Chapter 325: The Hero Did Not Need a Witness

The collection boss noticed me when my tail wrapped around his wrist, which gave him just enough time to look offended before the pistol pointed at the ceiling instead of my head.

I struck his hand against the doorframe. The gun fell through the gap beside the stairs, and his phone landed faceup on the floor with the call still running.

A voice asked whether the dancers would be there when the crew arrived. I pressed the screen with a smoke tendril, ending the call before the boss could turn my silence into useful instructions.

"That was business," he said, staring at the coils holding him against the wall. "You took things that belonged to other people, and there were ways this could still be settled."

"You could have started with the part where my girls weren’t on your list, because that had done terrible things to my interest in a refund."

Horass remained at the far end of the passage. He could see the boss’s empty hand, the fallen phone and the missing gun, which meant I didn’t get to pretend the next choice happened in a fair fight.

The boss tried money first. He offered to cancel the hit, return the old claims and tell the people behind the auction that I had never been available for sale.

I made him call the same number back. With my tail pressing against his throat, he ordered the attack canceled and repeated it when the voice on the other end asked whether he was drunk.

The caller said the team was already moving and he would try to reach them. I heard the uncertainty clearly, saved the recent number through my phone and sent Bridget a warning about the club.

It wasn’t proof the attack had stopped. It was the best message I could get while holding the man who had ordered it, and I wasn’t giving him credit for results nobody had confirmed.

[System: Right, mate, he’s dropped the gun and made the call. Whatever you do next belongs to you, so don’t dress it up as a bloody accident afterward.]

I wasn’t planning an accident, and I wasn’t asking anyone to mistake it for one.

The boss saw something change in my face and began explaining that he had family. I thought about mine, including the two uncles who had helped turn this week into a rolling repair bill, and found that the word didn’t improve his chances.

He wasn’t attacking anymore. I could have left him restrained for the response crew, and I knew it while I tightened my coils and held him against the wall until he stopped moving.

I lowered him without making a speech. No quest window appeared, no reward praised the decision, and the passage remained a damaged hallway with one fewer person breathing in it.

For a moment, the only sound came from the engine behind the wall. I waited for relief to feel larger than the anger and discovered that getting what I wanted didn’t automatically make the evening less complicated.

[System: No points for that one, champ. You’ve made your choice, and now you’ve still got a sinking boat and an armed vegetable watching the result.]

I had noticed the vegetable, although I appreciated the reminder that murder hadn’t included a complimentary exit.

Horass looked down at the body, then back at me. He didn’t look shocked, and that somehow bothered me more than if he had started calling me a monster.

"I hadn’t been hired to protect him," he said. "That didn’t make what happened invisible, and it didn’t change what I had been hired to do."

A small camera sat above the crew door. Its lens pointed along the passage, but I couldn’t tell whether it still had power or where its recording went.

I left it alone. Smashing a camera wouldn’t erase a recording already saved somewhere else, and wasting time pretending otherwise would only give Horass an easier shot.

My phone carried Bridget asking whether the boss was still directing the attack. I told her he was dead and that I had killed him after he made the cancellation call.

There was a pause before she asked whether anyone else was with me. I told her about Horass and the camera, keeping the answer plain rather than trying to make it sound kinder.

"Then get out of the passage and stay alive long enough to talk to me properly," she said. "I had the club warned, and nobody there was waiting for a promise from his caller."

Her voice stayed with me after the line went quiet. She hadn’t blessed what I did, but she hadn’t vanished either, and I carried both facts while pulling away from the body.

I had wanted the boss gone, and he was gone. The people he had already sent remained a problem for people I loved, which made the result feel smaller and uglier than the tidy ending I had imagined.

Horass moved when I moved. A length of broken doorframe struck the floor ahead of me, forcing me back toward the machinery room instead of the outer hatch.

"I was going to complain that this seemed personal, but you had been irritatingly clear about the invoice."

"Professional work often looked personal to the person receiving it," he said. "The Pancake Border Conflict proved that, although the cavalry involved would have preferred not to be quoted."

[System: I reckon he made that one up to annoy you, which means the prick’s finally shown some proper tactical growth.]

I backed through the machinery door with my fins aching and watched the clock turn past six minutes since the captured bullet. Beer became available, and I kept the relief off my face as carefully as I could.

Horass followed with his launcher raised, then stopped beside the exposed cable guide. He looked at the ready weapon, looked at me, and smiled like a man who had just decided the next rocket would be somebody else’s problem.