The maintenance tunnels beneath the Orion Tower were a labyrinth of weeping concrete and vibrating steel. The air here was thick with the smell of wet rust, stagnant oil, and the sharp, metallic tang of the nitrogen that was still bleeding down from the floor above. Roman led the way, his boots splashing through ankle-deep runoff, while Tanya followed closely behind, her arms locked around Angie. The girl was still unresponsive, her head resting heavily on Tanya's shoulder, her skin as pale as the fluorescent lights flickering overhead.
Roman's shoulder was a scream of white-hot pain, his suit jacket hanging in bloody tatters, but the adrenaline flowing through his veins acted like a chemical splint.
Every few seconds, he glanced back at Tanya. Even in the dim light, the sight of her—alive, breathing, and fierce—felt like a phantom limb that had suddenly started working again.
"We can't stay in the tunnels," Tanya whispered, her voice echoing off the damp walls. "Vance owns the subterranean sensors. If we try to reach the street level through the service stairs, we'll be walking into a firing squad."
Roman stopped at a heavy, rusted junction box and pulled a rugged, cracked smartphone from his inner pocket. The screen was spiderwebbed, but the encrypted signal bar was pulsing a faint, steady green. "We aren't going to the street. Not yet. We need a bridge, and we need a heavy one."
He swiped a trembling thumb across the screen and hit a speed-dial contact labeled simply:
THE FORGE.
The phone rang once. Twice. Then, a voice like gravel is put through a meatgrinder answered.
"You're late, Blackwood. I was starting to think I'd have to sell your custom hardware to the Russians just to cover the storage fees."
"Leroy," Roman rasped, leaning his forehead against the cold concrete wall. "The Protocol is active. I have them. I have both of them, but we're pinned in the sub-levels of Orion. Vance just released the K-Squad."
There was a sudden, heavy silence on the other end. Leroy wasn't just a "friend." He was a titan of the underground—a man who had accumulated a fortune in the blood and steel of the black market. He was older than Roman, his hair a salt-and-pepper buzz cut, but his frame was built like a reinforced bunker. He had been the one who pulled Roman out of the wreckage a year ago, the one who provided the "Alex Rourke" identity, and the one who had spent months custom-building the very gear Roman was wearing.
"K-Squad?" Leroy's voice lost its playful edge, turning cold and professional. "If Vance is burning those assets, he isn't looking to arrest you. He's looking to pave over you. Listen to me. Three hundred yards to your left, there's a decommissioned freight elevator. It doesn't show up on the building's main digital schematics. I'm sending the coordinates to your HUD now."
Roman's tactical lens flickered, a red waypoint appearing in the corner of his vision. "And once we're out?"
"I'm bringing the cavalry," Leroy growled. "I don't leave my investments in the dark."
Upstairs, the Orion Tower's luxury was being dismantled by silence. Elias Vance stood at the head of a massive mahogany table in a darkened war room.
"The Blackwoods have contacted an outside asset," Vance announced, his voice smooth and devoid of emotion. "A localized arms dealer known as Leroy. He represents a variable we haven't accounted for in the simulations."
Vance tapped a command on the table, and the map turned a violent shade of purple. "I want the K-Squad to use the neuro-paralytic gas. But the girl... Subject 102... she must remain intact."
Back in the dark, Roman and Tanya reached the freight elevator. The heavy iron door was rusted shut, a relic of a forgotten era. Roman slammed his fist into the keypad, and the doors groaned open with a scream of tortured metal.
"Inside! Now!" Roman pushed Tanya and Angie into the dark cage of the elevator.
As the doors began to slide shut, the first of the K-Squad hunters rounded the corner. They raised their suppressed rifles and opened fire. Roman dived into the elevator as bullets sparked off the iron doors. The lift shuddered and began to rise, the slow, agonizing mechanical whine of the motor the only sound in the cramped space.
Tanya slumped against the back wall, clutching Angie to her chest. In the silence of the rising elevator, she looked up at Roman.
"Roman... if we make it out of this... what then?"
Roman looked at her, his face smeared with blood. "Then we stop being the ones who are hunted. We're going to burn his world down, Tan."
The elevator jolted to a stop. The doors opened to the loading dock, and for a second, it looked like a war zone.
Waiting for them wasn't just a van—it was a small army. Three massive, matte-black armored SUVs were idling in the rain, their engines a low, predatory growl. Surrounding the vehicles were six men in full tactical kit: high-end ceramic plates, night-vision optics flipped up, and suppressed HK416s held at the ready. These weren't street thugs; they were elite mercenaries on Leroy's private payroll, men who moved with the lethal grace of professional soldiers.
In the center of the storm stood Leroy.
He was a mountain of a man, wearing a heavy tactical vest over an expensive black turtleneck that did little to hide the sheer bulk of his shoulders. A thick, unlit cigar was clamped between his teeth, and he held a belt-fed MK48 light machine gun as if it were a toy. He looked every bit the millionaire warlord he was.
"About damn time, Roman," Leroy growled, his voice booming over the rain. He stepped forward, his eyes sweeping over Tanya and the child. He gave a sharp, respectful nod to Tanya—a greeting from one warrior to another. "I told you the hardware was ready. I just didn't think you'd bring the whole building down with you."
"Vance sent the K-Squad," Roman said, stepping out of the lift, his hand still tight on his Beretta.
Leroy let out a short, dark laugh. He gestured to the men around him. "Let 'em come. I've been looking for an excuse to field-test the new armor-piercing rounds. My boys are bored, and I'm paying them too much to stand around in the rain."
One of the tactical team, a man with a jagged scar across his nose, stepped forward. "Sir, we have multiple heat signatures exiting the sub-levels. They're thirty seconds out."
Leroy didn't even flinch. He tossed a heavy, armored tactical blanket to Roman. "Wrap the kid in that. It's got a lead-mesh lining—it'll kill her signal so Vance can't track her. Get in the middle SUV. It's built like a tank and twice as fast."
Leroy turned toward the elevator they had just exited, his finger ghosting over the trigger of the machine gun. "Jackson, Miller! Set the claymores on the perimeter. If those Cerberus bastards want a fight, we're going to give them a funeral."
"Leroy, we need to move," Tanya said, her voice urgent as she shielded Angie from the wind. "The girl needs a medic."
"I've got a surgical team waiting at the Forge, honey. Best money can buy," Leroy said, his eyes fixed on the darkness of the loading bay.
"Now get in the damn car. We're about to turn this dock into a graveyard."
As the Blackwoods scrambled into the armored interior of the SUV, the first of the K-Squad burst through the service doors. Leroy didn't hesitate. He leveled the machine gun and unleashed a deafening, rhythmic roar of lead, the muzzle flash illuminating the rain like a strobe light.
"Welcome back to the world, Blackwood!" Leroy roared over the gunfire. "Try not to die in the next ten minutes!"
The SUVs screeched into gear, tires smoking against the wet pavement as they roared away from the Orion Tower, leaving behind a wall of fire and the thunder of Leroy's private army.