The brutes moved first, slipping back into their van with Tom in tow, as if they did this every day… probably did.

  Darius nodded at me and jerked a thumb toward the second vehicle, black, and humming with quiet menace.

  Lola and I climbed in.

  Inside, the van was less “transport” and more mobile command center. Smooth carbon interior, tactical seats lined in responsive smart-fabric that molded to our bodies as we sat. A full wall of holo-screens blinked to life as the door hissed shut behind us, pulling in Galileo data, newsfeeds, surveillance drone relays. All publicly sourced, nothing private as much as I could see.

  Is my company too poor to buy it?

  The air smelled like new circuits and caffeine pills. Someone had installed a mini fridge. Of course someone had. I couldn’t suppress a smile.

  Darius slid in last, taking the seat across from me like this was a negotiation instead of a rescue. “Where to?” he asked, already tapping through his wrist tablet, prepping routes.

  “Treatment plant by the river,” I replied. “East side. There’s a shell building nearby, industrial, concrete, no signage. That’s the likeliest spot. We’ll need to approach quiet. If I remember correctly.”

  Darius gave a grunt of approval, a voice all business now. “Understood.”

  The van rumbled to life, silent from the inside, save for the soft hum of power conduits and the rhythmic tick of data feeds updating around us.

  Lola leaned in slightly, her shoulder brushing mine. “Still sure?”

  I gave Lola a small nod, then turned to Darius. “Just a warning, Pearl’s very... trigger-happy. If she thinks we’re a threat, she won’t hesitate. Traps, explosions, remotely operated sniper rifles… I have honestly no idea what she can do.”

  He let out a breath, not quite a sigh, and pulled up a set of public area schematics on one of the screens. “I can handle a single unit. Or a pair. We’re trained for this kind of thing.”

  His confidence was impressive, if a little na?ve. I didn’t say anything. Just leaned back in my seat, digging through old memories.

  Pearl didn’t build safe houses, she embedded them. Tucked away behind innocuous doors, with more sensors than some military bases. Lucas and I had snuck in or out once or twice, sure, back when she tolerated our stupidity because we weren’t threats.

  But if someone came after her? Someone who’d tripped the wrong wire in the wrong part of the net?

  She’d go full scorched earth.

  I’d had to learn, like, ten key phrases and some coded ritual nonsense just to get in the front door without being zapped by an automated taser turret. Didn’t understand it then. Understand it slightly less now.

  Darius broke the silence.

  “Any suspicion who’s after your boyfriend?”

  I didn’t even flinch. Just nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got ideas.” Then added, deadpan, “Also, not my boyfriend. He’s dating someone else now. Her.”

  Lola said nothing. Just quietly reached out and squeezed my hand, even if I wasn’t the one dating Lucas previously. I glanced at her and smiled. Even though I wasn’t sure she saw it, her eyes were locked on her tablet, flicking through something I couldn’t quite catch.

  Darius raised a brow, unimpressed. “So what is this? Random love squabble? We about to raid some poor mistress’s place?”

  I leveled him with a flat stare. “If it was, would we be rolling in with a private army?”

  Darius shrugged, mildly. “Honestly? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve seen.”

  “Before you storm in… Do you have maps? Blueprints? Anything we can prep with?” I asked, crossing my arms. “I think she has three exits. Four if you count blowing the roof off and crawling out through rebar.”

  Darius let out a long, put-upon sigh. “I know civilians get a warped sense of reality from action flicks, but you should know better. We don’t have that kind of intel. We’re a private security company, not the police or the damn UGA.”

  “Lady?” Lola’s voice cut in softly. I turned, and she looked up from her tablet, a little hesitant, but still steady. “Should we call?” she asked. “Owing him another favor wouldn’t be worse than walking in blind. Mila mentioned how important is to have fresh information. It saved us from the river flank. I tried to cross-reference the maps, but last public snapshot’s over a year old…”

  Yeah. She was right.

  I met her eyes. She gave a small nod, as if to say just do it already.

  Riker probably already had blueprints, ownership records, thermal scans, and a social media profile on every rat in the place. “Darius, I’m making a call,” I said. “Give me your public access key so I can sync the files when I get them.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  He gave me a look.

  That look.

  The one that said I’m only doing this because technically you’re my boss, and I’m trying to pretend I’m okay with it. “Sure,” he said, handing over the key like it physically pained him.

  I rolled my eyes and started dialing.

  Riker picked up before the first ring ended. “Ah! Miss Charlie!” he crooned like a game show host. “How are you enjoying your very own private army? Empowering, isn’t it? The taste of unchecked influence?”

  I glanced at the monitors, which were currently showing a weather report and not much else. “Honestly?” I said. “Could be better. I dunno, maybe live surveillance, or anything remotely useful?”

  Riker gasped theatrically. “Say no more! Your wish is practically a contractual obligation!” I could practically hear his fingers flying over a control panel. “Now,” he continued smoothly, “where exactly do you believe your elusive friend is hiding?”

  “East side. Industrial zone. Concrete block with no signage. Probably condemned. Definitely paranoid.” He was already nodding. “Perfect. Nothing screams danger like concrete and bad zoning. Sit tight, Ice Princess, expect magic soon. I don’t personally handle things like this, but for you… I will make an exception! For the revolution!”

  The line clicked off.

  I had a gnawing, ominous feeling twisting in my gut.

  Riker’s revolution.

  Whatever it really meant, it wasn’t going to be fireworks and speeches. It was going to be blood and concrete and secrets no one survived knowing. But I shoved it aside, because five minutes later, the magic he promised arrived.

  “Sir, we have a connection…” said a woman who’d been silent up to now, seated in front of the van’s main monitors. Her voice cracked halfway through, eyes wide. “We, uh… just received a live uplink to UGA L-2 satellite. Full access rights for the next two hours.”

  Darius’s head snapped toward her.

  She wasn’t done.

  “As well... the original blueprints, city-stamped. A demolition report from two years ago. An ecological report reverting said report. Another ten reports. And a preliminary analysis file marked: ‘Pearl’s Hidey-Hole.’”

  She said the name like it was radioactive. I turned slowly, watching Darius. His mouth was slightly open. He leaned toward me, voice low. “UGA L-2?” He whispered it, like saying the name louder might summon government agents.

  Then, with a look I couldn’t quite decode, he added under his breath: “Girl.” He straightened, his expression hardening into something I hadn’t seen before. Not irritation. Not confusion.

  Resolve. “Who’s after your boyfriend?” he asked.

  I bit my lip. I didn’t want to lie. But I didn’t want to explain either. So I gave him the truth. Just enough of it. “The Ring of Smiling People.”

  He let out a humorless laugh. “Of course. Only the most dangerous criminals operating below radar. Not actual government. Not corporate. Just them.” He rolled his shoulder, voice darkening. “Count me in. I’ve got a score to settle with one of their handlers.”

  I blinked. “Wait, really?”

  He nodded once. “Long story. Not the time.”

  Fair enough. “So…” I hesitated, finally asking the question that had been clawing at my throat. “If we do find them, Pearl, Lucas, will you help secure them? Keep them safe?”

  Because if the Ring was involved, we were past ‘rescue mission’. Darius didn’t flinch. “I’ll bury them under ten layers of steel and blackout servers if I have to,” he said. “They’ll vanish.”

  We arrived some time later, the van hissing to a halt just outside the industrial zone’s crumbling perimeter.

  The plan was already set.

  Brute One and Five would cover escape route one, an old maintenance tunnel that probably hadn’t seen a human in a decade. Brute Three and Tom took the second exit. A loading dock half-collapsed on the west side.

  Riker had flagged the third path, the official access point, as the one Pearl was most likely to watch... or blow to hell.

  So that one was mine.

  Naturally.

  Brute Two and Four were still unaccounted for in my head. Maybe guarding snacks. Maybe ghosts. My brain was weird and starting to swim a little from the stakes.

  Hope it won’t explode.

  Because as much as we all agreed that blowing up the entire structure was not the plan... Lucas’ funeral, and the bombings that followed past life, had made it very clear. Pearl didn’t hesitate when it came to choosing between survival, grief, and subtlety.

  “You need to wear this,” Darius said firmly, thrusting a sleek ballistic vest toward me. I stared at it like it might bite me. “You’re not just a client now,” he added. “You’re the owner. Keeping you alive is priority one. Sending you in alone is already too much risk.”

  I grumbled, took the vest, and didn’t put it on until after I jumped out of the van. The air outside was dry and bitter with rust and concrete rot.

  Ahead of us loomed the decommissioned water treatment plant, towering cement silos like giant, forgotten sentinels, their tops lined with crumbling railings. Rust-streaked pipes spidered across the walls, some hanging loose, some broken clean off. It looked like a place ghosts would go to get haunted.

  Pearl’s hideout, if I remembered the details correctly, was buried in the eastern annex. A structure that had once been a testing substation. Half-submerged, no external signage. Just a flat slab of reinforced concrete nestled in a wall of cracked metal and utility scars. The kind of place you’d walk past a hundred times and never notice.

  I cinched the vest tighter around my ribs and exhaled slowly.

  “Pearl wouldn’t trust anyone else,” I muttered, more to myself than to Darius. “It’s not even clear she trusts me.” I glanced toward the hidden doorway again. “But we’re past that now.”

  I trudged toward the only visible door on the east annex wall, if you could call it a door.

  From a distance, it looked completely useless. Rusted straight through at the hinges, warped inward like someone had once tried to drive a truck through it. Flaking paint peeled off in strips, and a large crack split the center top to bottom like a rotten tooth.

  But as I stepped closer, ten meters… five…

  Something didn’t sit right.

  My eyes scanned the door again, slower this time. And there, tucked neatly into the shattered remains of what used to be a light fixture, mounted crooked above the frame, was a lens.

  Tiny.

  Cleverly disguised beneath half-melted plastic and dust. A motion-reactive camera, its aperture glinting once as it adjusted to focus on my face.

  So… she still has a safe house here.

  A tight breath left my lungs. The first one she ever took Lucas to. I was honestly terrified she had another place, that she’d abandoned this spot entirely. But this?

  This meant she might still be here.

  I didn’t even realize how tense I was until that first flicker of relief washed over me.

  And then—

  Crack.

  A gunshot rang out loud, close. I hit the deck without thinking, ducking low beside a shattered conduit housing.

  “Pearl!” I shouted, hands raised, heart hammering like a drum. “It’s me! Charlie!” I forced the words out loud but clear. “I need your help!”