criminal network—its assets, accounts, contacts, safe houses, and armories were scattered across dozens of countries. These resources couldn't be mobilized with just a gun and one successful raid.

Dmitri's head contained the layout—names, addresses, contact methods, code protocols—but activating those layouts required authentication codes, a set of digital keys updated monthly. Without the keys, even sitting in Dmitri's chair, the Raven would just be occupying an empty seat.

I closed my eyes and began remembering. That day in the interrogation room, Dmitri had looked at me and recited a string of numbers in Russian. I'd thought it was delirium and paid no attention, but thinking back now—

He'd done it intentionally.

"The keys. Dmitri gave me Raven network's activation keys."

Luca's gaze fell on my face with a hint of sharpness and scrutiny.

"You never mentioned this before."

"Because I didn't know what it was then." I met his gaze honestly. "He recited a string of numbers in Russian. I thought it was meaningless. Now, connecting the dots, those were the keys."

Luca's jaw tightened sharply. He looked at me deeply, then turned toward the car parked roadside.

"Get in."

"Where to?"

"Back to the apartment." He opened the car door. "You need to write down those numbers, then we'll discuss how to use them."

The engine started, and the car pulled away from Red Hook's industrial roads. Through the rearview mirror, I watched the warehouse fire grow smaller—from a burning rectangle shrinking to a jumping bright point, then to an orange sparkle the size of a pinprick before finally being swallowed by darkness.

Floodlight beams still swept across that area, reinforcements still searching, but I knew they probably wouldn't find the Raven. If he'd had enough time to leave prosthetic parts as a signature, he'd had enough time to arrange escape routes. He was never the type to wait for police at crime scenes.

I leaned back in my seat, fingers unconsciously toying with the holster's edge.

The Raven had Dmitri, and I had the keys. The chessboard was reset, and I'd transformed from a game piece into a player holding crucial leverage. This feeling was strange but not entirely uncomfortable—at least now, before making any moves with Dmitri, the Raven had to consider what I held in my hands.

However, leverage meant becoming a target.

From now on, the person the Raven was hunting wasn't just another name on the kill list—he would stop at nothing to find me.