I smelled smoke next and turned my head toward the east side of the clinic.
A thin gray plume lifted above the roofline against the deepening sky.
I sneered. “Someone started a fucking fire in the clinic.”
Hiro sighed. “No doubt it was Kiko. She’ll probably do anything to prolong these results.”
My heart boomed in my ears.
The screaming inside the clinic got louder.
What the fuck is happening in there?
Chapter twenty-seven
Pandemonium
Kenji
Ididnotknowwhat was happening inside the clinic, but I didn’t need to. The fire on the east side. The emptiness where my guards should have been. The screaming through the walls. None of it had to be explained to me. My body had already done the logic my mind was still catching up to.
Kiko.
Whatever chaos was happening in there, she had started it.
More screaming hit me as my shoes hit the gravel.
Reo was already gone—left, low, weapon up, clearing the angle on the front doors before Hiro and I had finished disembarking.
Hiro broke right with a blade in his left hand and a sidearm in his right.
My hip was empty, my waistband and ankle too. I'd left the mansion in preparation for a romantic dinner and the Burial Ritual.
I was now walking into chaos with a Dragon's reputation and nothing else.
My men flowed past me in a tight wedge—six of them, all armed, in motion, and fanning into standard breach formation. The lead two stacked on the doors. The next two pulled flanks. The last two stayed next to me.
I gestured for them to go through.
One kicked the doors open hard enough for the hinges to shriek.
Heat hit us immediately.
They rushed in.
Hiro and I entered after.
Smoke crawled along the ceiling in black ribbons.
A body lay twisted near the reception desk.
Another man crawled across the floor leaving a dark red trail behind him.
Then gunfire cracked deeper inside the building.
Three shots in the east.
Close.
