The gate creaked open. Ahead, the path split.
To the right, the old warehouse looked like a crumbling relic of another era from the outside, but they knew better. It was layered up tighter than a crime boss’s alibi, with traps, cameras, and reinforced walls.
They pulled up outside the farmhouse, where they stayed when they were in deep. Rustic and solid, Maro lived there full-time, preferring the silence. He said it helped him “stay mean while not committing murder.”
The farmhouse was converted from an 1800s ruin into something out of a fairytale, complete with stone walls, blackened timbers, and slate roof. Inside, it was warm, worn, and livable. They each had rooms there, in addition to the kitchen, a fireplace, and enough bedrooms for whoever else was staying over. It was the only softness they allowed themselves.
The moment Zel stepped out, he shivered. “Christ, it’s cold enough to freeze yer knickers off.”
Maro was already unloading gear. “You moan like a pensioner, Zel.”
“I feel like one. Me back’s gone.”
“From what? All that sittin’ in meetings pretendin’ you’re important?”
Zel flipped him the bird.
Lirian strode off toward the farmhouse without a word.
Zel watched him go. “Swear down, he talks more to his bloody laptop than to us.”
To the right, past a gravel rise and through another false fence, sat the warehouse.
That was the real base.
It looked like a storage barn from a distance—corrugated metal, sloped roof, paint flaking. But beneath the façade was the compound: reinforced, tech-heavy, deadly. A palm-scan door and retina-lock vaults. Faraday shielding and lead-lined walls. Rooms for weapons, gear, surveillance, and of course, the basement. Maro’s room. The one that smelled of antiseptic and bleach and echoed with old, buried screams.
The cold was sharp and biting, curling through seams and stitching.
Zel stretched, groaning. “I need a beer and a fucking warm shower.”
Maro was already hauling bags out of the boot. “Definitely do. You smell of three-day-old canned farts that they sell on OnlyFans.”
“Part of your spankbank, eh?” spat Zel.
Lirian was already back after doing a sweep of the farmhouse. He ignored them both, striding toward the warehouse entrance, already talking into his earpiece. “We’ve got three days. I want eyes on every heat signature within a five-mile radius by dawn.”
Thane lagged behind. Always the last out. Always looking back.
Zel clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll feel better once we put a bullet in someone.”
Thane didn’t answer; he just walked toward the farmhouse, his thoughts already chasing ghosts.
***
An hour later, they made their way to the derelict warehouse. Moss crawled up cracked stone walls and the windows were blacked out. The roof sagged like it had given up the ghost.
Until you found the keypad.
Embedded in an old brick façade, almost invisible unless you knew where to look. Just a small square panel that flickered to life when a palm hovered over it. Handprint recognition. Then a click and the hum of a door opening.
And then the world changed.
The door swung open to reveal steel, glass, and light. A fortress hidden inside a corpse. Inside, every surface gleamed. Motion sensors tracked silently. Walls were reinforced and rooms soundproofed. This was their true headquarters. Manchester was for suits and contracts, but this…this was for war.
Maro’s favourite room was down the stairs in the basement. Cold, tiled, surgical. He called it “the Prep Room,” But everyone else called it the Morgue. Fluorescent lights flickered above stainless-steel tables, bone saws on one side, anaesthetics andchemicals on the other. Meat hooks hung off the ceiling. Everything was pristine. A wall of fridges buzzed softly. Maro, a former field medic, had a talent for pain and precision.
He once said a man’s silence could be cut out like a tumour, you just had to know where to cut.
