Chapter 225 Focus.

Chapter 225: 225 Focus.

"Focus, Lilith, please," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose.

Lilith giggled, waving a manicured crimson hand through the air as her spaded tail gave a happy little bounce. "Oopsie! Right, right, keeping it PG-13 for the boardroom! Since you’re being a total party pooper about a real blood-orgy, Milesy, what you’re gonna need instead is a shiny MacGuffin! An artifact!"

"An artifact," I repeated, the pieces clicking together. "Of course."

"Totally!" Lilith chirped, leaning her palms flat on the table and giving us all a dazzling, fanged smile. "Normally, tearing open a portal takes hours of chanting and way too much chalk! Super tedious! Unless you have a cursed relic acting like a cosmic battery! Devils love putting their spare power into creepy little trinkets. It’s like leaving a spare house key under the doormat! You wave a spooky chalice around, and boom—instant demonic street cred!"

She was right. Having a physical prop at the center of the heist gave the cameras something easy to track and tied the whole narrative together.

"Perfect," I said. "We build a whole production around a cursed object. Big crowd, high society, heavy security. I’m thinking... a high-end charity auction."

"A charity, sir?" Glacia asked, raising a pale brow.

"Yeah. Crashing a charity gala is classic heel work. Nothing makes a villain look more delightfully petty than robbing orphans, which means the hero gets twice the applause for stopping us. We just need the right venue..."

"Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! I have the absolute best one!" Lilith squealed, bouncing on her heels with her hand raised like an eager schoolgirl.

"You do?"

"Uh-huh! The House of Edna is a platinum-tier sponsor for the Human Fund! It’s this super fancy charity for kids who got their houses smashed up in cape fights. Edna actually sits right on the board of directors!"

Rhea squinted at her, furry ears tilting sideways in disbelief. "Wait. Edna sits on a charity board? The woman who threatened to staple your tail to the floor if you wasted fabric?"

"Of course she does, sweetie!" Lilith beamed, puffing her chest out proudly. "She’s always saying, ’One must do good with their good fortune, darling, or the tax auditors start asking questions!’"

Which was the polite corporate line, sure, though the reality was much more pragmatic.

Even in the modern era, employing a literal hellspawn wasn’t exactly great for public relations. Much like a defense contractor or a mobster running a string of strip clubs, Edna had to keep her public image blindingly spotless.

Donating millions to war orphans kept the government happy and prevented the Vatican from sending a squad of trigger-happy gun-nuns to banish her best seamstress back to the pit.

It was cynical corporate whitewashing, obviously, like ninety percent of billionaire philanthropy. Today, though, that tax write-off was going to save my ass.

"That works," I said. "We’ll route an anonymous donation to the charity afterward to cover whatever losses the auction takes from us trashing the ballroom. Keeps the karma balanced. Now, for the opening act—Psyren?"

"Hit me, bossman," Psyren said, perking up from Nibbles.

"You haven’t done a straightforward robbery gig yet, and we need to diversify your portfolio. Up until now, your public persona is basically the spoiled, attention-hungry punk who hijacked a stadium concert for clout."

"I am a massive bitch," Psyren agreed, grinning from ear to ear.

"And we’re going to lean right into that. You’re going to crash the gala and swipe the relic because you want to use it to summon a demon prince to mind-control your haters."

She blinked. "Wait, it can do that?"

"No, it’s going to be a hunk of painted scrap metal from Rhea’s workbench," I said dryly. "What matters is that you loudly tell the hostages that’s what it does while you’re stealing it. Civilians and beat reporters need the plot spoon-fed to them during a heist.

"Nobody’s going to understand the stakes unless you spell it out with a dramatic monologue. Make it simple enough that a guy watching the news in a bar with the volume muted can read the captions and get the gist."

"Walk in, look hot, talk shit, and steal shiny things? Sounds like my dream job," she purred.

Atta girl. "Bingo," I said, pointing a finger at her. "We’ll make an A-list menace out of you yet."

Psyren preened under the praise, practically glowing. "Aw, shucks, boss! I won’t let you down."

"I know you won’t. Obviously, we aren’t brainwashing actual bystanders to act as your meat-shields when Vanessa shows up. Since this is just the opening round, you’ll need some disposable muscle to get beaten up so you can make a dramatic exit. Think Steve’s free this weekend?"

"For his baby sister? Are you kidding? He’ll bring twenty of himself," Psyren giggled.

"Great. We’ll seed a dozen of his clones into the catering staff and security detail. Once you kick the doors in, they’ll drop the trays, throw on some matching ski masks, and play henchmen.

"When Vanessa knocks them flat, you drop a smoke bomb and bail with the prize. Standard rules apply, zero civilian casualties. Questions?"

"Zero," Psyren said.

"Good. Give him a ring after we wrap. Rhea?"

"Reporting for duty, overlord!" Rhea chirped, snapping a sloppy, two-finger salute.

"You’re on prop fabrication. I need an artifact that looks ancient, eldritch, and vaguely terrifying. Think you can weld something together without making it actually radioactive?"

"Miles, please! Who do you think you’re talking to? I can knock out a spooky devil-chalice before dinner."

"Fantastic. I’ll handle the venue logistics and tip off Vanessa. Alright, people, meeting adjourned. Let’s go earn that fifty mil."

Naturally, pulling the trigger on a production of this scale took more than a ten-minute pep talk. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and a multi-stage supervillain arc didn’t just assemble itself off-screen.

The prop itself, however, was in very capable hands. Every single day, I thanked my lucky stars I’d brought Rhea onto the payroll.

In our line of work, presentation was ninety percent of the battle, and short of poaching a whole workshop of Hollywood practical-effects artists,

Rhea was the best fabricator in the business. From the things at the Rumble I’d seen from her, and since turning the sub-level of the chalet into her personal playground, she hadn’t missed once.

A few hours after the briefing broke up, I took the hidden elevator down to check on her progress.

The heavy doors slid open, welcoming me not to a sterile laboratory, but to what looked like a massive, underground chop-shop collided with an industrial foundry.

Instead of bubbling chemical vats, the concrete floor was crowded with hydraulic vehicle lifts, CNC milling machines, and towering racks of raw steel, titanium tubing, and salvaged engine blocks.

Thick bundles of high-voltage power cables snaked across the ceiling like mechanical vines, and the cool blue LED strips she’d slapped onto every heavy lathe and 3D printer to give the place some flair.

Half the heavy machinery down here looked like it belonged in a shipyard, and while I suspected a few of the giant robotic arms were just there because she thought they looked badass, I couldn’t fault the aesthetic.

I found her tucked away in the back corner behind afortress of stacked tool chests, where a curved array of six monitors surrounded her rolling mechanic’s chair like a cockpit.

She wasn’t welding. She had a headset crooked over one furry dog ear, furiously mashing the keys of a mechanical keyboard while playing some hyper-violent arena shooter.

"Ha! Sit the fuck down, scrub!" she barked into the mic, her tail wagging violently as her on-screen character turned another player into chunky red confetti with a heavy shotgun.

I shook my head, leaning a shoulder against a hydraulic press. The poor bastard on the other end of that lobby never stood a chance.

I waited patiently until the center screen flashed a massive VICTORY banner, then cleared my throat.

"About done saving the world?" I asked.