They pushed down into the dark on the tired teeth of the freight elevator, metal grinding like a promise. The air grew colder with each floor: stale, metallic, the kind of stillness that collects secrets and molds them into plans. Nick had the perimeter locked; his eyes flicked to Arora once, then away, as if checking she was still real.
Jack rode beside her in silence, hands jammed into the pockets of his jacket. The night had sharpened him into an odd kind of steady — no jokes, no bravado, only a thin, watchful calm that belonged to someone who'd seen too much and chosen to keep moving anyway.
Below, the base opened like a wound: concrete corridors, exposed pipes, and pools of shadow. People drifted in small knots, whispering until they saw Arora; then murmurs died and bodies straightened. Her name was a weather system here — it rearranged everything in its path. They called her The Black Rose and meant it in every language that feared thorns.
"Keep close," she told Jack without looking at him. The words were practical; the look she gave him afterward was not.
Nick met her at the next junction, hands empty. "We've got movement through the east wing," he said. "Looks like a rat ran. I want—"
"Then we chase the rat," Arora cut in. Her voice had the flatness of a blade pulled from leather.
They threaded down a narrow service corridor, the lights buzzing overhead. At the far end, a man broke into a run — small, fast, trying to melt into the maze. Arora pushed forward, boots silent, breath even. He was good, but fear makes people clumsy.
She closed the distance in two strides.
The man bolted through a side door and vanished into a low-lit chamber. She darted after him, boots slamming against the concrete floor. The chase echoed through the underground passages — flashes of movement, the faint metallic scent of old blood and dust.
The man was fast, ducking between pipes and narrow doors, but Arora was faster.She disappeared down a side tunnel, her silhouette swallowed by the dark.
Jack, left at the junction, hesitated only a second before running after her."Baby! Wait—!"
His voice bounced uselessly off the walls. She was already gone.
He kept going anyway, following the fading sound of her footsteps until the path split into multiple corridors."Great," he muttered, breathless. "Which way did you—"
A flicker of motion caught his eye.
Before he could react, laughter drifted from one of the adjoining rooms — sharp, mocking, female.He turned toward it.
The chamber beyond was dimly lit, full of people who looked like they belonged to another world.And at the center of them stood a woman with blonde curls and a grin that could cut glass.
"Lost something, sweetheart?" she purred.
Jack's stomach twisted. "Stay back."
Inside, strangers clustered around a small fight — smoke, cheap liquor, a scoreboard of bruises. A woman with sun bleached curls and laughter that didn't reach her eyes was goading the room. She carried herself like someone who'd learned cruelty early and kept practicing.
Lucy.
She was the kind of street fixture that shifts loyalties with the wind: once an informant, once an ally, now a little parasite that fed off stronger things. Everyone in the room knew her face. She knew theirs. Her smile widened when she saw Jack — it was the kind of smile that smelled a promise and a threat rolled into one.
"Who's your baby?" she mocked, stepping up close to Jack with a predatory ease.
Jack tried to step back. "Leave me alone," he said, voice too small for what was about to happen.
Lucy laughed and leaned in, cheap perfume and cruelty. "Look at you — acting like you're some kind of man."
The slap came like glass. Lucy's hand cut the air and landed on Jack's cheek with a clean, humiliating sound. The mark bloomed red and wide.
Time telescoped. For half a breath Arora didn't move — for the first time that night, surprise cracked her armor. Then a thing broke inside her like thin ice.
"Who made his cheek like this?!" she thundered.
Silence shredded the room. Lucy flinched. The cluster of onlookers edged away as if the sound could singe them. The Black Rose's voice was not a demand — it was a punishment that arrived already filled out and signed.
Arora stepped through the crowd. Her movement had the inevitability of a tide; people made space because they had to. Her gaze locked on Lucy and did not soften.
"I'll give you five minutes," she said, words measured, cold. "Tell me who dared to lay a hand on him. If no one speaks—" She let the threat hang like steel. "—you'll learn why you should never touch what's mine."
A ripple of whispers. Someone hissed, someone coughed. No one volunteered.
Lucy's bravado thinned. "I— I didn't know he was—" she started, voice small.
"You didn't know?" Arora's laugh was brief and without humor. "So it was a mistake." She looked at Jack, and for the first time in the underground chill, she was not the myth — she was a person who counted a life as more than leverage.
Jack's cheek still burned where Lucy had struck it. He didn't look away from Arora. His face was calm, but the look he gave her was a kind of offering. He was not a trophy to be claimed with words; he wanted to decide.
Arora's jaw loosened; the room seemed to tilt for a second as something softer edged her voice. "Jack," she said. "Do what you want with her."
Their eyes met. There was no show of dominance in his choice; only a quiet gravity. He cleared his throat, voice steady. "You hit me," he said simply. "You apologize. And then you leave."
Lucy's knees trembled. Tears rose like a surrender. The room watched, hungry and afraid.
"That's it?" someone whispered.
Arora's reply was a thing of winter. "That's enough." She stepped back. "Keep her alive. Once she understands what she's done, she'll know why I let you decide."
A few people exhaled, as if someone had given permission for the world to continue spinning. Lucy, cowed and shaking, managed a weak apology and scuttled away under the guard of two men Arora nodded toward.
Jack's hand found Arora's for a second — fingers brushing, a small unplanned contact that still hummed. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The look on his face said, with blunt honesty, Please.
Arora's throat worked. She'd never been good at letting anything be vulnerable. The heat under her breast was stupid and dangerous, and she hated it. "Stay close," she murmured. The Black Rose had rules; the rest was an accident she hadn't planned for.
Someone in the back scurried toward a terminal, fingers flying, and murmured, "We have a signal ping from Sector Seventeen. An ID traced back to—" He paused, eyes wide. "—probable wanted element. Matches the pattern."
Nick's face tightened. "That's our lead," he said. "We're not done."
Arora straightened, the tightness in her shoulders returning like armor. The base had teeth, and one of them had just tasted blood. She let the small warmth of Jack's hand linger in her palm for a beat longer than necessary, then pulled free.
"The hunt continues," she said. "Form up. We move on my command."
As the team reorganized and robots of light swept the corridors, Arora watched Lucy disappear into the shadows — a small victory that tasted like salt. Above them, the city breathed, unaware. Below, something older and far meaner was starting to stir, and the Black Rose felt its pulse the way she always did: through the beat of danger and the steady drum of the men who would die for it.
She did not flinch. She never did. But the thought of someone raising a hand to him — to the boy who made thunder mean less — lodged itself like a splinter. She would pull it out with blood if she had to.
To be continued.