Page 154 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

But it’s just a door. And all doors eventually open.

Especially when justice is pounding on the other side.

Whisper produces devices that make locks irrelevant—electronic warfare tools that turn billion-dollar security into elaborate decoration. Sparks cascade as circuits overload, steel barriers becoming no more effective than paper against a focused electromagnetic pulse.

Trigger under my finger. Muscles coiled. Breath steady. Every thought narrowed to a single name.

Alexei Malfor.

Terrorist. Arms dealer. The man who built empires from blood and ruin. The man who took Hank from me. Thought a fortress would make him untouchable.

He’s about to learn how wrong dead men can be.

Wind shrieks against the reinforced glass behind us, driving rain sideways, electricity crackling in the air. Ozone and smoke. Gunpowder and vengeance. The mountain peaks flash with lightning—serrated stone fangs looming like ancient gods come to witness a reckoning.

“Breach, breach, breach!”

The blast punches the world sideways. Steel screams. Fire and smoke bloom outward, choking heat surging with it. We pour through the gap like a tidal surge made of flesh, fury, and loaded weapons.

The penthouse sprawls in opulence—floor-to-ceiling glass framing the black sea beyond, marble veined like bone, artifacts mounted like trophies. Power layered in every object. The cold kind. The purchased kind.

And behind a monolithic obsidian desk, sits Alexei Malfor.

FIFTY

Debt Collected

GABE

He’s softerthan I imagined. Pale skin, receding hairline, jowls tucked into a bespoke suit. No armor. No weapon. No dignity. Just a twitch in one manicured hand and eyes struggling to keep up with how fast death is arriving.

A dozen rifles raise in silent chorus.

His mouth works. He tries to fix his face into calm, into control, but the tremor in his voice betrays him. He clears his throat like a man used to commanding rooms.

Not this one.

“Gabriel Martinez.” My name rolls off his tongue, wrapped in an accent and feigned serenity that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I wondered when you would find me.”

“Found you.” My rifle stays locked on his chest. Finger tightens on the trigger, tension singing through tendons.

“Your friend—Henry, yes?—he died well. Fought to the end. Very brave. You should be proud.”

The words detonate in my chest like white phosphorus, rage flooding my system with the kind of intensity that turns my vision red and makes my hands steady as surgical instruments.

He dares speak Hank’s name.

Dares reduce his death to casual conversation.

“His name,” I say, voice dropping to whisper that carries more menace than shouting, “was Hank.”

“Tell me—does his death haunt your dreams? Do you see his face when you close your eyes?” Malfor smiles. That smug, smirking kind that dares me to break.

I don’t answer. Don’t need to. The weapon in my hands speaks fluent death, and I’m about to provide simultaneous translation.

“Wait…” He lifts his hands higher, panic leaking like blood through gauze. “We can negotiate. I have resources—money—information—anything?—”

“You killed my partner.”