He pushed the safehouse door open. The ambush snapped awake. Suppressed gunfire, close quarters, bodies on concrete. Now, with the hall cleared, Ethan reaches for the cache—the only reason he ever trusted this place.
Inside the locker, the panel eased aside with the faint scrape of hidden metal. A narrow cavity yawned, no wider than his shoulders. Inside: a black canvas go-bag, edges scuffed, zippers taped down against noise. Beside it, a slim steel case no larger than a lunchbox, matte with tape cross-hatching.
He pulled the bag first, slinging it over his shoulder in one smooth motion. The weight was perfect, familiar—ammo, cash, passports, a burner laptop, small comforts in cruel places. He tapped the side of the steel case with his knuckle, listening to the hollow inside.
The case was what mattered. A ledger. A drive. Proof. Insurance he'd never planned to use until tonight. Now it was the only thing worth carrying.
He tucked it under his jacket.
The floor thrummed again—just enough for his scar to twitch. The drone overhead shifted, repositioning. He pictured it in the clouds: a sleek predator with a payload the size of a coffin.
Trapdoor Truth
He turned to the back wall, to the second exit. A recessed hatch, disguised under shelving, steel latches hidden behind a false beam. He crouched, pressed the latch with the side of his fist. The panel clicked open, revealing a narrow shaft leading out beneath the containers.
But there—across the shaft's lip—thin monofilament, almost invisible. A wire strung tight. His eye tracked it to a small lump of putty in the corner. Explosive. Shaped.
He exhaled, long, slow. They'd prepped even this. They knew.
Rule Nine:If both exits are watched, the real target is you, not the package.
For a moment, Ethan let the truth sit in his chest. It wasn't a sloppy ambush. It wasn't a rival crew. This was Control. His own employers had painted him. Signed his obituary in advance.
The kind of betrayal you couldn't unlearn.
Hallway Math
Shadows lengthened in the corridor. Voices echoed, low and clipped, bouncing off concrete. At least two men advancing, one covering. Boots squeaked faint on wet soles. They were moving by textbook. Not perfect, but drilled.
Ethan stepped to the breaker box on the wall. He flipped the main.
The strip lights died with a pop. The safehouse drowned in darkness, lit only by the glow of emergency LEDs and the faint green pulse of the radio still in his pocket.
"Power cut," one of the voices muttered. "Unit Three, eyes up."
Ethan slid sideways, slow, to the fire extinguisher bracket. He yanked it loose, thumbed the pin, and squeezed once into the corridor. White dust hissed out, filling the throat with a choking fog.
A burst of gunfire answered, panicked, chewing plaster, snapping sparks from dead wiring.
He didn't waste ammo in reply. He let them shoot blind. He slid across the floor on his knee, angled into the corridor, and let the extinguisher roll, clattering like a body.
The men hesitated just enough. He put two rounds low—knees and ankles—and heard the scream, the drop, the wet slap of a rifle skidding across concrete.
The second man fired wild, muzzle tracing jittery lines in the dust. Ethan rolled flat, let the rounds shred the air above him, then snapped his pistol up under the smoke. One clean shot. A grunt. The sound of weight collapsing into plasterboard.
Silence, except for the extinguisher hissing its last gasp.
Reversal
The radio crackled.
"Unit Three? Report. …Unit Three, report!""—We've lost them inside.""Unit Four, collapse from Charlie. Bird holds mark. Repeat, Bird holds mark."
They still thought they had him in a box. They hadn't realized the box had teeth.
Ethan moved fast now, clearing the last room, stripping magazines from downed bodies, switching to the suppressed rifle one man had carried. He checked the chamber, sighted down the irons, felt the recoil math already settling into his bones.
He kicked a body into the hallway, then leaned back into shadow. The sound would draw the collapse team.
Sure enough—boots thundered down the far end. A flashlight beam knifed through the dust. A voice shouted, "Contact!"
Ethan waited until the flashlight hit the decoy body, then leaned out, short bursts—controlled, precise. The first man folded instantly, light clattering from his grip. The second shouted, fired blind, but Ethan had already stepped sideways, muzzle tracking, another burst cutting him down mid-syllable.
The hallway was his again. Silent. Stinking of cordite, bleach, and fear.
Painted Sky
He knew it wouldn't last. The drone's hum pressed heavier now, louder even through the storm. The floodlights outside flickered, syncing in unnatural rhythm. A red thread of light danced across the far wall, jittering, faint but deliberate.
Laser paint. He was being marked.
He glanced back at the trapped hatch. Suicide. Forward was worse. Which left only sideways—out into the yard, into the rain, into the open jaws of the sky.
He checked his bag strap, shifted the rifle, and pressed his shoulder once against the steel door that led back out. Cold. Solid. His way out, or his grave.
Rule Ten:When the game board collapses, flip it and walk through the pieces.
He pushed out into the rain.
The yard greeted him with silence. The puddles shivered with red threads. The drone's pitch climbed, the sound of a predator banking for the kill.
Ethan lowered himself toward the culvert, boots sliding on wet concrete, the bag tight against his ribs. He drew one long breath, filling his lungs until it hurt.
And as he exhaled—laser dots bloomed across the puddles like flowers.