The dock held its breath.
Somewhere in the distance, a buoy clanged, lonely and hollow, but here—only the sound of boots adjusting on wet planks, the faint click of safeties being released.
Kairo stood still, his stance loose enough to look almost relaxed, but Elira knew better. Every inch of him was coiled. His weight was forward, his eyes fixed, his breathing measured in that way he always had before things went loud.
Rahn shifted his grip on the railing, just enough for the dim light to catch the polished steel of the blade strapped beneath his coat. "You brought six," he said, glancing past Kairo to the shadows where his men waited. "I brought four. I'd say the odds are in your favor."
"Only if you can count," Kairo said. "But I'm guessing you've already done the math—and you're still here."
"True," Rahn replied, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. "Because numbers mean very little when you've already mapped the exits."
Elira didn't wait for him to finish. Her hand moved in a blur, drawing her pistol from the hip holster she favored for close work. The movement was quiet, but the metallic slide into readiness was loud enough to cut through the tension like a blade.
"Then maybe you should start mapping your last one," she said.
Rahn's eyes flicked to her for a fraction of a second—just long enough for Kairo to step in. In two strides he'd closed the distance, his shoulder catching Rahn in the chest, driving him back against the gangway rail with a hollow clang.
The two men locked in a slow, grinding shove, strength against strength. Rahn's teeth bared in something between a grin and a snarl. "You've gotten slower," he said.
"Or you've gotten desperate," Kairo answered, his voice a rasp of control.
The first shot cracked the night. Not from Kairo or Elira—but from one of Rahn's men on the deck. The muzzle flash lit the fog for a heartbeat.
Kairo's men answered instantly. The dock erupted in gunfire, sharp reports ricocheting off the water. Wood splintered. Boots thundered. Shouts cut through the night, low and controlled, no wasted words.
Elira's first shot dropped the gunman nearest the ship's wheel. She pivoted, firing again, feeling the recoil bite into her palm. Kairo was still locked with Rahn, using the gangway rail as leverage to force him down, but Rahn wasn't breaking—his free hand clawed for the knife under his coat.
"Elira," Kairo barked—not in warning, but in coordination.
She didn't need to ask. Her third shot didn't aim for Rahn, but for the knife's hilt, the impact sending it clattering to the dock. The move cost her precious seconds—enough for another of Rahn's men to come charging from the deck toward her.
He didn't make it. One of Kairo's guards intercepted, slamming the man into a stack of rope barrels with bone-snapping force.
Rahn's grin turned feral. "You've trained her well."
Kairo's reply was pure ice. "She doesn't need me to train her."
The fog thickened with gun smoke, drifting low across the water like a second tide. Every flash of gunfire lit it in brief, violent bursts—shadows lunging, steel catching light, boots hammering wood.
Kairo shoved Rahn back hard enough to rattle the gangway. The man staggered, caught himself on the rail, and came back swinging. Kairo ducked under the punch, catching Rahn's arm in a brutal twist. Bone creaked. Rahn hissed through his teeth.
Elira was already moving toward him when she felt the rush of air—one of Rahn's men breaking from the smoke at her blind side. She turned too late to aim, but not too late to fight. Her elbow drove back into ribs, hard enough to fold him. She followed with a knee to the gut, then a sharp strike to the jaw that sent him crumpling.
Kairo glanced over his shoulder, just long enough to see it. That flicker in his eyes wasn't approval—Kairo didn't hand those out—but something quieter, a wordless confirmation that they moved as one.
"Behind," she said, already pivoting.
Kairo didn't even look. He spun Rahn into the path of the charging man, taking the impact himself only long enough to use it—an arm hooked around Rahn's neck, twisting him forward until his knees buckled. The knife at his own belt was out in a heartbeat, pressed under Rahn's jaw.
The fight didn't stop, but it slowed. The crack of gunfire thinned into single shots. Kairo's voice cut through it all.
"Stand down," he ordered, his tone level but edged with something that froze motion mid-strike.
One by one, the shadows hesitated. Guns stayed up, but no one fired. The dock felt tighter somehow, as if the night itself was waiting for his next word.
Rahn's breath rasped against the knife edge. "You won't kill me. Not here."
Kairo's mouth barely moved. "You're right. But I'll take something you can't get back."
The implication hung in the air like a loaded round. Elira's gaze flicked between the two men, reading the unspoken threats in the angles of their shoulders, the way Rahn's fingers twitched near his belt but didn't dare move.
"You have something that belongs to me," Kairo continued. "You have until the next tide to return it, or this dock will be the last place your men set foot."
Rahn's pale eyes narrowed, but he didn't answer. Kairo pushed him away, hard enough that he stumbled into one of his own men.
"Go," Kairo said. It wasn't a request.
They melted into the fog, the water swallowing their steps. Only when the last shadow had faded did Kairo lower his knife.
Elira stepped beside him, scanning the mist. "You know he'll come back."
"That's what I'm counting on."
She looked at him then—not the mask he wore for the world, but the man beneath it. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw the weight there. Not fear, not doubt, but something heavier, something he wouldn't name.
"You're bleeding," she said.
Kairo glanced down at the shallow cut on his forearm, barely a scratch. "Not mine to worry about."
Her lips curved faintly. "You're terrible at letting people take care of you."
"And you're terrible at staying behind me."
They started walking, boots echoing against the damp wood, the night closing in around them again. The box at Kairo's side felt heavier than it had that morning, though neither of them spoke of it. Whatever Rahn was after, whatever the next tide would bring, they'd face it the way they always did—side by side, even if the world thought otherwise.