The Last Heir of the Forbidden Family

The Safehouse Leak

Chapter 14: The Safehouse Leak

"You left a footprint wide enough for an armored column, Seraphine," Kenji spat, tossing a blood-stained rag onto the rusted floorboards. The damp air inside the railcar smelled of ozone and wet iron. "Voss didn't track us with bloodhounds. He tracked us because your precious firewall bounced our packets right back into his private grid."

Seraphine’s head snapped up, her eyes blazing behind her cracked glasses. "That is an absolute lie, Kenji. My routing protocols are airtight. I wiped every trace the second we breached the subnet."

"Right. Airtight," Kenji scoffed, leaning his injured shoulder against the vibrating wall with a wince. "Tell that to the strike team that was waiting three blocks from our extraction point. You couldn't bear to cut all your digital umbilical cords, could you? You left a backdoor open just in case Daddy decided to take you back."

"Shut up!" Seraphine slammed her burner phone down onto an empty crate, the plastic casing cracking under the force. "You have no idea what you're talking about! You rely on blunt force and broken ribs because your brain can't process anything more complex than a shotgun shell. Your old syndicate contacts aren't master hackers, Kenji—they're drunken liabilities hiding in alleyways, and they sell out anyone for a bottle of cheap liquor!"

"My contacts keep us alive while you play cyber-cowboy with a burner phone," Kenji roared, stepping closer, his face dark with fury. "If you compromised us again—"

"Will both of you shut your mouths?" Dorian hissed.

The abrupt demand cut through their shouting like a razor. Dorian was crouched near the center of the railcar, his eyes squeezed shut, both hands pressed flat against the vibrating corrugated steel floor. The golden luminescence beneath his skin flickered erratically, casting an unearthly amber glow across his tense jawline.

"Dorian, what is it?" Seraphine demanded, her defensive posture instantly evaporating into sharp concern. "Are the suppressants wearing off?"

"No," Dorian whispered, his voice strained to a razor-thin pitch as his heightened sensory perception cataloged the ambient frequencies shifting beneath the tracks. "Get down. Right now."

Kenji didn't hesitate. Decades of street survival overrode his anger in a fraction of a second, and he lunged forward, grabbing Seraphine by the collar of her jacket and hauling her violently to the floor just as Dorian dropped into a hard crouch.

CRACK.

The deafening report of a heavy-caliber anti-materiel round tore through the damp night air. A split second later, the rusted metal wall of the railcar exploded inward in a shower of jagged shrapnel and white-hot sparks. The supersonic slug punched a clean, fist-sized hole right through the corrugated steel, passing precisely through the space where Kenji’s head had been standing half a heartbeat before.

Seraphine shrieked, ducking her head into her arms as a hail of metal flakes and splintered rust rained down over them.

"Sniper!" Kenji barked, drawing his remaining pistol with a furious motion while pressing his back against the lowest part of the railcar wall. "High-rise across the yard! Suppressed heavy-frame rifle!"

"That wasn't a corporate security weapon," Dorian panted, his chest heaving as the golden light beneath his skin flared in response to the sudden spike of adrenaline. His teeth were clenched so hard a drop of blood welled at the corner of his mouth. "The frequency... the harmonic vibration of the round. It's Malphas Syndicate hardware."

"Vane," Seraphine breathed, horror draining the last bit of color from her face as she pressed herself flat against the grimy floorboards. "My father didn't just send his own mercenaries. He contracted Vane's executioners to handle the dirty work."

Another round slammed into the side of the railcar, this time striking lower, tearing through the rotting wooden support beams beneath the floor with a concussive boom that rattled their teeth. The entire carriage shuddered violently, tilting slightly as one of the rusted support mounts sheared off under the impact.

"They've got us zeroed in," Kenji said, his eyes darting frantically toward the narrow sliding door at the far end of the carriage. "If they walk another round three feet to the left, we're all turning into pink mist inside this tin can."

"We can't stay here," Dorian said, pushing himself up to one knee despite the violent tremors racking his frame. The energy humming beneath his skin was turning dangerously bright, threatening to tear his muscle fibers apart if he didn't vent it. "The door is jammed from the outside rust, but I can blow the runner."

"Do it!" Seraphine yelled over the deafening drumbeat of rain and the hiss of another bullet ricocheting off the outer hull. "Do it now before they adjust their elevation!"

Kenji racked the slide of his pistol, checking the chamber with grim resignation. "Move fast, hit hard, and don't look back. If we make it out of this rail yard, we're hu

nting the bastard holding that rifle."