The Blowback

The Blowback


The city woke with blood on its teeth. Newsfeeds pulsed with images of seized crates, idle ships, frozen accounts. Julius’s face sat beside Morozov’s in headlines that didn’t ask questions—they screamed. Atlas had spent decades staying invisible. Now their names crawled across every screen.

We should have felt triumphant. Instead, the tunnel felt tighter, colder. Even the ledgers seemed to breathe differently, like they knew storms were inbound.

“They’ll strike back,” Gideon said, as if stating the weather. “Atlas doesn’t debate. They erase.”

Rina’s monitors flickered with chatter, too much to parse. “CrossPoint chatter is heavy. Four operatives deployed. Not Julius’s style. Morozov’s.”

Damien checked his gun, again, like ritual. “Targets?”

“Us,” Rina said simply.

The blow landed at dusk.

We had split: Gideon scouting a safe flat, Damien with me on supply run, Rina in the tunnel. Olek had already left, his train a memory we couldn’t chase. The street outside smelled of rain about to break.

That’s when the sedan rolled slow, windows black, engine purring like something patient.

Damien’s voice was calm but sharp. “CrossPoint.”

I counted three shapes inside, maybe four. The street emptied fast, pedestrians vanishing into shops without being told. This wasn’t random.

“Keep walking,” Damien murmured.

We did. Past one alley, two. The sedan shadowed us. Then the rear door opened, and a man stepped out—black coat, gloves, face ordinary enough to vanish in a crowd. He didn’t vanish now.

“Nia Morgan,” he said, voice flat.

I didn’t answer.

“Morozov sends terms.”

Damien shifted his stance. “He doesn’t send terms. He sends graves.”

The man smiled faintly. “Sometimes they are the same.” He raised a phone, screen glowing. On it, a photo—Rina, in the tunnel, frozen frame from a camera that shouldn’t exist.

“How?” I demanded.

He didn’t answer. He just pressed play. The feed moved—Rina working, unaware. My stomach dropped.

“You touch her,” I said, “and I burn your cathedral.”

“Not ours to burn,” he said. “But yours to watch.”

Two more men spilled from the sedan, guns hidden but not hidden enough. Damien stepped between them and me, his face stripped to bone.

Rina’s voice hissed in my ear. “I see them. You’re live on their feed. They piggybacked my camera.”

“Kill it,” I whispered.

“Already did. But now they know where I am.”

Gideon’s voice cut in from comms, steady. “Hold ground. I’m moving.”

The first shot cracked the air. Not theirs—Damien’s. One CrossPoint man fell, blood blooming across his chest. Chaos ripped open the street. Shouts, screams, glass shattering as people ducked.

The sedan revved, tires screeching. The man with the phone dropped it, pulled steel instead. Damien shoved me behind a bollard as bullets chewed concrete.

I drew my own gun, breath steady, hands not. Fired twice. One missed. One found a shoulder.

The third man rushed, fast, too fast. Damien caught him, grappled hard. They slammed against a wall, fists, elbows, blood.

Then Gideon arrived. Silent, knife in hand, precise. He cut the fight short with one motion. The man dropped, clutching his throat.

The sedan screeched again, reversing, then bolting. Tires screamed around a corner, gone into rain.

Silence settled hard, broken only by sirens approaching.

“Move,” Gideon snapped.

We did, sprinting through alleys, lungs burning, shoes slick. Rain broke overhead, sheets of water washing the street clean of everything except blood that refused to run.

Back in the tunnel, Rina’s hands shook as she yanked cables. “They had me. I felt it. For one minute I wasn’t in my chair—I was in theirs.”

“They’ll come again,” Gideon said. “Harder. Next time, they don’t send four. They send forty.”

“Then we move,” I said.

“Where?” Damien asked.

“Not away,” I said. “Through.”

The ledger sat on the table, red cover glistening under damp light. I laid my palm on it. “Morozov sent his dogs because we cut his food. Now we cut his breath.”

Rina blinked. “Ports weren’t enough?”

“They were prelude,” I said. “The cathedral still stands. We make it hollow.”

Gideon nodded once. “Bookkeeper gave us hymns. Now we choose the one that kills the choir.”

We spent the night in shifts—half watching doors, half parsing ink. Rain hammered the city above like a reminder.

By dawn, we had a line. Morozov’s anchor wasn’t ships, not anymore. It was pipelines disguised as charities, routes that fed armies and politicians alike. And all of it passed through one name in the ledger, underlined twice by Olek: Krymsk Consortium.

Damien traced it with his finger. “He hides steel in saints. But this—this is his spine.”

“Break it,” Gideon said, “and the cathedral collapses.”

Rina’s eyes gleamed. “I can worm it. Burn contracts, reroute funds, turn allies into creditors. But I’ll need access. Physical. A node.”

“Where?” I asked.

She tapped a point on the map. “Downtown. Glass tower. Krymsk keeps a data vault on floor thirty-four. Guarded, locked, paranoid.”

“Then that’s where we go,” I said.

The rain eased by evening. The city glistened, streets reflecting neon like broken prayers. We stood at the edge of the salvage yard, van idling, each of us armed with steel, fire, and the kind of resolve that leaves no room for doubt.

“They came for us once,” I said. “They’ll come again. But first, we take their breath.”

Damien chambered a round. Gideon slipped his knife into his sleeve. Rina checked her rig, eyes steady.

The ledger waited in my pack, heavy, alive.

Atlas had struck back. Now it was our turn.

And this time, there would be no warning.