The Baron's fist slammed onto the desk, the impact making the inkwell jump. "He failed? A Marauder, with his senses, led into an ambush? Is he incompetent, or is he—"
"He's Sequence 9, Gunther," Karl interrupted, his voice flat and firm, dousing his brother's rising fury. "A gifted one, a sharp tool, but still Sequence 9. He's a thief, not an army. He walked into a professional kill-box designed for him and lived to tell the tale. That's not failure. That's a testament to his resourcefulness."
The Baron fell silent, his brother's logic a cold bucket of water on his rage. Karl was right. He was expecting the scalpel to perform like a warhammer. His mind, the Lawyer mind that had built this all, began analyzing the new data. A coordinated, professional team, separate from the Church, eliminating his operatives and setting traps for his agents. It pointed to a rival organization, one with significant resources and intelligence. The phantom was not a person; it was a syndicate.
The silence stretched, thick and heavy with unspoken history. It was the Baron who broke it, his voice losing its edge, replaced by a rare, raw weariness.
"We are being dismantled, brick by brick," he murmured, his gaze drifting from Karl to the somber portrait of their grandfather on the wall. "Just like Father. Just like the estate."
Karl's posture softened almost imperceptibly. "We've been in tight spots before."
"Not like this." The Baron's eyes found Karl's again. "We had Rudel then."
The name hung in the air between them, a ghost at the council. Rudel, the Pugilist, their unshakable foundation of brute force. His death by a mysterious loss of control had left a hole in their defenses that no amount of cunning could truly fill. Rudel couldn't have stopped these raids, but his presence had been a psychological bulwark, a symbol of their unassailable strength. Now, that symbol was gone, and the world was rushing in to fill the vacuum.
"We don't have him," Karl said, his voice low. "We have what we have. And what we have is a fortress under siege, with a traitor inside the walls."
The Baron's eyes narrowed, the Baron of Corruption reasserting itself. The flaw was internal. It had to be. The precision of the attacks, the specific knowledge… it was someone with access. Someone they trusted.
"The leak must is here," the Baron declared, the statement absolute. "In this warehouse. The ghost isn't some outside phantom; it's a rat in our own nest, feeding us to the Church piece by piece, otherwise, it would be impossible to acquire such precise information, there might be an outside presence feeding it to the church, but the source is definitely in here."
He stood up, his presence seeming to fill the room, the oppressive weight of his Beyonder power pressing down, seeking the flaws in his own people.
"New orders," he said, his voice regaining its cold, commanding steel. "First: We contract. All remaining assets, all loyal men, are pulled back to the warehouse. We abandon the outer territories. This building becomes our citadel. Nothing gets in or out without my direct authorization. The perimeter is to be guarded as if the passing God of Combat himself were at the gates."
Karl nodded. It was a sound, if desperate, tactical decision. A turtle retreating into its shell.
"Second," the Baron continued, his flinty eyes burning with a cold fire. "We root out the cause. I want every man in this warehouse interrogated. Starting with the newest. The weakest links. The ones with the most to gain or the least to lose. Use whatever means are necessary. I don't care about bruises or broken bones. I want a name."
He was going to tear his own organization apart from the inside, fueled by paranoia. It was exactly the kind of self-destructive, chaotic reaction Lutz had counted on.
Karl met his brother's gaze, a silent understanding passing between them. It was a brutal, ugly order. It would shatter what little morale remained. But they were out of options.
"It will be done," Karl said, his voice devoid of emotion. He was the Spark that would ignite the Baron's purifying fire.
As Karl turned to leave, the Baron added one final, quiet command. "And Karl… find out who they are. This rival syndicate. I want to look them in the eye before I destroy them."
Karl didn't reply. He simply gave a curt nod and slipped out of the office, leaving the Baron alone in the gloom. Gunther Vogler sank back into his chair, the master of a shrinking kingdom, surrounded by enemies seen and unseen, his mind already picking apart the loyalties of every man who served him, searching for the one flaw that would be his undoing. He was right about the traitor. He was just looking in the wrong place. The most dangerous snake was not in the nest; it was the one he'd welcomed in and warmed by his own fire.
The rhythmic shhh-click, shhh-click of the whetstone against Creed's blade was the only sound in Lutz's world. It was a mantra, a focus that walled out the creeping dread of the warehouse. Each pass of the stone was a step closer to readiness, a tiny act of control in a situation spiraling toward chaos. The weapons laid out before him—the oiled revolver, the clean shotgun, the sharpened knives—were not just tools; they were promises. Promises of violence, of escape, of a reckoning.
The workshop door crashed open, shattering the silence.
The sound was so abrupt, so violent, that Lutz's hand stilled for only a fraction of a second before continuing its motion, his Marauder's control overriding the instinct to jump. He didn't need to look to know it was Karl. The air in the room changed, growing hotter, charged with a barely suppressed fury.
"Everyone! Main hall! Now!" Karl's voice wasn't a shout; it was a crack of thunder in the confined space, laced with the heat of a banked forge. It brooked no argument, no delay.
Lutz carefully set Creed down on the rag. He could hear the immediate, frantic scuffle of boots on sawdust from the main floor as men scrambled to obey. He took his time, wiping his hands on a clean cloth, his face a placid mask. The performance was entering its final act.
He walked out of the workshop into the vast, dim space of the main hall. The Vipers were assembling into a ragged, nervous semicircle. The air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and fear. Karl stood before them, his back to the Baron's office door, his eyes sweeping over them like a general surveying a broken regiment.
"Listen up!" Karl's voice cut through the murmurs, silencing them instantly. "The situation has changed. We are no longer conducting business. We are under siege."
A low, anxious ripple went through the crowd.
"Effective immediately," Karl continued, his words clipped and precise, "all external operations are suspended. No collections. No runs. No meetings. Nothing. We are contracting to this location. This warehouse is now the perimeter. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out, without the Baron's direct say-so."
A man near the front, a grizzled enforcer named Jorgen, spoke up, his voice rough with disbelief. "You're caging us in? We're just supposed to sit here and wait for the Church to kick the door down?"
Karl's gaze snapped to him, and Jorgen took a half-step back. "We're not waiting for anything," Karl said, the temperature in the room seeming to rise a few degrees. "We are fortifying. We are identifying a threat. We have a leak. A rat. Right here, in this room."
This time, the silence was absolute, so profound Lutz could hear the flicker of the gas lamps.
"Someone is feeding the Church our movements, our associates, our entire goddamn playbook." Karl began to pace slowly in front of them, his hands clasped behind his back. Every man he passed seemed to shrink slightly. "And that ends. Today."
He stopped, turning to face them all. "We will be conducting interviews. Every one of you will have a conversation with me or with the Baron. We will discuss your recent activities, your contacts, your loyalties." He let the euphemism hang in the air. 'Interviews.' 'Conversations.' They all knew what it meant.
"We will start," Karl said, his eyes scanning the crowd, "with our newest members. The ones with the least to lose, or the most to gain."
Lutz, standing at the back, saw Peter flinch as if struck. The boy's face went ashen. He was the very definition of 'newest with the most to gain.' His eyes, wide with panic, darted toward Lutz, seeking reassurance, a lifeline.
Lutz met his gaze and gave a slow, almost imperceptible shake of his head. Stay calm. Don't draw attention. It was all the guidance he could offer. Any more would be suspect.
Karl's finger stabbed out, pointing not at Peter, but at a wiry, twitchy man named Dave who had joined only a month prior. "Dave. You're first. The office. Now."
Finn looked like a rabbit facing a wolf. He stammered something incoherent and shuffled forward, following Karl as he turned and strode towards a smaller, windowless room off the main hall. The door closed behind them with a sound like a tomb sealing.
The assembled Vipers stood frozen for a moment, then the tension broke into a low, frantic buzz of conversation.
"He's lost it," someone muttered.
"He's gonna tear us apart looking for a ghost."
"Maybe there is no ghost. Maybe the Church is just that good."
Lutz listened, saying nothing. This was the flaw in the Baron's logic, the corruption of his own structure. By turning inward with paranoia, he was destroying the very loyalty that held his organization together. It was beautiful.
He felt a presence at his elbow. It was Peter, trembling slightly.
"He… he didn't pick me," Peter whispered, his voice shaky with relief.
"Not yet," Lutz replied, his voice low. "He's working through a list. Being newest just puts you higher on it."
Peter swallowed hard. "What do I say? What if he… what if he doesn't believe me?"
"You tell the truth," Lutz said, fixing the boy with a steady gaze. "You tell him you joined to provide for your sister. You tell him you've been loyal. You've done nothing but what you've been asked. You look him in the eye and you don't flinch. Fear is a confession to men like Karl."
He was giving the boy a script, the same way he'd given him a purpose. He was armoring him for an interrogation that might still come.
"Okay," Peter breathed, nodding as if trying to memorize the words. "Okay. Truth. Loyalty."
About ten minutes later, the door to the side room opened. Finn stumbled out, his face pale and slick with sweat. He wasn't visibly injured, but he moved like a man who had aged ten years in ten minutes. He didn't look at anyone, simply scurried to a dark corner and sat down, hugging his knees.
Karl appeared in the doorway. His expression was unreadable. His eyes scanned the crowd again, and for a heart-stopping second, they seemed to linger on Peter. Peter held his breath.
Then Karl's finger pointed again. "Hagen. You're up."
A wave of palpable relief washed over Peter, so strong his knees almost buckled. Rikard, a lieutenant who had been with the Vipers for years, cursed under his breath but strode forward with a surly confidence that Finn had lacked.
Lutz watched Peter's reaction. The boy had evaded the first wave. But the reprieve was temporary. The Baron's net was being cast, and every soul in this warehouse was a potential fish. Peter's innocence wouldn't save him; it might even condemn him.
'He's safe for now' Lutz thought, his mind a cold, analytical stream. 'Karl is starting with the obvious liabilities—the new, the weak-willed. He's establishing a baseline of fear. Peter's youth and transparent motive might actually shield him for a time; he doesn't fit the profile of a sophisticated mole. But when the obvious targets yield nothing, the net will widen. And when Karl and the Baron grow desperate… that's when the boy becomes expendable. His earnestness will look like a clever act. His desire to prove himself will look like a cover for betrayal.'
He looked at Peter's relieved, grateful face. The boy thought he'd been spared by luck. He didn't understand he was just on a different track, one that led to the same precipice.
"See?" Lutz said softly, placing a hand on Peter's shoulder. The gesture felt like a brand. "Stay calm. Do your job. Keep your eyes open. You'll be fine."
He was lying, and he knew it. But the lie was necessary. Peter, calm and compliant, was a more useful tool than Peter, panicked and unpredictable. He needed the boy to remain his unwitting eyes and ears right until the moment the Baron decided to pluck them out.
The interviews continued. The warehouse descended into a hell of waiting, the sound of each name called a fresh wave of anxiety. Lutz stood apart, a rock in the turbulent stream of fear, his own preparations complete. The Baron was doing his work for him, turning his own men against each other, tightening the spring that would soon snap with catastrophic force.