The Ghost Consigliere

Chapter 11: Steel Lungs and Empty Promises

Hhhhk... khhhk...

The sound of breathing came like a broken diesel engine being forced to start underwater.

On a folding cot in the corner of an old garage in Sector Three, Elias’s chest rose and fell at an unnatural pace. Cold sweat drenched his pale face. The thin oxygen tube in his nose was no longer doing much. The air around him felt thick, but his lungs refused to absorb it.

"Hold on, El. Open your mouth, breathe through your mouth!" Sloane shouted under his breath, his hands expertly flicking a syringe.

Two days after Dante’s death on the nightclub rooftop, Elias’s body had finally come to collect the price of that massacre. His nervous system was burning from the inside from the effects of Ghost Rot. The black veins spreading across the left side of his neck now throbbed painfully, as if strangling his trachea.

Jab.

Sloane drove the syringe filled with a high-dose corticosteroid straight into the side of Elias’s neck.

Elias convulsed for a moment, his eyes rolling wide, before finally dragging in one long ragged breath.

HAAHHH...

A violent coughing fit followed, splattering dark blood across his T-shirt. The crippled man let his head fall back onto the damp pillow and stared at the garage ceiling through blurred vision.

"Feels like... I’m being forced to swallow broken glass," Elias whispered hoarsely. His black-veined hand gripped the iron bedframe.

"Your respiratory system is collapsing," Sloane replied, tossing the empty syringe onto a metal tray. The former paramedic looked utterly exhausted, dark circles hanging under his eyes. "The grenade blast in the basement and how long you hijacked that corpse at The Apex wrecked your lung function. This portable oxygen setup isn’t cutting it anymore."

Sloane turned the valve on the rusted oxygen tank beside the bed. The gauge needle sat in the red zone.

"We’re out of oxygen." He exhaled sharply and rubbed his face. "That three hundred bucks from the Vancroft executioner the other day is gone, spent on painkillers and bandages. We’re broke, Boss. I don’t even have enough cash for gas for the van."

"You contact that friend of yours?" Elias asked with what little strength he had left, glancing toward the tightly shut steel garage door.

"I did," Sloane answered flatly. "But he doesn’t work for leaves."

The moment Sloane finished speaking, three heavy knocks sounded against the rolling shutter door. The rhythm was distinct. Two slow, one fast.

Sloane immediately drew his suppressed pistol, chambered a round in silence, and moved to the door chain. He pulled it loose.

The shutter rose a crack, revealing acidic rain and a pair of filthy military leather boots.

A man slipped inside while dragging a black plastic cargo case on wheels, the size of a large suitcase.

He was broad-shouldered and wore a waterproof tactical jacket. One eye was covered by a black eyepatch, while the rest of his face was marked by severe burn scars stretching from jaw to neck. He chewed gum with a hard, steady jaw.

His name was Caleb. Underground information broker, black-market medical smuggler, and the only person left from Sloane’s past who wasn’t dead.

"Told you, Sloane," Caleb said in a deep, raspy voice that echoed through the empty garage. He parked the cargo case in the middle of the room and brushed rainwater from his shoulders. "Taking care of a walking corpse is expensive. Especially when the corpse is being hunted by every hitman in Saint-Bastian."

Sloane lowered his pistol and locked the door again. "You bring it, Caleb?"

"I always bring it. Question is, can you pay for it?" Caleb kicked the black case toward Elias’s cot.

He walked closer and looked down at Elias, who was still gasping for breath. Caleb’s single eye scanned the thin, half-paralyzed body, then stopped at the necrotic black veins in Elias’s neck.

"So this is him." Caleb chuckled softly, pulling an e-cigarette from his pocket and taking a drag. "The crippled kid who made Dante Vancroft fly off a roof without a helicopter. Heard rumors on the street about a ghost that can hack dead brains. Thought it was a myth."

"Talk less," Elias hissed, staring directly into Caleb’s eye. "Open the box."

Caleb raised an eyebrow. He liked the boy’s arrogance.

The one-eyed man crouched and unzipped the hard-shell cargo case. Inside sat a white polymer machine with an advanced digital screen and thick tubing.

"Military-grade medical ventilator, top tier. Usually used in ICU wards for soldiers whose lungs got shredded by phosphorus gas." Caleb patted the machine. "Stole it from an upper-sector medical convoy. This thing will force pure oxygen into your lungs, replace the breathing muscles that are starting to die."

Sloane immediately dropped to one knee and checked the machine’s specs. His eyes lit up.

"This is perfect. It can slow the internal organ decay in Elias for a few more months."

"Of course it’s perfect. Price is perfect too." Caleb leaned against the garage wall and folded his arms. "Fifty thousand dollars. Cash."

Sloane stopped examining the machine and glared at him.

"Fifty grand? You insane, Cal? Black-market rate for this doesn’t even hit twenty!"

"That is the friend price, Sloane," Caleb replied casually. "I hauled this through three police checkpoints on full alert after the massacre at The Apex. Besides, you’ll need a steady supply line for oxygen filters every week. If you two don’t have money, I’ll take the box back right now."

Sloane growled, fists clenched. He looked at Elias.

They were cornered. No money. And without the machine, Elias only had to wait until his heart and lungs burst together.

"I’ll pay you."

Elias’s voice shattered the tension.

He forced himself upright, though his breath still wheezed in his throat. He propped himself up with his right hand.

"Double."

Caleb laughed dismissively.

"With what? Your wheelchair? Your daddy might be a syndicate billionaire, but last I heard, you’re just the discarded son renting a filthy room."

"I’m going to rob my own father," Elias said flatly.

The certainty in his eyes stopped Caleb’s laughter cold.

"You’re an underground information broker, right? Then you know where Vancroft’s dirty money goes in this sector."

Caleb stared at him for a long moment. There was no doubt there. Only predator instinct.

He glanced at Sloane as if asking permission.

Sloane only gave a slow nod.

"You two are completely insane," Caleb muttered.

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out a touchscreen tablet, and tossed it into Elias’s lap.

"That’s Vancroft’s biggest money-laundering facility in the Lower Sector. It’s called The Obsidian Vault."

He pressed a button on the side of the device. The screen lit up, displaying a three-dimensional map of an underground facility.

Elias stared intently, his black-veined fingers sliding across the blueprint.

"It’s located under an abandoned frozen-meat packaging plant," Caleb continued, stepping closer. "End of every month, all the cash from gambling, prostitution, and extortion gets pooled there before it’s wired overseas. If you want fast money in the millions, that’s the place."

Sloane frowned, studying the screen over Elias’s shoulder.

"A meat plant? The vault’s in the basement?"

"Deeper than that. One hundred feet underground," Caleb said seriously. His tone no longer held any mockery. "And you’re not getting in through the front door. This isn’t some nightclub where Dante got drunk. It’s a fortress. Guarded by former Spetsnaz operators from the eastern bloc. Thermal cameras, motion sensors, and a steel door nearly a foot thick."

"Your range is only a hundred meters, El," Sloane warned, his voice thick with tactical concern. "If the vault is that deep underground, our van can’t park directly above it. Vertical and horizontal distance will kill your signal. You need to be inside the building."

Elias smiled crookedly. Not a doubtful smile. An arrogant one that sent a chill through Sloane.

His victory over a genius lieutenant like Dante two days ago had changed the way he thought. He felt untouchable. He had proven that this corpse-manipulating power was the power of a god. As long as he could kill one person at close range, the rest were just bloody dominoes waiting to fall.

"Then we go in from the inside," Elias said calmly, looking at Caleb. "That packaging plant still has an active logistics route, right? Trucks moving in and out to bring food for guards or move money?"

Caleb nodded.

"Every midnight, one refrigerated cargo truck goes straight into the underground loading bay. Filled with fake frozen meat to hide their operations from city inspectors."

"Perfect," Elias cut in instantly. His eyes gleamed with ambition. "Smuggle me into that truck. Once it reaches the underground bay, I’ll be within a hundred meters of the vault. Sloane, you and Caleb pretend to be plant technicians upstairs and sabotage the local power feed. Cause a little panic. Make one body fall down some stairs or get electrocuted. Done."

"You’re underestimating this place, Boss," Sloane snapped, his voice hardening. He hated hearing this kind of naivety. "These are Spetsnaz. They don’t panic because the lights go out. And you want to hide in a freezer truck? It’s five below in there. Your lungs are already wrecked. If you cough even once inside that cargo hold, the guards will turn your crate into scrap with live rounds."

Elias turned and looked at Sloane coldly.

"Dante had elite guards too, Sloane. And now he’s just a bloodstain on asphalt."

His ego had overruled his common sense.

"Those vault guards are human. They bleed like we do. Once one of them dies and I get inside his head, I’ll tear that fortress apart from within. Nothing beats a corpse that bullets can’t stop."

Sloane fell silent.

He saw absolute arrogance in the crippled man’s eyes.

He wanted to argue again, but Caleb cleared his throat first.

"I like your nerve, kid."

Caleb smiled thinly, took the tablet from Elias’s lap, and zoomed in on the vault blueprint.

The screen showed heavily guarded corridors, but at the very center was a large box blacked out completely. No door details. No camera layout. Just a solid black block.

"But there’s one thing you should know before you start acting like a god down there."

Caleb tapped the blacked-out box with his finger.

"This security system isn’t just protecting money."

"What do you mean?" Elias frowned.

Caleb looked from Elias to Sloane, his scarred face dark with warning.

"I hacked this blueprint straight from the original architect’s server," Caleb said quietly. "Whatever’s inside that censored room, Vancroft doesn’t want even God to see it."

Silence settled over the old garage.

Outside, the rain seemed to fall harder.

Elias exhaled through his nose and leaned back against the cot, staring at the black square on the tablet screen.

He didn’t care how much steel protected his father’s secrets. He possessed a key made of flesh and blood.

That arrogant, sneering smile returned to Elias’s pale face.

"Good," Elias said, cold as ice. "I’m not God."