Chapter 4 - The Apex PredatorThe brass doors of the freight elevator slid open with a smooth, expensive hum.
Cross stepped out first, his boots clicking sharply against the polished marble floor. He was a thickset man with a jagged scar running from his ear down to his collarbone, holding a suppressed submachine gun at the ready. Behind him, three mercenaries in tactical gear poured out of the car, weapons sweeping the corridor with military precision.
They stopped dead.
Standing thirty feet down the hall, directly beneath the recessed lighting, was Thorne.
He wasn't hiding behind a pillar. He wasn't wearing tactical armor. He wore his tailored charcoal suit, the jacket unbuttoned, holding the matte-black carbine with the casual, devastating ease of a man who had mastered violence before he had learned how to shave.
"Thorne," Cross sneered, his eyes darting down the hallway, noting the absence of other guards. "I heard you went soft. Built a luxury hospital in your own penthouse for a dying architect. Didn't realize you were running a charity ward."
Thorne didn't speak. He raised the barrel of the carbine.
"Kill him," Cross barked, raising his weapon.
The hallway erupted.
Before the first merc could squeeze his trigger, Thorne moved with a terrifying, inhuman speed. The first round caught the mercenary on the left dead center in the chest, the heavy armor-piercing round tearing through Kevlar as if it were paper. The second man fired wildly, shattering a decorative urn and sending shards of porcelain skittering across the stone, but Thorne was already sliding to the side, his return fire precise and absolute. Two.
Cross roared, raising his submachine gun to sweep the corridor, but Thorne closed the distance in a blur of motion. The butt of the carbine cracked hard against Cross’s wrist, sending his weapon clattering across the marble floor.
Before Cross could swing a punch, Thorne grabbed him by the lapels of his tactical vest, lifted his heavy frame off the ground with terrifying strength, and slammed him spine-first against the reinforced glass wall of the corridor.
The glass groaned under the impact, spider-webbing outward, overlooking the glittering skyline forty-two stories below.
"You," Thorne whispered, his voice dangerously low, his face inches from Cross's terrified eyes, "are standing in a hallway you shouldn't be in."
"You're... you're dead," Cross choked out, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth. "The syndicate... they won't stop. Even if I don't walk out of here—"
"They can try," Thorne interrupted, his eyes dead, empty of any human mercy. "Send them my regards."
With a final, brutal twist, Thorne dropped him. Cross crumpled to the floor, unconscious and broken.
Thorne stood alone in the hallway, the acrid smell of cordite mixing with the faint scent of antiseptic drifting from Room 4002. He exhaled slowly, adjusting his cuffs.
May you like
Then, he heard it. A faint, muffled crash coming from inside the room.
Thorne’s blood ran ice-cold. He spun around, sprinted down the hall, and threw himself against the heavy oak door. He jammed his key into the deadbolt, twisted it, and threw the door open.
