Chapter 8 - THE CLEANING CREW
Before Gideon could process the warning, a sharp, metallic click echoed from the ventilation shafts high above the glass dome.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
From the iron rafters ten stories up, three heavy industrial smoke canisters dropped directly into the center of the atrium, bursting open with a massive hiss of dense, choking white fog.
"Gas!" one of the North End enforcers shouted, raising his weapon blindly as the thick smoke billowed outward, instantly obscuring the fountain and the ground floor.
"Hold your positions!" Gideon barked, coughing as the acrid smoke hit his lungs, raising his cane defensively. "Find the stairs! Secure the perimeter!"
Through the swirling white haze, a single figure dropped silently from the second-floor balcony, landing with cat-like grace on the marble floor barely ten feet from Gideon.
It was a woman wearing a gray cleaning uniform, her hair pulled back into a tight bun. In her right hand, she held a compact, military-grade pulse-stun baton humming with blue electrical arcs.
Gideon spun around, his eyes widening in sudden, absolute horror as he recognized her face through the fog.
"You..." Gideon choked out. "You were supposed to be in the sub-basement."
"I missed my shift," Anna Doyle said calmly.
The three enforcers charged toward her out of the fog, raising their weapons. Anna didn't flinch. She pivoted with lethal, blinding speed, driving the electrical baton into the chest of the lead enforcer. A violent bolt of blue light surged through his body, and he dropped to the floor like a stone, unconscious before he even hit the marble.
The second enforcer fired blindly into the smoke. Anna slid beneath the muzzle flash, swept his legs out from under him with a brutal roundhouse kick, and brought the butt of the baton down across his temple.
In less than five seconds, two armed men were neutralized.
The third enforcer lunged for her from behind, wrapping his arm around her throat in a chokehold. But before he could tighten his grip, a heavy shadow materialized out of the fog behind him.
Rafe Castellane had descended from the stairs. With a single, brutal motion, Rafe grabbed the enforcer by the back of his collar, hoisted him off his feet, and slammed his head face-first into the marble fountain rim.
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The man slumped into the water, completely dead to the world.
The atrium fell quiet, save for the hiss of the dissipating smoke and the heavy breathing of Gideon Payne, who stood alone in the center of the clearing, his walking cane trembling in his hand.
