Page 97 of Wings
"Masks on, dropping in thirty seconds," I ordered, pulling my own respirator tight.
Through the smoke, I could see shapes stumbling, crashing into walls. Someone had found the emergency lights, but the purple haze ate the illumination, turned everything into shadows and confusion. Perfect conditions for what came next.
Tank grinned at me through his mask, all teeth and anticipation. "Just like Khasam, huh?"
"Except with better beer," I agreed, prepping the rope for our descent.
Below, the Serpents had stopped shooting—couldn't risk hitting their own men in the smoke. Smart, but not smart enough. They'd focused all their security outward, never considering someone might come from above. Classic mistake. The kind that got you killed in war.
The kind that got you robbed in peace.
"Fifteen seconds," I said, watching the smoke density. Too early and they'd see us coming. Too late and they might regroup, find gas masks, mount actual resistance.
Through the earpiece, I heard our ground teams breaching the doors. Rubber bullets and violence, but not murder. We weren't here to massacre—just to take what they'd stolen and disappear into the night.
Ten seconds. Tank and I positioned ourselves at the skylight edges. Below, someone was shouting for masks, trying to organize a defense. Venom's voice, I thought, though the smoke and acoustics made it hard to be sure.
Five seconds. My hand found the rope, tested the anchor one last time. The St. Christopher pendant pressed against my chest, a reminder of what waited at home.
"Now," I said, and we dropped into purple chaos.
The world turned purple and violent the moment my boots hit the steel shelf. Metal groaned under my weight, threatening to buckle, but held long enough for me to drop to the concrete floor. Tank landed ten feet away on what used to be someone's desk—now splinters and scattered paperwork under his combat boots.
The smoke was everything. Thick enough to taste through the respirator, turning the warehouse into an alien landscape of shadows and muzzle flashes. My eyes burned despite the protective lenses, tears streaming as I oriented myself. The counting table—overturned somewhere to my left. The money—scattered but recoverable if we moved fast.
A shape lurched out of the purple haze, pistol raised. Tomb, his ritual scars making him recognizable even through the chaos. The rubber bullets from my shotgun caught him center mass, dropping him with a wheeze that said broken ribs at minimum. Non-lethal, but he wouldn't be getting up soon.
"Contact left!" Tank's shout preceded the crash of bodies hitting concrete.
I pushed forward, muscle memory from a hundred raids guiding me through the smoke. The counting area materialized like a crime scene—bills scattered across the floor, some soaking in spilled beer, others dancing in the air currents created by our violence. No time for selective grabbing. I pulled the first duffel from my back, started shoveling cash in by the handful.
The front door exploded inward with a crack of splintering wood. Duke's team poured through, rubber bullets spraying in controlled bursts. Through the smoke, I caught glimpses of the violence—a Serpent soldier taking rounds to the chest, spinning and falling. Another trying to return fire blind, hitting nothing but air before Thor's massive shape emerged from the purple fog to put him down hard.
"Tyson, southwest corner," Duke's voice cut through the chaos with command clarity. "Two tangos behind the forklift."
More rubber bullets. More screaming. The smoke was starting to thin at the edges, but the center where we worked stayed thick as London fog. I filled the first duffel, started on the second. Hundred-dollar bills mixed with fifties and twenties, no time to sort. Tank worked beside me, his bag already half full.
"Where's Venom?" The thought hit me sudden as a sniper's bullet. I'd been tracking targets, counting bodies, and the Serpent president was missing from the tally.
"Slash is down," someone reported. "That's eight total."
Eight. Not nine. And the missing one was the most dangerous.
I abandoned my money-gathering, scanning the warehouse through thinning smoke. The side door—an old delivery entrance Alex had mentioned but couldn't confirm the status of. If it was unlocked, if Venom knew about it . . .
"Tank, finish the bags," I ordered, already moving.
The door stood slightly ajar, purple smoke leaking out into the night. Fresh air on my face when I pushed through, respirator suddenly unnecessary. Tire marks in the gravel, fresh enough the edges hadn't settled. Motorcycle tracks leading toward the access road.
"Venom's gone," I reported, tasting failure bitter as burnt coffee. "Must have slipped out during the initial chaos."
"Copy," Duke's response was neutral, professional. "Continue mission. We've got what we came for."
Back inside, the smoke had thinned enough to see the devastation. Eight Serpents down but breathing, zip-tied and moaning through various injuries. Our rubber bullets had done their job—maximum pain, minimum permanent damage. The warehouse floor looked like a tornado had hit—scattered money, overturned furniture, broken glass glittering in the emergency lights.
Tank had filled three duffels to bursting. More money than I'd ever seen outside of movies, each bill representing product pushed through Houston, misery sold by the gram. But that wasn't our problem. We were just redistributing wealth from one set of criminals to another.
"Ledgers," Thor called out, holding up leather-bound books. "Full accounting of the Houston routes."
