Chapter 5

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 5 •

The warehouse air was thick with dust and tension. My boots echoed against the concrete as I strode quickly into the front area, katana strapped tight against my back.

“Uno, there are two approaching at the front,” Quatro’s voice cut through the static of the comms.

I adjusted the grip on my weapon, but before steel could sing, the shadows moved. Two men emerged, their eyes locked on me, their movements coordinated like predators circling prey.

They didn’t waste time. The first lunged, fists flying in a flurry of strikes. I blocked, parried, countered—my arms moving with trained precision. But the second man was already behind me, his elbow driving toward my ribs. The impact forced me to stumble, the taste of iron sharp in my mouth.

They pressed together, a relentless rhythm of fists, knees, and kicks. I fought back, each strike calculated, each dodge razor-thin. Yet their teamwork was suffocating, their rhythm designed to overwhelm.

One man’s blade flashed in the dim light, slicing toward my throat. For a heartbeat, the world slowed—the edge of death whispering against my skin. I twisted, the blade grazing close enough to leave a cold kiss along my neck.

Adrenaline surged. I dropped low, sweeping the legs of the first attacker, sending him crashing to the ground. The second swung wildly, but I caught his wrist, twisting until bone threatened to snap. His cry echoed in the cavernous space.

The fight turned. My strikes became sharper, faster, fueled by survival. A knee to the gut, a palm to the jaw, a final kick that sent the second man sprawling beside his fallen partner.

Silence fell. My chest heaved, sweat dripping down my temple. The katana remained sheathed—I hadn’t needed it.

The fight was over, but the adrenaline still pulsed in my veins. My breath came sharp, controlled, as I reached behind me and pulled the cuffs from the small of my back. The cold steel clicked open with a sound that cut through the silence of the warehouse.

I forced the first man onto his knees, twisting his arm until resistance gave way. The cuffs locked tight around his wrists. The second tried to resist, but my grip was iron. A swift maneuver pinned him, and soon both were bound, their defiance reduced to heavy breathing and narrowed eyes.

As I secured them, my hand brushed against the skin of one man’s wrist. That’s when I saw it—a tattoo, inked deep, stark against his flesh.

The world slowed. My vision tunneled, the edges of reality blurring as the symbol burned itself into my mind. It wasn’t just a mark. It was a message. A warning. A connection to something larger than this fight.

I froze, my fingers tightening unconsciously around his arm. The air felt heavier, the silence louder.

“Quatro,” I said into the comm, my voice low but urgent, “I need you to check this.”

A quick snap of the camera captured the tattoo, its ink etched like a secret waiting to be decoded. I sent the image through, the silence of the warehouse pressing against me like a weight.

Minutes passed. Then Quatro’s voice came through the comm, not loud, not urgent—just a whisper that carried more dread than a shout.

“Uno…”

I closed my eyes. The sound of his voice was enough to freeze the blood in my veins. My pulse slowed, but the world around me bled into red. The kneeling men before me blurred into shadows, enemies stripped of humanity.

My hand found the katana. The steel hissed as it slid free, and with one decisive motion, I cut across their necks. The blade sang, the silence shattered, and crimson ran down its edge.

I stared at the weapon, the blood dripping steady, a reminder of what it meant to survive. I would need it again—there was no doubt.

I exhaled, steadying myself, forcing the storm inside me back into discipline.

“We’ll talk about this later,” I said, my voice cold, clipped, “Focus on the mission.”

The warehouse opened like a wound into something impossibly clean. White panels swallowed the dim light, turning the corridor ahead into a surgical tunnel that did not belong beneath rusted rafters and leaking skylights. My boots made no sound I could hear; training had taught me how to move like a shadow and how to make silence an ally. The katana at my back was a familiar weight, the leather of its sheath warm against my palm as I walked.

The HUD in my contact lens pinged faintly and then went quiet. No signatures for Dos or Singko. The emptiness felt deliberate, as if the building itself were holding its breath. I kept my steps short and fast; every muscle coiled for the moment the quiet broke.

“Quatro, guide me to the location of the kids,” I said into the comm, voice low and clipped. The words left no room for hesitation; they were a directive, not a request.

The reply was a soft click, then static. I waited, listening to the white corridor reflect my own breath back at me. The light made everything too clear—every seam, every shadow—so that nothing could hide for long.

Footsteps answered before Quatro did. They were measured, deliberate, the kind of cadence that belonged to someone who expected to be met. They came from ahead, two sets, synchronized. The sound rolled along the panels and multiplied, as if the corridor itself were amplifying the approach.

I stopped. The katana slid free with a whisper, the blade catching the corridor light and throwing it back like a promise. My stance was economy and intent: feet planted, shoulders loose, eyes searching the seams where a body might appear. The comm hummed at my ear; Quatro’s silence was an instruction in itself.

Two figures rounded again the corner as if on cue. They moved with the practiced ease of operatives—no wasted motion, no hesitation. Hands, not weapons, first: probing, testing for weakness. The first strike came fast, a probing jab to my ribs that I absorbed and redirected. The second tried to flank, a low sweep aimed at my legs. I pivoted, the katana’s flat catching a shoulder to redirect momentum, my palm finding a throat in the same motion.

“Hold formation,” I murmured, more to myself than to anyone else. The corridor narrowed the fight into a tight geometry of bodies and steel. Their training matched mine in some ways; their coordination was the difference. They worked as a pair to collapse space, to force me into mistakes.

I let them come. A wrist lock, a planted foot, a blade angled to warn rather than to kill—my moves were precise, surgical. For a heartbeat I saw the tattoo on one attacker’s wrist, the same mark that had set the warehouse on edge earlier. The sight narrowed my world to a single, ugly symbol. Red rose at the edges of my vision, a tide I had learned to ride rather than drown in.

The first man overcommitted. I used his momentum, swept his legs, and brought him down hard against the white panels. The second tried to recover, but my katana found the space between his guard and his intent. A controlled cut, a pressure point, and he crumpled to his knees.

Silence fell like a curtain. My chest heaved; the corridor’s sterile light showed every smear, every drop. I slid the blade home and moved in to secure them, cuffs already in hand. The white walls reflected my face back at me.

“Quatro,” I said into the comm,“I’m at the corridor. Two down again. No sign of Dos or Singko.”

“Copy. I’m triangulating. Hold position and sweep the adjacent sectors. I nodded though he could not see it. I moved forward again, the sterile light swallowing my silhouette, when a sound tore through the hush—a child's scream, raw and ragged, ricocheting off the white panels. My boots stopped of their own accord.

“Quatro—scream, second deck, east door,” I said, voice low and precise, My hand went to the katana at my back, fingers finding the leather as if to steady the sudden spike of adrenaline.

 “Please help me! Put me down! I don’t want to die, please!” I followed the sound to a door set into the corridor.  The cry came from inside, I eased my hand to the knob and turned it. The hinge whispered as the door opened.

The room was small, lit by a single overhead lamp that made the air look thin and clinical. A child lay on a narrow table, limbs shackled to iron rings bolted into the wood. His face was pale, eyes wide and wet with unshed tears. A woman stood over him, syringe in hand, her expression a practiced mask of calm. She looked up as the door moved and did not startle—only measured me, as if I were another variable in an experiment.

For a second the world narrowed to three things: the child, the syringe, the woman’s steady hands.

I stepped inside, boots silent on the concrete.  “Uno, status?” Quatro’s voice asked.

I kept my voice low. “Hostile present. Child restrained. One female operative with a syringe. I’m in.”

The woman’s eyes flicked to the katana at my back, then to the cuffs at my hip. She smiled without humor. “You’re late,” she said. Her accent was flat, practiced. “We were about to begin.”

The child’s plea broke through again. “Please—don’t—” His words dissolved into a sob.

I moved with the economy of someone who had rehearsed this moment a thousand times. “Step away from the table,” I ordered. My tone was not a question; it was an operational command. “Now.”

She laughed softly, a sound that didn’t reach her eyes. “You think you can just walk in and take him?” She raised the syringe like a threat. The needle caught the lamp light and flashed.

Quatro’s voice tightened in my ear. “Uno, I’m pinging the room. Two hostiles? No—one. She’s got a transdermal injector. Nonlethal sedative, high dose. You need to disarm without contamination.”

I closed the distance in two steps. The woman’s hand moved, precise and fast. I met it with a palm strike aimed not to injure but to break her grip. The syringe clattered across the table and skittered to the floor. She lunged for it; I intercepted with a forearm to her sternum and a wrist lock that had been taught in a dozen safe rooms and training halls. Her breath hitched; the mask of control cracked.

“Don’t,” I said to the child, voice softening. “I’ve got you.” My fingers worked at the shackles, finding the release with practiced ease. The metal was cold and stubborn, but the mechanism yielded. The child’s arms fell free; he curled toward me super scared.

The woman twisted, trying to break the hold. She was stronger than she looked, and for a heartbeat the fight was a tangle of limbs and intent. I felt the scrape of fabric, the press of her knee, the angle of her shoulder as she tried to leverage herself free. My training kept my movements minimal and precise: a pressure points here, a joint lock there. I did not want to hurt her; I wanted to stop her.

“Quatro, I need a sweep on the rooms,” I said, one hand still on the operative’s wrist. “Secure this sector. I’m taking custody.”

There was a pause, then the soft click of confirmation. “Copy. Teams moving in.”

The woman’s resistance weakened. She spat at me—words I didn’t bother to hear—and then went still, the fight draining out of her. I slid the cuffs closed around her wrists. Her eyes met mine for a second, and in them I saw no fear—only the cold arithmetic of someone who had been paid to do a job.

The child watched me with a mixture of suspicion and relief. His breath came in short, uneven pulls. I crouched to his level, keeping my voice low and steady. “You’re safe now. What’s your name?”

He swallowed. “Miguel,” he whispered.

“Miguel,” I repeated, letting the name anchor me. “Can you stand?”

He nodded, and I helped him off the table. His legs were shaky, but he moved. I kept one hand on his shoulder as I scanned the room—no other threats, no hidden doors, nothing but the clinical smell of antiseptic and the faint metallic tang that always lingered after a close call.

Quatro’s voice returned, softer now. “Uno, teams are in position. We’ve got perimeter secured. Sending medics and extraction. ETA two minutes.”

I exhaled, a long, slow release. The woman in cuffs watched us with a defiant set to her jaw. I stepped closer and, without taking my eyes off her, spoke in the tone reserved for debriefs and interrogations. “You’ll answer for this. You’ll tell us who hired you, and why a child was part of the operation.”

She smiled again, thinner this time. “You think you can stop what’s already started?” Her voice was a rasp. “You don’t know the half of it.”

I didn’t rise to the provocation. I had a child to protect and a mission to finish. I turned to Miguel and offered him a small, steadying smile—a promise that the world could be made safer, at least for now.

“Stay with me,” I said. “Help is coming.”