The Ghost Consigliere

CHAPTER 23: A Brutal Extraction

BAMMMM, KRAAAAK!

The red brick wall on the eastern side of the old steam train station exploded inward.

Sloane’s two-ton armored van tore through it like a meteor striking earth. Its reinforced steel nose crushed the rotting bricks, blasting red dust into the air before slamming hard onto the station platform with a high-pitched scream of strained suspension. Debris scattered, clanging against the van’s armored body.

Inside, Elias was violently shaken in his wheelchair. The safety straps kept his broken body from being thrown free. His breathing came fast behind the oxygen mask. Blood from the earlier necrotic backlash still dripped from his chin. His red eyes stared in a mix of horror and awe at what Sloane had just done.

Outside, the Black Dog commander, who had been seconds from executing Kael Thorne, spun around. He and his four remaining men froze, stunned by the metal beast bearing a “Pipe Cleaning Service” decal crashing through the station wall.

Ren had not lied. The Ghost’s van was here.

“Fire! Destroy that vehicle!” the commander roared.

All five Vancroft militiamen opened up with their rifles. 5.56mm rounds rained down from every direction. The sound of bullets striking the van’s armored plating rang like hail on tin. Sparks flared in the darkness.

The windshield, reinforced with ballistic layers, began to crack like a spiderweb. Each impact deepened the fractures.

“Sloane! The windshield’s about to give!” Elias shouted hoarsely, raising his left arm to shield his face.

Sloane did not answer. Her expression was cold, carved from ice. She pressed the clutch, yanked the wheel left, and pulled the handbrake. The van spun sharply in a ninety-degree drift across the platform, positioning its windowless side toward the incoming fire. The rear double doors now faced directly toward Kael Thorne’s collapsed body on the tracks.

“Stay in your seat, El!” Sloane snapped.

She reached beneath the dashboard and pulled out a standalone 40mm grenade launcher with a shortened barrel. Not lethal rounds. This was an extraction, not a firefight.

She kicked the driver’s door open and rolled out into the rain of bullets.

“The girl’s out! Shoot her legs!” one of the Black Dogs shouted, redirecting fire.

Sloane ducked behind the front wheel. She peeked once, raised the launcher, and fired without hesitation.

The grenade arced through the air and landed in the middle of the Black Dog formation. No explosion of fire followed. Instead, thick white smoke and military-grade tear gas erupted outward. Within seconds, a choking cloud engulfed the commander and his men.

“Uhk, damn it! Gas!” coughing and curses echoed through the haze. They fired blindly, their shots wildly off target.

Using their blindness, Sloane sprinted across the debris-littered platform, leapt down the steps, and grabbed Kael Thorne by the collar.

“On your feet, Inspector! Unless you want to die with Vancroft’s dogs!” she barked, hauling his body upright. “On my shoulder. Move!”

Kael grimaced. His ribs screamed from the RPG blast, but survival instinct took over. He slung his arm over her shoulder, letting her drag him up the steps toward the open rear doors of the van.

Inside, Elias gripped the metal armrest of his chair. The black veins on his face pulsed.

He was a god of death, a man who had slaughtered an entire nightclub floor without moving. Yet now he was useless. Paralyzed, bound to his chair, forced to watch as a woman who had been a stranger a month ago threw herself into gunfire to cover his flaws and his mistakes.

The feeling of helplessness gnawed at him. His broken body had become a liability that nearly cost another life.

“Hurry, Sloane,” Elias whispered, panic creeping into his voice as muzzle flashes cut through the thinning gas.

Sloane shoved Kael into the van. The detective hit the armored floor hard beside Elias’s wheelchair.

Just as she jumped in after him, a stray bullet tore through her upper left arm. Sssht. Blood sprayed, soaking her sleeve. She clenched her teeth, swallowed the pain, and vaulted inside, slamming the rear doors shut and sealing them off from the chaos outside.

“El, hold on!” Sloane ignored the blood pouring from her arm. She scrambled past Kael, leapt into the driver’s seat, and floored the accelerator.

The van roared, tires grinding over debris and spent shells. She threw it into reverse, smashing back through the broken wall, then gunned it forward, fleeing into the dark streets of Sector Two.

Inside the cargo bay, the air was tight, heavy with blood and tension. Elias’s ventilator hummed steadily, filling the silence between the shriek of tires.

Kael Thorne coughed hard. Dust and gunpowder still clung to his lungs. His coat was torn, his face bruised, dried blood streaking from his ear. He forced himself onto his side, then leaned his back against the cold metal wall.

His vision swam.

Slowly, it began to focus on the figure in front of him.

In the center of the armored van sat a young man in a high-tech wheelchair. His face was pale, partly obscured by a clear oxygen mask. His breathing was ragged.

But that was not what made Kael freeze.

It was the veins.

The vessels along the man’s neck and left eye were black. Not bruised. Not diseased. Something deeper. As if ink or rot pulsed beneath his skin. And his eyes... empty, merciless. The gaze of a mass killer.

Kael remembered Ren’s words about a crippled man with burning red eyes.

The detective swallowed.

The man who slaughtered The Apex. The one who emptied the Obsidian Vault. The monster who had just hijacked a corpse minutes ago now sat before him in a body that looked fragile enough to break.

“So...” Kael murmured, his voice strained by pain. A bitter grin crossed his face, as if mocking fate itself. “You’re the Ghost.”

Elias said nothing. He simply stared back, cold and silent, his black-veined hand resting on his lap.

Before Kael could speak again, darkness pulled him under. The detective lost consciousness from blood loss and exhaustion, leaving the mysterious van to carry him into the lair of a false god.