The petroleum vapor thickened, scouring the back of Tazia’s throat. A low, orange glow began to spread from beneath the heavy iron doors, followed by the distant crackle of wood catching flame. She coughed, a dry, rattling sound that tasted of dust and fuel. Sanna, trembling, scrambled backward until her spine hit the metal shelving, eyes wide with terror. “We have to get out! We’ll burn!” “Burn?” Tazia’s voice was flat, devoid of panic. “I just wanted a quiet corner for five minutes.” Her gaze swept the depot's single, reinforced window. Thick, grime-streaked glass, crisscrossed with steel bars. Impossible to break, probably. Impossible to *conveniently* break, anyway. She despised inconvenience. Her eyes snagged on Sanna’s failed gizmo, a hulking mass of wires and a crude display screen that lay abandoned on a workbench. It looked like a brick carved from a defunct tractor engine, heavy and unwieldy, proof of Sanna’s endless, noisy ambition. Tazia walked over, picked it up with a grunt, and hefted it. The thing weighed a ton. Perfect. Sanna yelped, “Wait, that’s my—!” Tazia ignored her, marching straight for the window. The heat was growing, an open blast furnace seeping through the walls. She raised the heavy device, its wires dangling like severed veins, and swung it with all the frustrated force of a woman whose nap had been repeatedly, violently interrupted. The metal brick met the glass with a dull, ringing thud, and a spiderweb of cracks erupted across the pane. Again. A louder *CRACK*. The steel bars groaned. Krevan Dosk didn't drive. He *piloted* his armored sedan, a black behemoth of steel and reinforced glass, through the rain-slicked arteries of Rovigrad. Rain sheets cascaded across the windshield, blurring the garish neon signs of liquor stores and all-night diners into bleeding smears of crimson and cyan. His knuckles, white against the steering wheel’s worn leather, were the only outward sign of the cold fury churning within him. Brix had just managed to choke out the location of the loading depot before the line went dead, the frantic shout of a fire alarm echoing in the background. A fire. At *his* facility. With *Tazia* inside. His jaw was set, a line of granite. This wasn't a business dispute; this was an attack on his peace. On *her* peace. A violation. The engine of the sedan roared, a predatory growl, as he swerved around a stalled freight truck, tires spraying dirty water high into the night. His mind was a maelstrom of calculated violence. Whoever had done this, whoever had dared to put Tazia even remotely in harm’s way, would pay in blood and bone. He would rip them apart, limb from limb, and scatter their remains across the polluted river. He would enjoy it. He pictured her, curled up, perhaps still half-asleep, vulnerable in a way no one else would ever be allowed to see. The thought stirred fresh, protective fury in his chest. He would not fail her. He would not allow her to be dragged back into the grime, back into the world she had so diligently, so *stubbornly*, escaped. The building loomed ahead, a dark silhouette against the fiery orange glow now emanating from its roof. Flames licked at the windows, casting dancing shadows on the wet asphalt. A small crowd of gawkers had already gathered, their faces illuminated by the inferno. Krevan didn't slow. He aimed the armored beast straight for the main iron gate, a thick, barricaded monstrosity meant to keep out looters. It wouldn’t keep *him* out. The sedan slammed into the gate with a deafening screech of tortured metal, tearing through the reinforced steel as if it were paper. The impact rattled the car, but Krevan took no notice of it. He gunned the engine again, ramming through the splintered remains of the gate and straight into the burning yard. Smoke billowed, thick and acrid, forcing him to squint. He saw figures moving near the entry, dark shapes against the growing blaze. Saboteurs. He didn't even bother to stop the car completely, merely threw open the door and surged out, his tailored coat flapping in the sudden wind, a heavy-caliber handgun already in his grip. Inside, the room's air was a choking, scorching curtain. Tazia coughed again, the effort making her eyes water. The window was a network of shattered glass, but the bars held firm. Sanna’s machine, now a mangled husk of plastic and circuits, lay useless at her feet. “It’s not working!” Sanna wailed, covering her face as a shower of sparks erupted from a collapsing shelf nearby. Tazia scowled. “Of course it’s not. Nothing ever works when you need it to.” She kicked at the twisted metal of the device. The gasoline was ankle-deep now, reflecting the orange light of the fire outside. A sickening, oily sheen. She could feel the heat on her skin, radiating through her clothes. This was beyond inconvenient; this was genuinely irritating. Just then, the main loading bay doors, recently slammed shut by the fire-starters, exploded inward with a deafening roar. Debris flew, metal shrieked, and a silhouette, impossibly broad and terrifyingly familiar, stood framed against the raging inferno outside. Krevan. Smoke swirled around him, but his form was unmistakable, a dark, avenging angel in the heart of the fire. His eyes, pinpoint sharp, found Tazia instantly, cutting through the smoke and chaos. He didn’t shout, didn’t hesitate. He simply moved. Two masked men with crude flamethrowers lunged at him from the shadows, their intent clear. Krevan met the first with a brutal, open-handed strike to the throat that pulverized cartilage, sending the man gurgling to the ground. The second had no time to recover before Krevan’s foot connected with his knee, a sickening *CRUNCH*, followed by a swift, precise shot to the chest. The man crumpled, his flamethrower clattering uselessly. Krevan moved like a phantom, a blur of controlled violence. Every movement was economic, lethal. He wasn't just fighting; he was eradicating. Two more men tried to corner him near a stack of palladium crates. One had a crude bludgeon, the other a knife. Krevan disarmed the bludgeon-wielder with a snap of his wrist that broke bone, then used the man’s own weapon to smash his skull against the metal crate. The knife-wielder, paralyzed by the sudden, savage display, had no chance to scream before Krevan’s handgun spat fire, silencing him forever. Through it all, Tazia watched, vaguely annoyed by the noise and the continued presence of smoke. Sanna, however, had dissolved into a panicked heap behind a flimsy desk. The air was thick with smoke, stinging Tazia's eyes and rasping in her lungs. She coughed, a prolonged, painful hack that bent her double. Krevan, having just slammed a final saboteur’s head into the concrete floor with a wet thud, paused. His entire being, until that moment a coiled spring of brutal force, abruptly shifted. He saw her, doubled over, gasping for air, and the rage in his eyes softened, replaced by a fierce, almost desperate concern. He crossed the soot-streaked floor in three long strides, his expensive, custom-tailored wool coat already unbuttoned. He pulled it from his shoulders, the fine fabric a stark contrast to the grime and ash that covered everything else. He wrapped it around Tazia’s shoulders, pulling her gently against his chest, shielding her from the smoke and the lingering embers. “Are you hurt?” His voice was a low growl, rough with thin-reined violence and something else, something tender and deeply possessive. He pulled the lapels of the coat tighter around her, his fingers brushing her chin, turning her face to assess her. Her eyes were still watering, but she shook her head. “Just… this smoke,” she rasped. Behind them, the last fire-setter, bleeding heavily from a series of internal injuries that would soon claim him, let out a wet, rattling laugh. His mask had fallen off, revealing a gaunt, defiant face. “You… you think you won, Dosk?” he spat, his voice thick with blood. “It’s only… beginning. He’ll take everything. Vilem… Vilem Coda…” Krevan’s head snapped towards the dying man, his eyes instantly turning back to chips of obsidian. Vilem. It was Vilem. The wiretap, the planted doubt, the sudden wealth, the fire. All of it. His worst fears confirmed, sharp and cold. He raised his handgun, its barrel steady, aimed directly at the man's head. No loose ends. No witnesses. For Tazia’s peace, everything would be silenced. But before his finger could squeeze the trigger, Tazia pulled away from his embrace, stepping directly into his line of fire. Her face, smudged with soot and irritation, was set in a furious glare. “Who sent you?” she demanded, her voice sharp and dangerously calm.

Neon Infernos