Chapter 149
Raven
Miranda's body hit the marble floor with a wet thud that echoed through the sudden silence.
For exactly three seconds, nobody moved. Nobody breathed.
Then all hell broke loose.
"What the fuck?!" Bear mask stumbled backward. "Did she just—is she fucking insane?!"
"She killed the hostage!" Pig mask's voice cracked. "The only leverage we had!"
Wolf mask let out a hysterical laugh. "She locks us in, then kills Miranda! Genius! Absolute fucking genius!"
Oh, if only you knew.
I turned slowly, letting my rabbit mask catch the light. Blood dripped from my knife, pattering onto the pristine floor.
"Well." I let the word hang in the air. "I guess that means you're next."
The laughter died.
"Guards!" Raven mask broke first, spinning toward the tactical team. "Miranda's DEAD! You know what that means?!"
"Volkov's gonna lose his shit!" Bear mask scrambled backward. "The Surgeon's gonna want someone's HEAD for this!"
"And it sure as hell won't be OURS!" Wolf mask pointed at me with a shaking hand. "Pin it on the rabbit bitch! She went crazy, killed Miranda—we had to put her down! Perfect story!"
The team leader's rifle swept toward me. His eyes met mine through his balaclava.
Cold calculation. Self-preservation.
There it is.
"Light her up," he ordered. "Don't stop until she's paste."
Thirty rifles opened fire simultaneously.
The sound was apocalyptic. Deafening. The kind of noise that turned thought into static and reduced the world to pure survival instinct.
I dove behind the decorative marble pillar as bullets tore through the air. Wood splinters exploded. Glass shattered. The marble floor cracked under the sustained barrage.
My back slammed against stone. Six feet of solid Italian craftsmanship between me and death. Bullets punched into the pillar, sending chips flying like shrapnel.
Breathe. Assess. Survive.
Full body armor. Kevlar vests. Helmets with face shields. The only vulnerable spots were the legs and neck—if I could get close enough.
Which I can't. Not with thirty rifles trained on this position.
My hand swept the floor beside me, searching for anything useful. Broken glass. Spent shells. A—
Wait.
My fingers brushed against something cylindrical. Metal. Warm.
A smoke canister. One of those industrial ones used for fire suppression systems. Must have fallen from the ceiling mount during the chaos.
And it was sitting right at the base of the pillar.
Right in the path of—
CRACK.
A stray bullet slammed into the canister.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then it hissed.
White smoke erupted from the punctured metal, billowing out in thick, choking clouds. The chemical fog spread fast, swallowing the underground chamber, turning the world into a wall of white.
"What the—"
"I can't see shit!"
"CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!"
The shooting stopped. The smoke kept spreading.
Perfect.
Bloodline had trained us in smoke—how to move through it, fight through it, breathe through it. Months spent in chambers so thick with CS gas that your eyes wept blood. Hours stumbling through zero-visibility mazes while instructors fired live rounds at shadows. Training that separated the professionals from the corpses.
They'd burned that skill into my muscle memory until smoke wasn't an obstacle—it was an advantage.
The guards' night vision would be useless here. Thermal imaging might pick up heat signatures, but the chemical smoke was too dense, creating false readings. Every breath they took, every panicked movement generated heat blooms that would overwhelm their sensors.
They were blind.
Within seconds, visibility dropped to zero.
For them.
"Go check," the team leader ordered from somewhere beyond the smoke. "She's just one girl with a knife. Probably already dead from the barrage."
Nervous laughter rippled through the white haze. "Yeah, probably bleeding out behind that pillar."
"Then confirm it. Move!"
Two sets of footsteps. Careful. Hesitant. A third stayed back—smarter than his friends.
I was already moving through the smoke like water, silent as death. The guards' boots scuffed against marble. Twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten.
"I don't see shit, man—"
"Just look for the blood trail. There's gotta be—Jesus Christ, is that her?!"
A shape materialized through the smoke. The rabbit mask, lying on the ground where I'd dropped it. Next to a body-shaped arrangement of chairs and debris.
The guard stepped closer, rifle raised. "Found her! She's—"
I drove my knife through his left eye before he finished the sentence.
His scream cut off into a wet gurgle as the blade punched through the optical cavity and into his brain. He stumbled backward, arms flailing, rifle clattering away.
Right into his buddy.
"Fuck! FUCK! Don't—"
Panicked, the second guard opened fire. Three-round burst on full auto. All three bullets punched into his dying companion's chest, dropping him like a sack of meat.
The second guard stared at the corpse he'd just created.
"Friendly fire," I said from behind him, my voice barely above a whisper. "How embarrassing."
He spun, bringing the rifle up—
—and found my stolen Beretta already pressed against his temple.
"You know," I continued, stepping closer, "it's bad form to shoot your own people. Didn't they teach you that in operator school?"
"Wait—"
The gunshot was muffled by his helmet. He dropped without ceremony.
I caught his rifle before it hit the ground. AR-15, full magazine. Now I had options.