Chapter 3

The rain in Cold Harbor showed no signs of stopping. After securing Eileen and Lily in the bunker, I sat before the console, closing my eyes to construct a three-dimensional grid of the city’s underground network in my mind.

Moretti’s bounty was his death warrant. The greedy vultures hunting me had lost their tactical awareness.

"Viper, begin the purge," I ordered.

For the next three hours, I systematically dismantled the city's black-market order. I didn't fire a shot. I simply leaked the most private financial ledgers of every gang boss onto the public network. By midnight, the alliance meant to kill me had devolved into a meat grinder, with everyone slaughtering each other for survival.

Moretti watched the red dots on his holographic table vanish one by one, shaking with rage. "He's cleaning my perimeter? Fine. Tell him his daughter’s condition is critical. If he doesn't show up at the derelict pharmaceutical plant in the East District, the antidote will be destroyed."

I knew it was a trap. The "Bio-Hazard Dead Zone." It was a sealed, toxic wasteland. Moretti had embedded two battalions of heavy mercenaries there.

I went anyway.

When I drove the Humvee through the rusted gates, the silence was that of a graveyard. I knew fifty infrared eyes were tracking me from the ruins. I stepped out, wearing no armor, carrying only a tactical knife.

"Target in range. Prepare for saturation fire," the mercenary captain licked his dry lips.

I looked up at a drone disguised as a bird and offered a mocking smile.

"Let’s begin," I whispered. "Let’s see who really owns this hunting ground."

My fingers flew across my wrist-mounted terminal, inputting a deep-blue code sequence. It wasn't an attack—it was a logical override. I hacked the facility's central server and re-categorized the environment: I was the facility's highest-ranking commanding officer, and the mercenaries were "hostile insurgents attempting to steal sensitive assets."

WARNING: ILLEGAL INCURSION DETECTED. FULL SUPPRESSION MODE ACTIVATED.

The automated Gatling turrets embedded in the walls ignored the mercenaries' shouts and swung toward their own masters.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?! The target is outside!"

The Gatlings roared, shredding the unfortunate killers into ribbons. The facility became an automated slaughterhouse. Bullets whistled past me, missing me by millimeters, while systematically carving up every enemy behind me.

I walked to the monitoring station and stared directly into the camera, looking at Moretti. I pulled my blade and slowly carved a line through the camera lens, before resting the edge against the expensive central processor.

"Moretti, class is in session," I said, my voice broadcasting through the entire factory. "Don't play with logic on my turf. Your empire doesn't need me to kill it; it’s designed to collapse."

I plunged the blade into the circuitry. Sparks showered down. Total darkness engulfed the plant, save for the screams of mercenaries dying by their own machines.

I walked out of the ruins, stepping over broken casings. Moretti’s face must have been whiter than paper. I hadn't just ruined his trap; I had declared to the city: In Cold Harbor, I am the god, and Moretti is just a dog waiting to be sacrificed.

My terminal lit up. Due to the chaos I had sparked, several of Moretti's underground warehouses had suffered cascading electrical explosions, costing him billions and stripping him of control over his bio-chemical inventory.

I stared at the glowing skyline. Moretti was insane—a cornered beast. To save face, he had made a final, deadly decision: in the heart of the city, he planned to detonate his entire supply of contaminated bio-agents.

He wanted to take the city down with him.

"Are you ready, rat?" I muttered. "If you want to jump into the fire, I’ll be the one to turn you to ash."