L*st and Death

The street, lined with tightly packed houses, lay in the deep stillness of night.

Lentigo’s single-family homes were divided by low walls and narrow gardens, with only a few showing the dim glow of interior lights. Under the weak cast of an old streetlamp, Isaac walked slowly along the familiar gray exterior, studying the mansion’s structure.

It had once been the home of Marta Monto—Isaac’s only ally and an agent of the Belzoras Intelligence Bureau—where she had lived with her missing son. After her murder it had changed owners, but the building’s exterior and the placement of its CCTV cameras remained the same. Finding a blind spot in the surveillance, Isaac activated a jammer that blocked signals within a radius of about twenty meters. From a crouch, he leapt high enough to catch the top of the wall with just the tips of his fingers, supporting his weight with only his index and middle fingers until he could haul himself up.

A dog, sensing him, started barking loudly. Isaac tossed it a sausage—one that had been mashed together with only a trace amount of Somernol. Within minutes the animal would collapse, not waking for an hour or two.

He sat astride the wall, watching the unsuspecting dog wolf down the sausage, and when it finally drifted into sleep, he dropped down into the yard.

The rear entrance of the mansion was fitted with an old-model electronic panel. Isaac inserted a USB device into the slot at the bottom. A small click sounded, the numeric pad freezing for a moment before coming back to life. It had reset to factory password mode.

Entering the default code, he opened the back door and stepped inside, pausing to sense for movement. The house was silent—everyone asleep. Keeping his presence low, he made his way to the basement storage room. The basement’s interior had been renovated, but the ceiling was unchanged—a stroke of luck.

With his flashlight set to its lowest brightness, he scanned the ceiling. Metal lattice louvers covered the whole surface, and he felt a faint current of air between them. At a glance it looked like a simple ventilation system, but it wasn’t.

Click. Under his left hand came a subtle vibration. Pressing again, he turned a small cross screw. A hydraulic mechanism engaged, and one section of the louver slid down. Hidden deep in the ceiling was a safe about the size of a small carry-on suitcase.

He worked the dial, feeling for the internal discs to catch beneath his fingertips. Click. The safe opened, revealing an external hard drive Marta Monto had hidden away.

He didn’t know exactly what was on it—only that Marta had been obsessive about backing up data. It was likely a duplicate of the files she’d once given him. Snatching it up, he left the mansion and mounted his motorcycle.

Belzoras had a low rate of CCTV coverage, and with police both incompetent and corrupt, a thief in the middle of the night stood little chance of being caught. Everything had gone smoothly. But there was one thing Isaac had overlooked.

Though the mansion had changed owners after its previous one was murdered, surveillance in the area remained. At the narrow junction of alleys and side streets where barely a single car could pass, a black vehicle sat waiting. As soon as it spotted Isaac, its headlights flared. Beyond the glare, a window rolled down and a hand reached out.

Isaac ducked instinctively, yanking the clutch and pushing the engine to full power. The bike shot forward, front wheel lifting off the ground.

Thunk—!

The wheel slammed down onto the car’s hood like a hammer striking metal. Steam hissed up from the engine compartment. Using the rebound, Isaac vaulted the bike over the roof and landed on the far side, opening the throttle again in a sharp burst.

His relief at shaking them didn’t last—headlights flared behind him again. The chase wasn’t over. Two motorcycles were closing in.

Drawing his gun, Isaac checked the side mirror. The riders, clad in black leather jackets and helmets, almost simultaneously drew something from their jackets. The shape of suppressed firearms was unmistakable. He swerved sharply, regained balance, and fired.

The first shot grazed the front wheel of the lead bike, making it wobble. When the rider leaned to steady it, Isaac fired again. The hit sent the bike careening into a streetlight. But the second motorcycle still clung to his tail—its rider’s aim terrible, bullets sparking off the pavement.

Isaac raised his gun again, but the pursuer ducked fast, throwing off his aim. Persistent. And the alley ahead was narrowing. Isaac braked hard.

Skrrt—! Tires shrieked, speed dropping in an instant. The second bike braked almost at the same time, swerving up alongside him to avoid collision. In that moment, Isaac lunged out with his left hand, wrenching the gun from the man’s grasp.

“What—!”

The fronts of the two motorcycles collided, the man pitching forward off balance. Isaac’s boot slammed into the bike’s side, knocking it over. The rider tumbled across the concrete with a clatter, struggling to rise like some stubborn zombie. But the gun he’d dropped was already in Isaac’s grip.

He quickly cut off the man’s carotid blood flow until he passed out, wrenched his arms behind his back, and bound him to the bike’s frame, seating him in front. Then Isaac sped away from the street.

He ran through possible destinations in his mind—replacements for the Secreta Marshes, the graveyard of pursuers. With only enough fuel for about sixty kilometers, options were few.

Then he remembered a deserted seawall—the place Siron had hidden for a time after escaping, where Isaac himself had learned something fresh from him. There was no time to consider further. He gunned the engine, leaving the dimly lit streets behind.

The man was an alpha, and Isaac had no intention of letting a conscious alpha have the reins to cause trouble. On the way, he sedated him with Somernol. Even after arriving, it took a long while for the man to wake.

It was well past midnight when he finally opened his eyes. His ankles were tied, wrists bound behind him and chained—his movement severely restricted.

Isaac sat on a concrete pillar of the seawall, illuminating him with the motorcycle’s headlight. The man was a tall young alpha, easily over 190 cm, his sweat-damp, fine-featured face shadowed with menace as he glared.

“Touch me and my brothers will come for revenge.”

In response to Isaac’s question about who had sent him, the man gave a boastful answer—vanity intact even in mortal danger. It was almost laughable.

“Brothers? You mercenaries?”

The man’s lips curved in a sour smile.

“And you dare call us wandering spearmen.”

Isaac caught a strange pride in his face. So he rejected the comparison to contract-bound mercenaries—did that mean he fought for belief?

“If you’re not mercenaries, then what are you?”

The man kept staring as if Isaac’s question were beneath him. Isaac thought of the alphas swaggering with guns back on the island—barely trained, with no real combat experience. But this man was different. Still lacking in live combat, yet marked by the traces of training—military, or at least police.

“You with Hybris too?”

“Me? I am Hybris.”

His taunting answer jolted Isaac’s thoughts.

Up to now, his pursuers had been freelancers—mercenaries unaffiliated with Hybris. Each was an independent killer, staking his own life.

Isaac recalled the soldiers used to kidnap him from Secreta—moving as a squad, not individuals. All other pursuers had been single operators or units of five or fewer. He’d assumed they were foreign mercenaries hired by Hybris, but perhaps he’d been wrong.

If Hybris was transforming into a private military company with its own forces...

“You part of the Secreta op?”

“That’s right. I’m the one who dragged your half-dead body onto the chopper. If I’d been on that island, you never would’ve escaped.”

It had been ten days since his escape—plenty of time for them to assess the situation and track him. But they seemed only to have learned he was in Belzoras. Stationing surveillance in Lentigo, far from his actual hideout, meant they still hadn’t found it.

“What orders brought you to Lentigo?”

“Well now... what’ll you give me if I answer?”

“I’ll promise to kill you less painfully.”

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!