It's cold tonight. But I haven't felt the cold in years.
I crouch in the steel rafters of the warehouse, high above the buzzing halogen lights. Below me, a pack of gangsters huddle around crates—guns, cash, whispered threats. An arms deal. Routine. Dirty. Sloppy.
They haven't noticed me.
No one ever does.
I move—silent as breath—gliding from beam to beam, moth wings flaring with each leap. I map the warehouse: exits, guards, blind spots. Every detail. Every threat. There are scattered men on patrol, posted lazily like they've done this a hundred times.
They don't know tonight's different.
I take them out one by one. A choke. A strike. A whisper of dust. No screams. Just silence.
Five remain, gathered at the center. Still laughing, still bartering over crates like hyenas gnawing bone.
They have no idea the reckoning hanging above them.
I'm above them now. Directly overhead.
They don't look up. They never do.
I drop into their midst like a shadow torn from the ceiling.
Thud.
They jump. One stumbles. Another reaches for a pistol—but I'm faster.
"It's him!" one thug shouts, eyes wide.
"What the hell is that thing?" the leader barks, voice cracking.
That voice belongs to Dante Kreel.
The Broker.
A ghost from Redharbor. The man who sells chaos in tailored suits. He tears cities apart and reassembles them like spreadsheets—blood turned into profit margins. He's cold, methodical, untouchable.
He usually gets away with this sort of thing.
He hasn't met me yet.
Time slows. Kreel stumbles backward, instinctively retreating—unprepared, afraid.
To his right, one thug charges. The other comes from behind, a glint of steel in his hand.
I duck the first punch, twisting low. My body coils like a spring.
I grab the thug's arm—redirecting his momentum—forcing him forward into the oncoming knife.
Steel bites flesh.
Screams. Confusion.
Before either of them can react, I spin—boot connecting with the knife-man's jaw. He drops.
The first man staggers, wounded and dazed.
I grab both his arms and snap them at the elbows—clean, fast. He collapses screaming.
Another click.
Kreel's right-hand man draws a pistol, aiming with trembling hands.
He's too late.
I rush the man.
One step, disarm. Two steps, sweep the legs. He crashes hard.
I follow it up with a clean strike to the temple.
That's three down.
Two to go.
Another thug charges, loud and clumsy.
I backflip over him—boots grazing his shoulder—and land squarely on his back. He's big. Heavy. But not smart. And definitely not strong enough.
I lock in the choke.
He thrashes. Grunts.
Falls silent.
Now only one left.
Kreel.
I grab him by the ankle and drag him screaming to the rooftop. His body flails as I dangle him upside down, high above the dead-calm street. Wind howls between buildings.
"Mr. Kreel," I say, my voice low. "We need to talk."
He's shaking now, blood rushing to his head. Still wearing that expensive Redharbor suit, like he thinks he's untouchable.
"Tell me who the buyer is," I growl.
"I—I don't know! I swear to God!"
"Don't lie to me."
And I let go.
He screams as gravity pulls him toward the concrete below—
—but the fall stops short.
Silk rope tightens. He jerks mid-air with a crack of tension. I reel him back up like dead cargo.
"OK! OK! I'm sorry!" he sobs. "It's Roth! Roth Vex!"
I pull him over the ledge and toss him onto the roof like trash.
"Thank you very much, Kreel."
"I—I'm free to go, right?"
I answer by driving my boot into his knee.
CRACK.
He screams, clutching the shattered joint.
I let him cry out for a few seconds.
Then I knock him out cold.
He'll walk again. Eventually.
That's more than the families his guns would've destroyed would've gotten.
I'm not here to make peace. I'm here to make sure men like him sleep with fear in their bones.
"Nest," I say, tapping my comm, "Call Detective Shroud. Tell her she has a pickup to make."
"Will do, Echo. Are you alright?"
"I'm good, Nest. Logging off for the night. I'll keep the emergency line open."
"Copy that. Good night, Echo."
"You too."
I hang around the warehouse for a while—just long enough to see the red and blue flicker at the end of the road.
I watch from the shadows as the cops sweep in, guns drawn, caution tape flapping in the wind. Detective Shroud arrives in her usual long coat, looking sharp and tired.
One of the officers finds a folded moth-shaped scrap of paper, tucked into the gun crate.
He doesn't understand what it means.
Detective Shroud does. She tucks it into her pocket without a word.
She looked around for a bit before finding Kreel and the others wrapped up in a silky, rope-like substance.
"Would you look at this," she mutters. "The moth got us Mr. Kreel."
"He looks pretty beat up," a rookie cop says.
"I don't know what happened. But his fingerprints are all over these illegal guns," she replies, eyes narrowing. "Book him."
They cuff him. Load him into the cruiser.
The yellow tape goes up.
After a few minutes, I disappear into the skyline.
I make my way through the back alleys and toward the old docks. The night's colder now. Quieter.
I slip behind the rusted shipping crates, crawl under the old container, and open the hatch.
Inside my hideout—The Lantern—it's dim and familiar. Smells like dust, steel, and soldered wires.
I pull off the mask, set it gently on the table, and collapse into the chair.
A single white moth circles the overhead light.
I watch it. It watches nothing. Just drifts in tired, endless loops.
I sit with it for a while, and the night sits with me.
Muscles aching. Chest still heaving.
But still standing.
Still watching.
Still in the dark.