CHAPTER ONE
Bones gocrunch.
Blood spills.
Victory over would-be intruders is just so fuckingsatisfying.
The last man of the incoming units falls down dead in the tunnels with a small splash, his neck broken at a spectacularly jarring angle.Breathless and exhilarated, Kade looks over at his friend.‘Was that you?’
Luca throws Kade a smug little smirk, cocks a brow and spits blood.‘You know anyone else that can fold a spine like me?’he asks, obnoxious, British and proud.‘Doubt it,Motorkade.How many you get?’
‘Seven.’
‘You did not get seven.’
‘Jealousy is souglyon you, Lucozade.’Kade glances around the tunnel.He’s ankle-deep in wastewater, but that doesn’t matter, nor does the fact that he caught a blade somewhere in his side.All that matters right now is making sure that the men who were stupid enough to think they could infiltrate the Tower and take downIron Starare stone-cold dead.‘Is this all of them?’
‘Looks like it.’Luca toes one, studying the body.‘Sorrenko?’
‘Feels too aggressive for the Front,’ Hiru observes, removing a gun from a body.‘Unmarked.What do you think, Kade?’
Kade scans around.‘Who has a live one?’
‘I do,’ Rike calls out from further down the south fork.Unsurprising, really.Rike is cold-blooded and practical.He usually keeps one alive.The glow of flashlights in the grimy water illuminates the way, but Kade knows these tunnels better than anyone.He could find his way blindfolded.
The attacks have been increasing lately.
It used to be that every few months, a bannerless burst attack would hit the Tower, violent enough to make a statement, just anonymous enough to spare the Varrow City Accords, but now there’s a hit every two weeks.
Kade agrees with Hiru.This was too aggressive to be an attack from the Moroz Front, the only local syndicatenotin the Accords.The Front is run by an especially tricky man, Sorrenko, who likes shadows and games.His attacks tend to be more playfully irritating than outright brutal, but maybe he, like others lately, is pushing to go after Iron Star, destroy the Accords, and crown himself the ruling syndicate of Varrow City.
No one has ever breached the Tower of Iron Star, and each time an attack mounts, Kade and his team flatten them.It’s been almost a year since they lost even a single unit.It’s become a kind of cost-effective training, almostsport.
He makes his way over to the man Rike has hold of, not quite unconscious, but he will be soon judging by the blow to his head.
Kade touches his face, turns it, studying him, checking for signifying tattoos, finding none.The man stares at him, resentful and resigned.Closely reading the look in glassy eyes, Kade starts with Russian, wants it ruled out, and he knows better than to try French.
Lee’s not in town and if she was, she would never sendmen.
‘Sorrenko nakonyets-to poteryal terpeniye, ili ty chuzhoy nozh?’
No recognition.He doesn’t speak it.
‘Show off,’ Luca comments from behind, chewing gum.
Kade ignores the jibe and follows his instincts.He’s notquitethe human lie detector that his boss is, but he picks up on a dozen elements that others never do, including the black silicone wrist cuff.‘I think,’ he says slowly, ‘this fucker is one of theResets.’
‘I hate those pricks,’ Luca comments from behind Kade to a murmur of general agreement.No one likes a leaderless movement, but that’s what theResetsseem to be.Vicious, dedicated and utterly unswerving.They’ve only emerged as heavy hitters in the last few months, never give anything up no matter who asks, even Kade.They don’t talk, their weapons are always unmarked and untraceable.The only giveaway is the black silicone wrist cuff.The man stares up at Kade with a total, uncanny absence of fear.Luca shudders.‘End him already.We won’t get anything.’
‘You do the honours,’ Kade says to Luca, moving away, interest lost.The clean snick-snapof the neck tells him it’s done.Threat neutralised, Kade scans around, checking his team.‘Any losses?’
‘None.’
‘Injuries?’
‘You seem to have been stabbed,’ Mara points out.
‘I’m fine.’His team are checking if there are any more, counting bodies, but they took them down fast and hard.Even so, there will be retaliation for this, always is.His boss has never allowed a blow to go unanswered.
