Chapter 8: The Final Mission.
It was supposed to be normal routine.
That's what Raiden called it when he handed Lia the file — a simple extraction, clean and quiet. One target, no witnesses. But Lia knew better. She'd felt the tension crackling through the compound for days now, like a storm about to break.
She figured it out, Vera was gone.
Two nights ago, she vanished. No word, no trace and no body. And in The Order, that meant one thing — she'd either been caught… or she was dead.
Lia didn't have the luxury of grief. She had to move. Fast enough before she or Kai were caught.
The mission took her into the heart of the city, to a glass-walled penthouse where the target — a wealthy arms dealer and former associate of The Order — was waiting for a meeting, which he didn't know that this meeting would be his last meeting.
The night air was heavy, filled with rain, the streets below gleaming like wet glass. Lia moved through the shadows, bypassing security systems she'd been disabling since she was twelve.
But something felt wrong.
Her earpiece was dead silent. There were no updates, No check-ins. Nor from Ash and neither from Kai. There were no sound. Something like this have never happened before.
Then, as she stepped into the suite's dimly lit office, she saw it.
The target was already dead.
A single, clean shot through the head. Blood pooling beneath him. And sitting in the chair across from the body, casually cleaning a silenced pistol, was Ash.
His eyes met hers — cold, unreadable.
"You're late," he said.
Lia's blood turned to ice. "This wasn't your mission."
"No. It was yours. But Raiden sent me to clean it up." He stood slowly, the pistol never wavering from her chest. "You've been sloppy, Lia. Questioning the orders, Hesitating in your missions and the worst, Harboring traitors."
She barely noticed her own breath quickening. The pieces slammed together in her mind.
"This was a setup," she whispered.
Ash gave the faintest shrug. "You were never meant to leave this room."
In that instant, Lia made her choice.
She moved.
The fight was fast, vicious. Years of training colliding in a blur of knives and fists. Ash was good — but not better than her. Lia fought like someone with nothing left to lose.
She raised the shard of glass, pressing it hard against his throat. In the same breath, her knee shot up, slamming into his ribs with a force that made his body jolt. Something snapped beneath the impact — a sharp crack in his ribs, she felt through the point of contact. His breath hitched, a broken gasp in the dark.
He landed a punch that split her lip. She slammed his head into the desk.
And when it was done, Ash lay on the floor, his breath ragged, blood slicking the carpet.
"You won't make it out of here," he gasped, a faint grin on his battered face. "They'll hunt you to the ends of the earth."
"Then they'd better hurry," Lia spat.
She grabbed the pistol, wiped her fingerprints from the scene, and vanished into the storm.
---
Back at the compound, the alarms blared.
Kai was waiting near the maintenance tunnel, his face pale, eyes wide. "What happened?"
"Change of plans, The Order got a clue." Lia said. "We're finishing this tonight."
With Vera gone, Ash dead, and the compound on high alert, there was no more room for slow, careful moves.
It was the time, the time to burn The Order to the ground.
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End of chapter 8.
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