"Wait, you're—"
*Thwip!*
"Agh..."
Inside the room, the lawyer had been daydreaming with his client, Barry Weiss, about the glorious future and fa that awaited them once they successfully sued the city. The mont Locke pushed the door open and the lawyer stood to speak, he saw the glint of a golden barrel. A sharp pain blood in his knee, and he let out a jagged cry.
*Thud!*
The lawyer collapsed forward, his weight slamming directly onto Barry's elevated, cast-bound leg. Another scream tore from the junkie's throat as the impact sent fresh waves of agony through his shattered limbs. Cold sweat poured down Barry's face like a waterfall.
"Wait... wait!"
The lawyer, gasping through the pain, looked up at the man in the sunglasses holding the golden gun. Terror saturated his voice. "You said... you said you don't kill the innocent! I'm innocent! I've never killed anyone!"
The words spilled out in a frantic rush. This was the lawyer's primary calculation for joining this ss. If he lost, he lost nothing—clients were replaceable. But if he won? He'd be a legend. His na would ring from the slums of Queens to the penthouses of Manhattan.
Locke tilted his head, seemingly considering the logic. The golden gun lowered slightly. "You're right. I don't kill the innocent."
The lawyer let out a shaky breath of relief. Despite the agony in his knee, a small, greasy smile touched his lips. "Maybe we can talk—"
*Thwip!*
*Thud!*
*CRASH!*
The lawyer's smile froze. His head snapped back as if yanked by an invisible rope. His entire body flipped backward like a uprooted leek, crashing violently onto the bed behind him.
"Agh..." Barry Weiss curled his upper body like a boiled shrimp, eyes wide with horror as he stared at the lawyer. The man was inches away, a hole drilled perfectly through his forehead, eyes staring wide in a deathly, unblinking gaze.
"You're right, I don't kill innocent people," Locke said flatly. With a flick of his left hand, a genuine notification card flew through the air like a razor-sharp playing card, embedding itself directly into the lawyer's forehead. "But tell ... are you innocent?"
[Na: ...]
[Cri: Aiding and Abetting Evil!]
[Execution: Death!]
To aid and abet evil is a cri. A grave one. Law is a noble profession, but there are always those who prefer the gutter, twisting a sacred duty into a shield for monsters.
Barry Weiss was now fully consud by despair. "Don't kill ! Please! I beg you..."
Locke looked at the junkie, whose face was a mask of snot, tears, and absolute terror. He smiled brightly. "Calm down. We have to go, or we'll be late. Relax, I'm not going to kill you. I gave you my word. You're going to live—and more than that, you're going to experience a whole new perspective on life."
'Quite a bargain,' Locke thought. 'Three thousand achievent points. I'm usually not this extravagant.'
As Locke stepped toward him, Barry Weiss let out the loudest, most primal scream of his miserable life.
...
Outside, George had just reached the area where Jason had been "shot." He knelt down and picked up a discarded shell casing. He looked toward the hospital building, then walked over to the stretcher where Jason was being loaded.
"The Peerless Assassin's bullets disappear inside the body," George said quietly, rolling the casing between his fingers. "And so far, we have never recovered a single shell casing from him. More importantly... don't you think this caliber looks awfully familiar?"
On the stretcher, Jason kept his eyes shut, pretending to be unconscious. His eyelids flickered.
"Jack!" George called into his radio, trying to reach the officers on the eighth floor.
Silence.
George realized the play. He waved away the other officers and looked at Jason. "You lured down here on purpose?"
Jason opened his eyes. George wasn't even angry; his voice was eerily calm. "Do you realize what you've done? You are a law enforcent officer, Detective Braut."
Jason's expression was cold. "You're a Captain. There are lines you can't cross. So, I crossed them for you."
George took a deep breath. "You know the consequences."
Jason sneered. "I've wanted a career change for a long ti anyway."
'Big deal.' If he got fired, he'd go back to what he knew. He was a SEAL; the battlefield was his ho. New York was too modern, too restrictive—too damn stifling.
...
*Ding!*
When George and Kate stepped off the elevator on the eighth floor, they were t with a hallway of twelve sleeping officers. Fortunately, they had only been hit with tranquilizer darts.
At the nurses' station, Chris the nurse looked at George. When he opened his mouth to ask a question, she simply snorted, turned her head away, and wore an expression that said: 'I don't know anything, and even if I did, I wouldn't tell you.'
George felt a wave of helplessness. Did he want Barry Weiss dead? Of course. If the Assassin hadn't arrived, or if Locke hadn't been ho, that junkie might have gone after Gwen. But he was a cop. Once you break the rules, you do it again. Then a third ti. And then? A dirty cop is born.
Inside the room, Barry Weiss was gone. The lawyer, however, was pinned to the wall with a genuine "Sin Notification" stuck to his forehead.
"Seal the hospital," George commanded.
"George..." Kate looked at him, wanting to say it was far too late for that. Then she saw the look in his eyes and nodded. "Understood."
George pulled on his gloves and peeled the card off the dead lawyer's head. He looked at the cri listed, then at his watch. His face remained unreadable.
...
NY Channel 1
The building was a beacon of light in the night. Patty Finn checked her watch: fifteen minutes until the 9:00 PM broadcast.
"Al!" Patty turned to her assistant. "What's the word from New Amsterdam?"
Al hung up his phone, looking exhilarated. "Ms. Finn, the hospital is on lockdown. Our inside source says Barry Weiss has vanished."
Patty nodded. It was a ten-minute drive from the hospital to the station. "Tell security to keep their eyes peeled. Don't scare our guest away."
"On it."
"And tell them—unless a law enforcent agency presents a valid search warrant, they are to be kept outside the doors."
Patty looked out the high window, searching the streets for any sign of Locke. "Where are you? And why aren't there any sirens?"
She was right. The FBI and Holand Security were nowhere to be seen. Even the NYPD, who viewed Peerless as their ultimate nesis, hadn't sent a single car to the station despite the teaser being out for hours.
"Nonsense," Agent Colin of the FBI muttered, listening to the feed from the station. He threw his headset onto the desk and looked at his team. "What if another missile shows up? Who takes the fall for that?"
The mory of the previous night's missile strike was still fresh.
A junior agent hesitated. "Sir, if we don't go, won't there be... repercussions?"
Colin looked at the kid. "Fresh out of Quantico?"
"Yes, sir."
Colin sneered. "Kid, if we do go, that's when there will be repercussions."
The FBI had eyes at the hospital. They knew Barry Weiss was gone. They knew Peerless had taken him without a single shot being fired by the police. The NYPD's "lockdown" was half-hearted at best, perford with the speed of a snail on a coffee break.
It was subtle, but clear.
"The NYPD is a powder keg right now," Colin said, tapping the table. "This case is local. Right now, to most beat cops, Peerless is one of them. If we interfere, we won't get thanked. We'll get backstabbed. No one is going to risk their lives—or another missile—for a piece of junk like Barry Weiss. It's not worth it."
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Dropping the bonus early since we're very close to 100 stones.
Thanks for support 🙏
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Read 30 Chapters early on P-atreon/Redestro666
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