The convoy rolled out before dawn.
Three white panel vans, two rusted utility trucks, and a patched-up box van with a tarped roof — all mismatched, all forgettable. Exactly the way Marcy liked them.
Inside the lead van, maps were taped to the dashboard, string-wrapped parcels stacked to the ceiling. Marcy Liu, "The Whisper," sat in the passenger seat with her tablet balanced on her knee, tracing out the morning route.
"Keep speed at thirty," she murmured. "If we're too fast, eyes follow. Too slow, cops get curious."
The driver nodded, easing through the thinning traffic.
Behind them stretched the city: wet streets blinking with neon, steam rising from sewer grates, the early hum of Gotham waking. A good hour for moving goods. People still tired. Patrols lax. Rival crews not yet on their feet.
Perfect.
Their job wasn't glamorous. It wasn't violent.
But it was the reason their network worked at all.
They delivered medicine to the Burnley alley clinics, patched-up radios to the Steel Sevens, ration bags to Dockyard Dogs watching the piers, and discreet envelopes to the Jade Leopards.
A city beneath the city, held together by Marcy's quiet distribution machine.
***
The first stop was easy.
One of Little Tao's boys waved them down beside an old paint-chipped warehouse. The van rolled up, brakes sighing.
"Morning," Marcy said softly.
The Steel Sevens unloaded scrap welding tools and returned two crates of repaired metal shutters — their part of the trade.
Short, friendly. No tension.
A good start.
The convoy moved deeper into Old Gotham's narrow streets.
Jonah, Tolliver's second, stood outside the converted church with two Deacons at his back. He exchanged a firm nod with Marcy, passing fold-up cots and blankets for their shelters.
"Should quiet things tonight," he said. "Your boss… he's holding the seams together."
Marcy almost smiled.
Then her radio crackled twice — a coded ping.
Routine check-in.
She didn't think much of it.
***
Pier 12. Wind cutting sharp off the water.
Knuckles met them himself.
They handed off new waterproof tarps and flare guns. In return, he passed over diving tools and a cylinder of oxy-fuel the underpass welders needed.
"We keep this up," Knuckles grinned, "we're gonna look professional one of these days."
The men laughed.
Marcy didn't.
Something about the wind changed. Too cold. Too still.
Her instincts whispered something wrong, something—
Her radio chirped again.
Three short beeps.
Not routine.
Warning code.
Her head snapped up.
"Load up!" she barked. "Now."
The Dogs didn't even question. They slammed the shutter gates closed and helped her people shove supplies back into the vans.
The convoy peeled away from the pier.
Marcy checked the mirror—
Nothing.
But her stomach stayed tight.
***
Six blocks from the river, the radio hissed.
"Team Two to central— we're being—"
Static.
Then a heavy thud.
Then nothing.
Marcy's blood went cold.
"Call them again," she ordered.
No answer.
Then the call came from the third van:
"Shots fired! Shots fired! Northline and—"
Gunfire drowned out the rest.
Her eyes snapped to the street ahead—
A black sedan drifted out of an alley and stopped sideways across their path.
Falcone's men stepped out.
Full tactical body armor. Shotguns. Submachine guns. No masks.
Not a warning.
A purge.
***
"REVERSE!" Marcy shouted.
The driver threw it into reverse—
—but another sedan screeched in from behind, boxing them in.
Doors slammed.
Men shouted.
The gun muzzles glinted in the blue morning light.
Marcy's people in the utility truck jumped out, weapons drawn, trying to lay suppressing fire but they were met with disciplined bursts.
She watched one of her underpass couriers drop instantly.
Another Dog staggered back, chest blooming red.
A Deacon kid barely eighteen lifted his rifle before a shotgun blast folded him in half.
Marcy's hand shook, but her voice didn't.
"Out the side! Tunnel access—MOVE!"
Her people obeyed instantly.
***
She kicked open the passenger door and hit the pavement hard. Bullets clattered off the van's frame above her head.
She saw the warehouse workers she'd trained. The runners she'd fed. The kids she'd recruited because they had nowhere else to go—
—falling.
Falcone wasn't sending a message.
He was exterminating.
One of her people dragged her toward a storm grate.
"C'mon, Whisper, go!"
But then a rifle cracked, and the man jerked, collapsing onto her. She shoved him off, heart clawing at her ribs.
Marcy sprinted.
A burst of gunfire tore the concrete beside her.
She reached the grate—
—when a round punched through her thigh.
She cried out, stumbling against the wall.
Another shot caught her shoulder, spinning her around. She hit the ground hard, vision blurring.
Her breath came ragged.
Her blood pooled warm against the cold pavement.
She clawed toward the grate with her good arm.
Behind her she heard one of the survivors screaming:
"Cover her! COVER HER!"
Gunfire exploded behind her as her people made their last stand.
Marcy dragged herself forward, every inch of movement pure agony.
Her fingers brushed the grate—
—but her arm gave out, and she collapsed just short of safety.
Bootsteps approached fast.
She forced herself to look back.
Falcone's soldiers were closing in.
The grate finally gave way and she dropped into the darkness.
She hit the concrete hard, vision flashing white.
Above her, Falcone gunmen leaned over the opening, flashlights stabbing down. One aimed—
BANG!
A muzzle flashed from deeper in the tunnel.
A homeless man one of their lookouts — had been sleeping on a crate and now fired an old revolver up at the attackers.
Three more people rose from blankets and shadows with pistols and shotguns held tight.
The tunnel erupted into chaos.
"GET HER!" someone yelled. "PULL HER BACK!"
Hands grabbed her under her arms. Someone pressed cloth to her thigh. Someone else fired past her head.
"Marcy? MARCY? Stay with us!"
Her vision swam as Dre's rooftop runners arrived from the right corridor, guns drawn.
"Clear the entrance!" one shouted. "FALL BACK!"
Boots thundered against concrete. Gunfire echoed like explosions inside the confined space.
Dre himself came sprinting down the tunnel, breath ragged, face pale as soon as he saw her being carried.
"Oh no—oh no—Marcy—"
"Boss—" one of his men panted. "Shoulder. Leg. Lost a lot—"
"Guard EVERY EXIT!" Dre barked, voice cracking. "NOBODY gets down here unless they're ours! MEDIC! I need a medic NOW!"
His men scattered on command.
He grabbed Marcy's face gently, trying to keep her conscious.
"Hey, hey—stay awake. You hear me? Stay awake."
Her eyes rolled, unfocused.
"Dre…" she whispered. "Ambush… all the vans… we… we lost so many…"
"We're gonna fix it," he said through clenched teeth. "You're gonna be fine."
He pointed to two of the Dogs.
"Get her to the hotel. RIGHT NOW. You carry her the whole way if you have to."
Then he pulled out his phone with shaking hands.
He called the boss.
****
The Continental's private office was quiet when Nolan's phone buzzed.
He answered instantly.
"Talk."
Dre's voice was frantic, raw.
"Boss—it's bad. Falcone hit the convoy. Marcy's down — she's shot bad — they're bringing her to you now. We— we lost almost everyone on the route."
Kieran closed his eyes, exhaling once, sharp.
"Is she alive?"
"We're trying, sir—she's bleeding real bad—"
"Bring her," Kieran said. "Alive. Do you hear me? Just bring her as soon as possible."
He hung up.
And immediately the noise started.
Quentin's voice was first, 'Let me handle this—get out of the way—he BLEW up our supply lines! She has been with us since the start let me handle this damnit!'
Vey's snarled, 'no let me I'm better at this than anyone I can handle it!'
Kieran's own voice: Don't panic—don't panic—we have to…'
They collided like storms against the inside of Nolan's skull.
His hands shot up, gripping fistfuls of his hair.
"SHUT—UP!"
The room seemed to spin as he staggered forward, knuckles dragging across the desk.
They were screaming — all three — fighting for the wheel.
"STOP—STOP TALKING—" Nolan roared.
He slammed his fist into the wall hard enough to crack wood.
Then he stormed down the hall toward the medical wing.
***
The disguised panel in the hotel hallway slid open when Dre's men hit the code.
They carried Marcy in on makeshift stretchers, blood trailing in their wake.
The doctor — Nolan's in-house physician, a man who had tended every Underpass wound for months — rushed forward the second he saw them.
"Set her here!" he snapped. "Clamp the artery—she's crashing—!"
They laid Marcy on the metal table.
Her head lolled. Her breathing was shallow, rattling.
Dre hovered behind the doctor, hands shaking.
Nolan entered last.
Clothes immaculate.
Eyes dead.
His fingers twitched from the strain of keeping Quentin and Vey from tearing out of him.
The doctor didn't even look up as he started cutting away fabric and packing wounds.
"She's losing too much. If the bleed doesn't stop we might—"
"You might what?" Nolan said quietly.
The doctor froze.
"I— I'm doing everything I can but she's in hypovolemic shock, and if I can't stabilize her pressure, she may—"
'We were fucking betrayed, that much is obvious let me handle this Nolan!' Quentin yelled
Nolan's eyes didn't move from Marcy's figure, she looked so… so fucking old and depressed lying there. She had been with him since the start, she made all of this possible with her supply lines.
Nolan touched his temple and a chain broke, "God just stop for one second and let me handle this one my OWN!" He yelled and everyone stepped back
He drew his gun.
Pressed it to the doctor's temple.
The entire room stopped.
Even the personalities in his skull went silent.
Nolan leaned close, voice a cold whisper:
"You get paid for one reason and one reason only," he said.
"To keep. My. People. Alive."
The doctor swallowed hard, sweat dripping down his temple.
"But if she dies—" Nolan continued, pressing the barrel harder, "—I will end you. Do you understand me?"
The doctor's breath hitched.
"Yes, sir."
"Good," Nolan murmured. "Then save her."
He lowered the gun — but did not holster it.
He stood right behind the doctor as he worked.
***
Dre stepped out the moment Nolan jerked his chin toward the hall, the big man's boots heavy on the carpet. His hands were still slick with Marcy's blood. The door shut behind them, muffling the frantic activity inside the emergency suite—the clatter of instruments, the doctor barking orders, Marcy's shallow groans.
Nolan didn't speak at first.
He just stared at Dre.
And Dre—who had stood on rooftops during firefights, who wasn't afraid of much—felt his throat tighten. Nolan's eyes weren't normal. They weren't even focused. Something moved behind them, multiple somethings, like shapes pacing behind frosted glass. Quentin's cold calculation. Vey's feral rage. Kieran's growling impatience. They flickered through him like lightning behind storm clouds.
When Nolan finally spoke, his voice was too calm.
"We were betrayed."
Dre swallowed hard. "Boss, I—I'm working on figuring out how they tracked the vans, how they knew our route, but—"
Nolan cut him off, stepping in close enough that Dre could feel his breath.
"No excuses, this is my fault. We let them in. I want to know which one it was, the Jades unlikely, the dogs even more so they wouldn't sacrifice their people. So then, it was the deacons or the sevens." His expression didn't change, but his voice hardened a fraction with each word.
Dre nodded fiercely. "I'm already pulling every camera, every scout report, every radio log—"
Nolan grabbed Dre's shoulder, gripping it so tightly the bone creaked.
"Not later," he whispered. "Now. You understand me? Marcy is bleeding out on a table in there because someone under my protection sold us out. That means every second you don't find the leak is another second we let whoever did this walk free!"
Dre's eyes widened. "Boss—no one in my crews would ever."
"Everybody says that right before the truth gets ugly," Nolan said, letting go. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, teeth clenched as the voices surged again—Kieran snarling obvious internal compromise, Vey whispering cut their tongues out, Quentin murmuring not yet, gather data first. Nolan's breath shook as he fought them back down. "We're going to learn who did this. And when we do…"
He exhaled slowly.
"…I'm going to peel them apart."
A heavy silence settled between them.
Dre nodded, jaw locked, fear replaced by grim resolve. "I'll find them, boss. I swear on my name and my district—I'll find the rat."
Nolan stared at him a long moment, then gave a short, sharp nod.
"Good. Because the moment Marcy stabilizes…" His voice sank into something darker, something colder. "…we start hunting."
Inside the room, the doctor shouted for more gauze.
Nolan and Dre both tensed at the sound.
"Don't call me until you know who betrayed us Dre, I apologize I'm unwell right now." Nolan gave Dre a pat on the arm and walked back into the room to overlook Marcy's procedure
—
A/N: sigh it's so hard to share one body in these tense situations