The ride back to the penthouse was a suffocating descent into hell.
Silas sat opposite Elara in the armored SUV, completely engulfed in shadow. He hadn't spoken since the docks. The only sound in the cabin was the frantic, encrypted chatter coming from the police scanner on the dashboard and the rhythmic drumming of his bloodied knuckles against his knee. He was calculating. He was dissecting every second of the night, every breath she had taken, every move she had made.
Elara kept her eyes fixed on the rain-streaked window, her kinetic armor fully engaged to hide the violent trembling in her hands. She had destroyed his shipment. She had crippled his finances. She had saved him from the police raid, but in doing so, she had unleashed a demon.
When the private elevator doors hissed open to the penthouse, the atmosphere was thick with absolute terror. The opulent, glass-walled sanctuary had been transformed into a war room. Half a dozen Syndicate lieutenants stood around the mahogany dining table, their tailored suits rumpled, their faces pale. Heavily armed enforcers guarded every exit.
Silas strode into the room, bypassing his men entirely. He walked to the crystal decanter on the bar, poured two fingers of bourbon, and drank it neat.
"Give me the casualty report," Silas commanded, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that made the temperature in the room plummet.
"Four dead, boss. Two critically injured," a lieutenant named Julian stammered, stepping forward. Julian was Silas's second-in-command, a ruthless enforcer who usually radiated arrogant confidence. Tonight, he looked like a man standing on the gallows. "The entire shipment is ash. The C4 was military-grade. Highly sophisticated."
"Sophisticated," Silas repeated softly, rolling the word around his tongue. He slowly turned to face the room. His slate-gray eyes drifted over his lieutenants, scanning for weakness, before locking onto Elara, who stood silently near the doorway.
"We believe it was the Bratva," Julian continued, sweating under Silas's silent scrutiny. "They must have slipped a sapper past the perimeter guards during the shift change."
Silas set his glass down. The soft *clink* sounded like a gunshot in the dead silence.
"The perimeter guards who report directly to you, Julian," Silas observed, his tone dangerously conversational.
"Yes, but—"
"Lock down the South Ward. Every street, every alley, every rat hole," Silas ordered, his voice rising, the sociopathic restraint fraying at the edges. "No one leaves. No one enters. You ground all the shipping lines, you bleed the local gangs for information, and you find out exactly how a hostile operative walked into my heavily guarded sector and planted a bomb."
Elara watched the monster she had sworn to kill fully emerge. Silas paced the room, a predator caged by betrayal. He was terrifying in his wrath, an absolute force of dark nature that commanded the room through sheer, visceral fear. This was the man who had ordered the hit on her family. This was the tyrant. Seeing him like this strengthened her resolve; she had to remember what he was, not how he tasted.
"Silas, we are doing everything we can," Julian urged, taking a step toward his boss. "We will find the Russians who did this."
Silas stopped pacing. The silence that followed was suffocating.
"I don't think it was the Russians," Silas whispered.
With a movement so fast it defied human mechanics, Silas unholstered his heavy, suppressed Glock and closed the distance between him and Julian. He slammed the barrel of the gun directly against the center of Julian's forehead, forcing the larger man back against the panoramic glass window.
The lieutenants gasped, instantly freezing in place.
"I think," Silas hissed, his eyes wide and completely devoid of humanity, "that I have a rat in my house. A rat who knew the shipment schedule. A rat who knew the guard rotations."
"Silas, I swear on my life, it wasn't me!" Julian cried, raising his hands, his knees buckling under the sheer terror of the Crimson King.
Silas cocked the hammer back. The mechanical click echoed loudly. "Your life means nothing to me right now, Julian. Tell me who planted the bomb."