The warehouse was cold and silent, yet the air inside felt hotter than outside. Not because of the temperature—but because of the memories and tension hanging between us.
Maeve lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, then exhaled through her nose. The smoke lingered in the air, forming a thin curtain between me and her face, which looked older than the last time we met—though no less sharp.
"So," she said at last, "you brought a suitcase… and a grudge."
I tossed something onto the steel table in the middle of the room. A thin, glossy ID card—almost nameless. In the upper right corner, a faint emblem of a crowned dragon's head, barely visible unless caught by the right light.
"Found it near the hit-and-run site," I said. "I kept it before the cops arrived. They won't know a thing about this."
Maeve picked up the card with two fingers, turned it slowly, then went quiet. Her eyes narrowed, her brow twitched slightly.
"This… can't be."
"Why not?"
She sat down, snuffing out her cigarette on the unopened laptop's lid. Her gaze cut through me, and she spoke in a low voice, barely audible:
"This belongs to The Emperor."
I frowned. "That's a name even in the shadows, people only whisper."
Maeve gave a bitter smile. "Because they're not just shadows. They are the darkness itself."
I leaned forward, resting both hands on the table. "Who's their leader?"
"No one knows," she replied softly. "Not even I've seen their face. The Emperor operates behind layers of both legal and illegal fronts—intel, pharmaceuticals, defense, cyber-ops. But their real operations… go much deeper."
"They're my target now."
Maeve scoffed. "Insane."
"No more insane than letting my wife lie in a coma without a reason."
She closed her eyes briefly, then took a deep breath. "If I get involved, I become a target. They don't just eliminate people. They erase them. In the literal sense."
I stared at her, long and hard. "I know. And I also know you still have access."
She slid her chair back, grabbed the laptop, and powered it on. The screen flickered to life, lines of code glowing like a digital incantation.
"I'm only doing this because I owe you a life," she said flatly. "And because I know… you won't stop."
I gave a small smile. "You still know me, Maeve."
A few minutes later, she handed me a black flash drive. "This isn't everything. But it's enough to trace their local network in this city. One breach. One name."
I accepted it like it was the key to hell.
"Who?"
Maeve looked at me for a moment, then said, softly but clearly:
"He's only known as Vassago."