"What?" Xueira frowned, scanning the opulent, dimly lit room for hidden threats. "Did you trigger another neurotoxin trap, or are you just trying to stall so I can admire your ancestral interior decorating?""Look at the baseboard beneath the eastern mahogany shelving unit," Zhenkai replied, his voice dropping to a measured, deliberate pitch as he pointed two fingers toward a discreet seam in the polished wood paneling. "The grain doesn't match. It was replaced within the last forty-eight hours. High-density composite steel, painted to mimic aged cedar. Someone wanted to make sure nobody could kick it open from the outside."Xueira stepped closer, her sharp eyes narrowing as she inspected the woodwork. "A hidden wall safe? In the middle of an administrative wing? That's entirely amateurish for a family of high-ranking corporate embezzlers. Even my junior analysts hide their offshore accounts better than that.""It's not for offshore accounts," Zhenkai said, walking over and kneeling d

"Family reunions are always a bit stiff," Zhenkai remarked, not even looking back as the heavy oak double doors of the administrative wing were kicked off their reinforced hinges with a splintering roar.Two men stepped through the pulverized threshold. They weren't wearing the sleek, form-fitting tactical gear of modern mercenaries or the flowing silken robes of traditional martial artists. Instead, they wore impeccably tailored three-piece charcoal suits that screamed corporate boardroom, except for the high-frequency mono-molecular blades strapped casually to their forearms. Their movements were terrifyingly synchronized, shoulders squared and eyes dead, the unmistakable stamp of elite corporate executioners who spent more time breaking kneecaps for delinquent debtors than practicing katas."Zhenkai," Xueira warned, her fingers already flying across the interface of her encrypted corporate tablet while she scrambled backward against the bookshelf. "Those aren't estate guards. Those

"Keep your head down or you're going to bleed all over my jacket," Xueira snapped, her hands trembling slightly as she yanked the heavy industrial zipper of the cramped studio apartment door shut."It's a superficial scratch," Zhenkai muttered, wincing as he dropped his heavy duffel bag onto the linoleum floor. "And for the record, this jacket is synthetic blend. It'll wash out.""A superficial scratch?" Xueira whirled around, her dark eyes flashing under the flickering fluorescent bulb of the tiny kitchenette. She thrust a blood-soaked wad of gauze toward his face. "The enforcer's monomolecular blade bypassed your shoulder muscle by a millimeter, Zhenkai! If you had moved half a beat slower, your arm would be sitting back in the Lanyue estate's cedar closet right now. Now sit down on that wretched folding chair before I decide to let you bleed out on principle."Zhenkai let out a dry, humorless chuckle, but he obeyed, sinking onto the squeaking metal chair. The single-room apartment

"Safe?" Xueira hissed, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as she paced the narrow strip of worn linoleum between the kitchenette and the sagging cot. "Zhenkai, we are three blocks away from a chemical processing plant that dumps toxic waste into the canal, and the only lock on this door is a bent padlock latch. A low-level scout from the Void Executioners doesn't need a high-tech tracking suite to find us; they just need a sense of smell and a basic map of the district.""Which is precisely why I didn't rely on locks," Zhenkai said smoothly, not even bothering to look up from the small plastic tray of hardware-store components he had emptied onto the wobbly wooden table."You didn't rely on locks," Xueira repeated, her voice rising an octave as she stopped pacing and stared down at him in sheer disbelief. "What is that? Are you building a makeshift toaster? We are fugitives hunted by a multi-tiered corporate syndicate and a corrupt municipal government, and you're soldering copp

"Stay behind me," Zhenkai muttered, his hand wrapping firmly around the handle of the rusted wrench as he stepped toward the buckling apartment door.Xueira didn't hesitate, sliding up directly behind his right shoulder with her fingers already dancing across the glowing glass surface of her portable terminal. "I'm routing the local building blueprints through my local cache now. If there's a secondary escape hatch in this tenement slum, I'm going to find it before you finish breaking whatever poor bastard just walked into your industrial-grade bleach cocktail.""Don't call him a poor bastard yet," Zhenkai said dryly, kicking the lower panel of the door open with a sharp, echoing snap. "He hasn't even told us who's paying his dental plan."The hallway reeked of ammonia, burnt wiring, and singed polyester. Sprawled across the peeling linoleum was a man in standard-issue tactical fatigues, his face pale, his eyes rolling back in a dizzying haze as he choked on the acrid fumes of Zhenkai