CASSIAN

The staging point was an empty commercial unit, a half-kilometer from the port.

It was the kind of place that lived in the cracks of the city, an empty space of concrete and dust that nobody remembered to lease and nobody bothered to check.

It smelled of stale air and old damp.

Reid was already a ghost in my ear.

On the tablet propped up against a crate, the port facility was laid out in sharp, digital lines.

Three entry points. Real-time feeds from the two monitored gates showed the world in grainy shades of gray and blue.

The Serbian convoy was already there.

Black SUVs, heavy and silent, parked in a perfect row. They were on schedule. Emilio’s people were on schedule.

"Transaction is active," Reid’s voice came through, crisp and professional. "Six on the Serbian side. Vincenti security: fourteen confirmed. The accounts are live, Cassian. I’m positioned to drain them on your signal. Once I start, I have a forty-second window before the firewalls realize the floor has dropped out from under them."

I looked at the digital clock on the screen. Then I looked at the rusted metal door.

"Where is he?" I asked.

"Still showing his tracker at..." Reid paused, the sound of rapid typing clicking in the background. "Three blocks out. Moving slowly."

"Of course he is," I muttered. Cyan didn’t move for the world; the world usually got out of his way.

The door creaked open, admitting a slice of the humid night air.

Cyan walked in. He wasn’t wearing tactical gear. He was wearing something dark, tailored, and obscenely expensive, the kind of clothes that looked like they belonged in a gallery, not a shipping yard.

His rings caught the dim light of the tablet, silver and gold glinting on his knuckles.

"You’re late," I said.

"I’m fashionably late," Cyan countered, his voice smooth and entirely unbothered.

He checked his watch with a flourish.

"There’s a distinction, Cassian. Besides, the transaction is still active. I’m exactly on time."

"Get the earpiece," I told him, nodding toward the kit on the crate.

He picked it up, sliding it into his ear with practiced ease. "Reid," he said. "Good evening."

"Good evening to you sir," Reid replied. I could hear the flat neutrality in his voice, the sound of a man who had worked with Cyan before and had learned that having an opinion on him was a waste of energy.

"Always a pleasure," Cyan chirped. He turned to me, his eyes sharpening as he looked at the tablet. "Walk me through the current state of our little play."

We moved out as a unit of four. Myself, Cyan, and two of my primary security, men who didn’t need instructions because they already knew how to breathe in sync with a mission.

The port district was a graveyard of industry. The air was thick with the smell of salt water, rotting wood, and diesel. Huge cranes loomed over us like the skeletons of giants. It was a place designed for things to disappear.

"Serbian side has completed transfer verification," Reid whispered in our ears. "Funds are moving. Accounts are accessible. Fourteen security. I’m marking their positions now."

We didn’t use the secret entrance. We didn’t crawl through the underwater tunnel I’d mapped months ago. Instead, we walked straight toward the monitored gate. We walked in like we were expected.

I knew the cameras were watching. I wanted them to see us. It was a message. To a man like Emilio Vincenti, walking through the front door looked like arrogance, the mistake of a man who thought he was untouchable.

To me, it was a way to keep his eyes exactly where I wanted them.

The first two guards didn’t even have time to reach for their radios. My men took them down with a silent, brutal efficiency that required no explanation. Two bodies dragged into the shadows, two obstacles removed. Clean. Fast.

We hit the interior corridor, a long stretch of corrugated metal and flickering yellow lights.

Two guards stood at the far end, their hands moving toward their holsters.

Cyan moved before I could give the order. It wasn’t the plan, but Cyan had never been particularly good at following plans he didn’t write himself.

He didn’t just run at them.

I watched him as he moved, it was a strange, focused sort of grace. In the half-second before he reached them, I saw his head tilt.

He was reading them. He was looking at the way they stood, which hand was dominant, how their weight was shifted. He wasn’t just fighting; he was analyzing.

He hit the first guard with a strike that was terrifyingly precise. It wasn’t loud, but it was absolute.

He used the man’s own momentum against him, a blur of motion that ended with the guard slumped against the wall, unconscious before he hit the floor.

The second guard reacted faster, his weapon snapping up the moment he saw his partner fall.

Cyan stepped in before it could level. One hand knocked the barrel aside, hard, forcing it off-line. At the same time, he drove his shoulder into the man’s chest, closing the distance completely.

The guard stumbled. Cyan didn’t let him recover, he hooked a leg behind the man’s knee and shoved.

The man hit the ground flat on his back, the weapon slipping from his grip as he went down.

Cyan stepped over the bodies, calmly adjusting the cuff of his sleeve.

"The positioning was obvious," he said, his voice casual, as if we were discussing a bad seating arrangement at a dinner party.

"Textbook static placement. No rotation. No contingency awareness. Honestly, it’s insulting."

"Are you critiquing their security structure?" I asked, stepping past him.

"I’m observing," Cyan replied, already moving forward. "There’s a difference."

We reached the main floor. It was a massive, echoing space filled with towering stacks of shipping crates. In the center, under a ring of harsh floodlights, the deal was reaching its conclusion.

The Serbian team was there, six men in heavy coats, surrounding several open crates filled with matte-black hardware. The Vincenti guards were spread out in a perimeter, watching the shadows.

"Financial transfer confirmed," Reid reported. "Accounts are open. Ready to drain on your signal."

"Hold," I said. "Not yet."

I scanned the room. Something was missing. I looked up, my eyes searching the metal walkways that crisscrossed the ceiling of the warehouse.

There. On the upper level east.