The door opened a crack and Victor filled it—big and mean, grin gone flat. Men leaned behind him with knives and cheap pistols. The room smelled of dust and blood and old coffee.
"Adrian," Victor said. "You hide in schools now. Hands where I can see."
Cross did not move like a man surprised. He had the slow calm of someone who had lost too much and still kept working. Mira stood ready, knife held like a promise. Kai's heart beat like a stuck drum.
"You picked my man," Victor said. "He bled on your floor. You owe me."
Cross reached in his coat and showed a thin device, a glass face and a wire. He spoke steady. "Take him and leave the girl. I'll pay double. You hurt the wrong person and the legacy goes. You will get nothing."
Money changed hands. For a moment things felt smaller. Men looked at Kai as if he were a thing to be bought. Kai felt his stomach drop. Elena's cough hit him like a punch.
Mira laughed, short. "You think he'll sell his sister for pills?"
Victor turned to Kai. "What's it to you, boy? Take the deal and your sister is safe."
Kai felt the thing inside him move. It liked talk of trade. It liked sharp offers. It wanted to show him what hardness felt like.
Cross stared. "Leave," he said. "Walk away now and take what I offer."
A pistol flashed. Metal in the room tightened everything. The white sheet shook. A shout came from below.
Mira spoke low. "When it asks, name. Keep your name. Keep hers. It will try to copy you."
Kai held his breath. He said the names like small stones. "Kai. Elena."
"Move," Victor snapped.
Kai lunged, awkward and human. He grabbed the arm of the man with the pistol. The gun went off. Glass burst. Heat hit his face. The thing in him roared for blood. It offered clean ends.
He thought of Elena, mug in hand, fingers shaking. He thought of her soft laugh. He thought of the pills she needed. He did not want to be what the inheritance wanted him to be.
He wrenched, palms raw, and the gun slipped free. The man scrambled back. The room smelled like smoke. Victor's laugh was flat. "You got no hunger, boy."
Someone banged the kitchen door. Footsteps pounded the stairwell. The men outside moved like they had a map.
Cross grabbed Kai's arm and pulled him back. "They'll come through the building. We split the roof. Go."
They ran up narrow stairs. The floor shook with boots. Mira led, compact and sure. Cross limped but kept pace. Kai held the small photograph in his pocket like a heart.
On the roof, cold slapped them. The city spread out, lights and glass and the river like a dark wound. Men poured up the stairwell—cheap leather, beer smells, angry eyes.
"Hold them," Victor yelled. "Search every floor. Don't let them leave."
Mira set herself at the wall, knife ready. Cross leaned on a vent, old and sharp. Kai stood near a skylight, wind pushing his hair. The inheritance hummed in his ribs, hungry for a decision.
The first bottle broke near his feet. Glass sang. Beer stung the night air. He felt the anger in the crowd like a thing to ride.
They came up fast. A fist caught the side of Cross's jaw. Mira elbowed a man off the wall. Kai moved when he needed, not fast but real. He kept saying the names in his head like a chant.
Then a bright white flash lit the far bank of the river. For one heartbeat the city looked like day in one distant place.
Men below stopped. Victor cursed. The flash pulled at something old in Cross. He put his hand on Kai's shoulder. "They came for more than us," he said.
A shape climbed into the light at the top of the next stairwell. Not a man in simple clothes. A masked figure with ropes and a harness moved with trained grace.
Mira hissed. "Who puts a rope on and comes to a fight?"
Victor's voice went small. "We didn't call that."
The masked person reached into a pack and pulled out a cold, small device. It glowed. It was not a gun. It was a puck of metal with a single blue eye.
The masked person tossed it over the edge. It fell slow, spinning. Kai watched it arc and feel his chest tighten.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Elena. The screen lit up with her name. For a second everything narrowed to that small circle of light.
The masked figure shouted into the night. "Signal sent. The city will answer."
Victor's men shouted. Someone fired down toward the street. The sound punched the air. The small device struck the river walk below and glowed once, bright.
Kai's phone switched to voicemail. He had to decide, in one breath, what door to close.
Behind him, Cross whispered, "You can fight for power or fight for her. Not both."
Mira's hand tightened on her knife. Victor's laugh crawled upward. The masked person tied a rope and slipped over the edge like shadow.
Kai stood on the cold metal and felt the city tilt. The inheritance hummed like a thing that liked drama. He wanted to run and be small and safe.
He looked down where the blue eye pulsed and thought of home. He hit play on the voicemail.
A voice, thin and panicked, came through. "Hospital. Elena's—" The message broke into static.
Kai's throat closed. The inheritance in his chest sang a bright note. It wanted him loud and cruel. It wanted him to fix things with force.
He dropped the phone. It hit the roof and skittered to the edge. It slid with a small, final sound and fell into shadow.
Kai did not move. Mira cursed. Cross swore low. Victor yelled something that could not be understood.
Somewhere below, someone shouted, then a gunshot cracked like a bell.
Kai stood at the edge and felt the cold wind push at his back. He watched the place where the phone had disappeared and felt a new fear, thin and bright.
He had a choice, and the city would not wait.