The underground bunker smelled like rusty metal. It sat beneath the ruined ribs of the factory — a hollowed place the city had turned its back on and then forgotten. The floorboards complained when Brendon stepped, and the light came through a set of porthole windows high above, stained the air in green. Drago had taken the room and made it his: a table scarred by cards and knives, a low lamp with a shade that leaked light like a bad secret, and an armchair that had seen too many bargains.
Brendon arrived at four, hands in his pockets, posture measured. The city had taught him to move like a person with nothing to lose but everything to hide. He smelled the damp of the factory above, the faint tang of mold and the sharper scent of men who kept their cash in their heads. He kept his jacket loose, a man who wanted to look casual and who took care not to look like anything at all.
Drago lounged like an animal that had found a comfortable rug. He wore a coat the color of old liquor and a grin that never quite reached his eyes. When Brendon walked in, the grin widened.
"Isn't it ironic?" Drago said, voice silk-coated. "When you first arrived on this side of town, you arrested me. Now you run from the law like a common criminal." He tipped his head and let the words hang, a small, cutting thing.
Brendon let the line hit him and roll off. There were debts and there were reminders; Drago dealt in both. "Well... you were doing illegal activities back then and threatened me." Brendon said flatly. "You certainly deserved that."
"Huh! Same old good cop show. A show is what people pay to see." Drago said. "And performances get better with time." He dragged a finger along the table top. "Sit. We have things to organize. You look like you could use the company of someone who remembers how deals used to be made."
Ninja Fox — smaller than Brendon had expected when she took a seat, not diminished but more contained — sat across the table. The hood was down this time, and her face was covered as always. She made no show of welcome; she made a calculation of space. When Drago's joke rolled into the air she gave him a look that was both a dismissal and a sharpening. He wilted, for a second, like something that had sniffed a stronger perfume.
"Mr. Drago" she said quietly, "Please behave."
Drago's smile showed teeth like a promise made in another language. "Always." He folded his hands and produced from the inside pocket of his coat a folded map and a scrap of ledger paper. He tossed the map between them like a coin.
Brendon caught it and flattened the paper. The map was no less masterpiece: a tangle of blocks with a few pencilled notes, the Flim & Flam Enterprise marked in a shaky hand, an arrow pointing to a back entrance tucked behind a loading bay, a service tunnel leading beneath the factory, and the manager's office sketched as a small rectangle with a note: north window, blind spot 21:30–21:50.
"How sure are you on the shift?" Ninja Fox asked. Her voice never rose but had the weight of a thing that could fall and crush.
Drago smoothed his fingers over the ledger like a man stroking a cat. "Three men in the back. Two on the floor. One driver. The hyena and his scarred boy run the furniture at night, but he doesn't like to leave the yard till ten. Cameras — old, jittery — have a blind spot at the north window when the delivery truck backs in. Management likes to smoke in the office at about nine. They leave their ledgers in a wooden crate behind the desk. It's a small-town operation pretending to be industrial." He smiled as if offering a gift.
Ninja Fox's eyes took it in, slow. "And the brand?"
"Seen it before," Drago said. "On export labels that came out of a mill in the south docks. Not your usual exporters. Shell names, paid hands. Guerieo's paperwork brushes against them like a scandal that won't stay on its feet." He tapped the ledger mark with a nail that had once held someone's life. "We can follow a paper trail if we get the books."
Brendon read the map again, fingers splaying over the pencil marks. The north window. Blind spot. Nine-pm smoking habit. A crate behind the manager's desk. The simplicity made his mouth taste of iron. "You doing this because you want the mayor out," he said, "or because it pays?"
Drago's smile tightened. "Why not both? Guerieo is a spoiled-grandmaster of patronage, and patrons leave crumbs behind. I like a city where the crumbs fall towards me." He pushed a small, black case toward Brendon. "Equipment. Picks. A silencer. A burner phone. Nothing fancy — we're not planning a war. Just a clean entry and exit. Camelia will be watching the feeds; she will tell you when police are staged. I'll have two men on call — if things go sour, they make a bit of noise on the other side. We will distract. And then extract it."
Ninja Fox folded her hands. "No unnecessary violence. We go in, get into the manager's office, get any proof of shipment and brand marks, get out. Brendon — you watch my back. You will keep us from being boxed." Her eyes cut to him like a blade measuring distance. "You don't follow me blindly. You guard the team — the team being me and the evidence. If you have to make a choice, protect the clue nothing else."
Brendon nodded. The clue or evidence whatever they find out, would be the heart. "What exactly do you want me to do?" he asked. He liked clarity. It kept the dangerous things to a minimum.
"You meet me at the north alley," Ninja Fox said. "At twenty-one. Dressed like you mean to make a delivery. I'll have a badge-like pass to show. Drago will stage a dent in their service truck a block over at 21:05 to get the night manager frazzled. Camelia will knock out the external cams for four minutes — enough to get us in. If anyone comes close, she will send an alert. You watch the door and keep the hyena from turning the street into a noose."
Drago shrugged. "We'll be ready. My men will be two streets over with bicycles and a crate of smoke. If they move, they make it louder than your average row. You slip out while they deal with the racket. Nothing hurts. Politically speaking, it's best if it looks like poor security and a tidy robbery — clean numbers, no bodies."
Ninja Fox's jaw ticked a little. "No bodies," she agreed, then added more quietly, "and no fireworks. We cannot afford attention beyond this."
Brendon considered the rhythm of their plan. It had the lopsided elegance of something designed by a man who measured risk as currency. He felt the old muscle memory of being a thief in his hands — the part that had once chosen a lock by its temper — wake like a cat stretching.
"Camelia will be on comm?" he asked.
"On comm," Drago confirmed. "She'll be in a safe room with a laptop and patience. She will monitor police radio, feeds, and any sign of Guerieo's men. If a detail moves in, she will warn us, and we will immediately retreat. Simple."
"And Sofie?" Brendon asked. "I know you won't believe a cop at this point. But she has helped me when you severed you contact with me. Can she feed you anything from inside the force? Don't worry. I totally trust her."
Drago made a small, considering noise. "Sofie... I remember her. Wasn't she the woman who you saved by beating the sh!t out of my men?"
"Yeah." Brendon answered without amusing Drago much.
"She's in a bad spot, but she can lend us some intel about police patrolling timings. Don't bet your life on it though. If she moves too loud, the Chief will dry-clean her out of the department. We can get a tail or two, but not the whole precinct." Ninja Fox gives her verdict.
The light of the lamp hummed between them. Outside, somewhere above, the factory made a sound like someone folding a sheet of paper very carefully. Brendon felt a thin thread of anticipation tighten in his gut and run down his spine. He had slept in cell-blocks that rang with that same expectation. He lit a cigarette, drew the thin smoke into his lungs, and let the tastes of salt and copper fill the space behind his teeth.
"Nine." he said finally. "I'll be there at nine. I don't trust easy plans."
Ninja Fox's facial expression was impossible to understand but certainly she was satisfied. "We don't have the luxury of trusting," she said. "We have the luxury of precision."
Drago chuckled, then leaned forward a fraction. "One last thing." He spread a photo on the table — the manager's face, a round man with a stub nose and an expression that suggested he was always on the verge of being lied to. A signature beneath the photo — a name Brendon recognized from case files they'd burned in past cases. "He's got a safe with a false bottom. Our suspension is that our answers are likely behind old invoices. Don't expect them to be neat though. But expect the brand marks to be present on shipment paperwork. That's your thing, sheriff. Look for the stupid things bad men leave un-washed."
Ninja Fox took the photo and tucked it into the pocket of her coat as if it were a talisman. "We're not looking to start a war today, folk." she said. "We're making the mayor's men sweat, and we're getting proof. With proof, the city will have to read the next page."
Brendon stood. The plan was lean on force and heavy on timing — a pattern he liked because it left room for his own decisions. He felt the brand within him like a small, steady ember, reminding him of what was at stake beyond paper: the living, the myth, the teeth of the city.
Drago rose, moving with the slow, confident grace of a man who had spent his life in rooms where fortunes were exchanged for loyalties. He gave Brendon a look that was almost fond. "You always were dramatic." he said. "Best of luck, sheriff."
Ninja Fox bowed her head in something that might have been respect, might have been calculation. "We will leave at dusk." she said. "Be ready."
Brendon left the lair with the map in his pocket and the weight of the plan on his shoulders. Outside, the factory above had begun its afternoon ritual of emptying — the clatter of crates, the distant shouts, the world preparing to trade its bodies for bread.