The Hôtel des Catalans was on fire.
Flames curled up through broken windows, licking at the old wooden beams like hungry mouths. Smoke rolled out into the Marseille streets, staining the sky black as ink.
Inside the inferno, Asher moved like a devil in a trench coat. Blood on his knuckles. Rifle empty. Sidearm gone. Knife in his hand now, and a grin splitting his scarred face.
"Two left," he muttered to himself, ducking beneath a hail of suppressed gunfire.
Two mercs. Professional. Surgical killers. But they weren't ready for this — they weren't ready for Asher, and they sure as hell weren't ready for Damien Voss.
Damien didn't shoot wildly like a desperate man.
He moved with intent, each round measured, deliberate, every step calculated.
He didn't kill out of panic.
He killed with purpose.
Outside, Mara Sen skidded to a stop behind a burnt-out taxi, pulling her pistol close to her chest.
Gunfire. Firelight flickering off the shattered glass of the hotel entrance.
She knew she shouldn't be here. Interpol would have her badge for this. Hell, they'd probably have her executed for what she was about to do.
But she also knew something else now:
Damien wasn't just a criminal.
He was pulling down something bigger — a conspiracy that made every file she'd ever studied look like playground gossip.
And if the world was burning, she wasn't going to sit behind a desk while it happened.
She checked the magazine in her SIG Sauer. Full.
Time to go.
Inside, the last merc charged.
Asher caught him mid-stride, drove the combat knife under the bastard's ribcage, twisted once, and shoved him down a staircase like garbage.
Silence.
Just crackling flames now. Sirens in the distance. Helicopters approaching from the harbor.
"Looks like we've overstayed our welcome," Asher grunted.
Damien didn't respond. His eyes were locked on the security laptop the mercs had brought in with them, now half-melted but still flickering.
A file, decrypted hastily before the firefight began, still glowing on the cracked screen.
A name.
One of the Thirteen.
Not a politician. Not a soldier.
A banker.
Emil Hartmann. Zurich. Global Central Reserve. Architect of the global debt machine.
Damien's lips curled in something close to a smile.
"We're not finished yet."
CRASH. The front doors exploded inward.
Not more mercs. Not local police.
It was Mara.
Gun drawn. Hair wild. Eyes burning.
"Both of you," she shouted, leveling her weapon. "Drop it. Hands up."
Asher raised his palms instantly. "Now, hold on—"
"Shut up."
Her gaze cut to Damien.
"I don't know what you think you're doing, but you're not walking out of this hotel."
Damien stepped forward, slowly, calmly, like a man already dead.
"Agent Sen, you're smarter than that. If you stop me here, they win. The ones who murdered your Director last night and are blaming it on me."
She flinched. Just barely.
"What?"
Damien nodded. "Did you even check your encrypted channels this morning?"
Mara's earpiece buzzed softly. She touched it, her hand shaking now.
"Director Cole is dead.""Interpol compromised. Secure all assets.""New directives inbound."
Her world tilted under her feet.
Everything she'd fought for, everything she believed in — rotting from the inside out.
Above them, the helicopters circled lower. Floodlights painted the building in stark, surgical white.
Black Sun wasn't finished yet.
And neither was Damien.
"You can kill me now," he said softly, stepping toward her. "Or you can help me finish this."
The sirens wailed. The city burned.
And somewhere deep in Zurich, Emil Hartmann was just starting to realize that his number was next.