The chandelier exploded a second before my boot could touch it.
Crystal fragments began to rain on the casino floor like diamond knives. I twisted in the air, with my steel in my right arm gutted the bodyguard below me and the silk in my left flicked out, deflecting the bullet meant for my temple. The shot was rebounded into a slot machine, setting off a screaming jackpot of coins that's spilled out like a metallic flood across a polished marble.
My earpiece hissed, exactly one minute and forty seconds.
The vault bomb's timer, my employer's deadline.
I landed in a crouch. My suit's shadow thread fabric absorbed the impact but not the stench of cordite, blood and scorched velvet. The lights flickered overhead, sirens began to scream from directions beyond blackjack tables. The scent of the burning carpets penetrated into my lungs like poison.
Across the room, the judge I was contracted to kill whimpered under a roulette table, his silk pajamas soaked in someone else's blood. His face which was pale, and bloated from years of bribes and late night liquors became streaked with red. He didn't even try to run. He then curdled into a pathetic knot of silk and tears.
Contracts didn't pay for moral objections
"+200 XP STYLISH KILL 17× COMBO"
The system loved flair. It was too bad it couldn't stop the three new bodyguards bursting through the doors, all shouting, armored, twitching either stim injections. Their eyes scanned for me but unknown to them I was already on the move, flickering between shadows like a whisper of vengeance.
Then I saw him. Through the casinos smoke fogged windows, the crime lord lounged in his open limousine, with the cigar glow painting his scarred smirk in hellish orange. He wore white gloves despite the heat. A champagne flute caught the light as he raised it towards me in mock toast. He didn't even flinch as chaos bloomed behind me.
He knew.
He planned this.
"Change of plans, assassin "
Crackled the earpiece, the voice was cooler than ice, saying "kill the judge and I'll tell you who murdered your brother"
The bomb timer hit 00:30
My gloved fingers tightened on steel, the blade vibrated faintly as if it sensed a weight of choice. The silk buzzed faintly, detecting a movement. It was one of the guards flanking left, silent as death but not silent enough.
The judge sobbed.
The neon vendetta sign above is sparked, crimson light strobing like a heartbeat gone mad. The bullets hole riddled the bar causing liquor to pour out of broken bottles in amber waterfalls. Smoke curled around my boots as if he'll itself was reaching for me.
And then I realised, this wasn't a contract. Rather, it was a trap set for me.
My vision narrowed. Not from fear, from fury. They dangled my brother's ghost thinking I'd Fold, thinking I was still the broken boy who had found his siblings body in an alley lit by neon and blood.
I wasn't, but I definitely wanted answers.
I took one step forward, then two.
The judge saw me, whimpered louder as he tried to scuttle backwards but his foot caught on the heel of a dead dealer and he slipped, landing hard and groaning.
He looked at me like I was death incarnate. Maybe I was. maybe I always had been.
My steel was still warm from the last kill. The silk shimmered in my left hand, blade as silent as death.
"Please", the judge gasped with his voice wet and so desperate. "Please, I didn't know. I didn't know what they were planning!"
I didn't respond.
"Twenty seconds" said the voice in my ear
I glanced once at the vault corridor, then back at the judge.
Then at the crime lord still watching from his car like a god playing dice with fate.
And i made my choice.
I moved. My steel slid clean across the judges throat. He didn't scream, he just gurgled once then collapsed into himself, with my silk turning crimson.
No style bonus. No flair.
I didn't care
I turned quickly and ran past the broken tables and over corpses. The guards saw me too late. Silk lashed out and cut through amor with an electric sizzle while steel blocked two wild strikes. I didn't kill them, not yet. I had bugger targets. Bigger rage.
The vault corridor pulsed with red light. The timer became visible.
00.06
00.05
I drove through the doorway, hit the floor, rolled behind a column as the explosion rocked the foundation. Fire roared like a beast unleashed. Heat slammed into me. My ears rang. Smoke blinded.
When it cleared, the vault was gone. Just ash and silence.
No loot, no gold. Just scorched steel and a single item lying in the center of the blackened floor.
A pocket watch. Bloodstained and familiar.
It was my brother's.
I staggered towards it with my boots crunching glasses and metals. I picked it up, hands shaking.
The back still bore his initials, scorched but legible. The front was cracked, the chain was snapped and the hands had stopped.
2:15 AM
The exact time that he died.
I turned back toward the casino, the Limo was gone. The crime lord had vanished into the night like a magician leaving smoke behind.
The earpiece buzzed.
Silence.
Then: "You chose well"
I crushed it in my hand.
"New skill unlocked: Ghostwalk 5% Synchronized"
My vision shimmered. For a heartbeat I could see through the walls, hear footsteps and feel heartbeats. Then it was gone.
But the rage stayed.
And for the first time in years, I broke a rule.
I took a contract for free.