Chapter 251

“Once it passes 8:10, we pull out. Go straight back to the car.”

Isaac’s calm voice came through the earpiece. Pushing a serving cart loaded with the ordered champagne and an ice bucket across the banquet hall, Siron flicked a glance at the clock on the wall. 7:51 p.m. He had to withdraw in nineteen minutes and link up with Baekgyeong in the underground parking lot.

“Got it. We leave exactly then—”

At that moment, someone cut him off and blocked his path. A young man tried to snatch up a whole bottle of champagne without warning and walk off with it.

“Ah—no, you can’t. This bottle was ordered by someone.”

Snatching the bottle back in a flash, Siron answered with a face that feigned peak friendliness.

“Huh? Then I’ll order too. I can take it, right?”

Rude little bastard. Siron felt fire in his eyes, but he met the man’s gaze and smiled.

“Someone else ordered first. If you need champagne, please ask a server over there.”

Shoving past him, Siron pulled the cart away and swept the VIP seats with a quick look. But the person he was looking for still wasn’t there. Most of the wardens he’d memorized while researching Helso’s prisons had shown up, yet Warden Malcolm Knox still had not appeared.

At 7:57 p.m., Siron headed for a table near the stage. He had no intention of playing waiter in earnest, but he needed to collect any conversation from the VIPs that might be worth hearing.

Jackson, who had asked Siron for champagne, was seated and talking with a man who had just arrived. Governor Richard Brown—the face Siron knew from TV and online media.

A social cancer, the embodiment of corruption. Possibly the true hand behind Hybris. Naturally, Siron’s eyes on the back of the governor’s head were anything but kind.

“Two bottles of the champagne you ordered.”

Masking his feelings with a brisk, businesslike smile, Siron set down the ice bucket with the champagne.

“I’ll pour.”

“No, that’s all right. I’ll do it.”

Jackson took one of the bottles Siron had brought and turned down the help. The man at the same table—about Siron’s age—kept his eyes on his phone and wordlessly pushed his glass out. While Siron filled the arrogant youth’s glass, he stole a glance at Jackson’s profile.

A therapist, he’d said? And he’s sitting in the VIP section.

It wasn’t normal for a counselor to claim a seat among Bureau officials, politicians, and luminaries. As Siron rapidly checked each face at the table, his eyes met those of a man with deep shadows under his eyes, staring blankly at him.

The man was seated beside the governor, expressionless, peering at his phone. His face was smooth and pale as marble, as if any emotion would simply slide off and vanish, and his gaze raked Siron from head to toe.

Since childhood, Siron had felt like he was walking into an interview whenever he stood before a well-dressed white man. He remembered how he’d admired and liked Baekgyeong for never caring about things like that. If Baekgyeong were here now, he would’ve said something without holding back.

Yankee bastard, what are you staring at like that?

After topping off the glass, Siron set the bottle back in the ice and pulled the cart away from the VIPs. The strange look from the young man who resembled the governor stuck in his mind.

“Honey, isn’t it getting noisy outside?”

Past eight, when the formal program began, the hall grew even more crowded and loud. A woman deliberately stopped Siron, set her empty champagne flute on his cart, and spoke. The man blocking his way with her tipped his own glass and replied leisurely,

“Probably people coming in late. It’s nothing.”

“But... I think I heard someone scream.”

At that, Siron felt a chill crawl down his spine. He reflexively looked back, but the entrance was just packed with people; nothing obviously wrong. Then Isaac’s razor-edged voice stabbed through the earpiece.

“Siron, run. Now.”

His tone was deadly serious. Siron’s whole body froze like ice.

“What? Run—”

“Right this instant!”

At Isaac’s thunderclap of a shout, Siron’s heart dropped. Nothing had happened yet, but he abandoned the cart and moved toward the crowded entrance.

“Okay. I’m going.”

“What the hell! What’s going on!”

Then a hand clamped down on his arm. The young man from the VIP seats grabbed him as if to yank him back. Standing, he seemed much taller. Alpha. The word flashed up unbidden, turning Siron’s guts to water.

He’d focused on masking omega pheromones, but he hadn’t considered how he looked to a man steeped in alpha scent. Standing naked in the middle of the hall—that was what it felt like. Smothering the rush of shame, Siron asked,

“What do you want?”

“I’ve been calling you. Didn’t you hear me?”

“I’m in the middle of champagne—”

“3543. Is that you?”

His mind went white, the blood draining from his face. The unexpected designation flickered across his features for a split second as fear. Baekgyeong was shouting something urgent through the earpiece, but it was like being trapped in a vacuum—nothing reached him. Pasting a brittle smile onto his frozen face, Siron said,

“I don’t know what you—”

“Your eyes are pretty. The resemblance is strong.”

“Sorry? ...To who—”

“I told you. 3543.”

The man pinched the earpiece at Siron’s ear and crushed it like a biscuit. Before Siron could react, a gunshot cracked from somewhere. A dead chill dropped over the hall. In an instant, people panicked and stampeded for the exits.

“Truly, what a bunch of idiots.”

Something like a smirk—or was it pleasure?—touched the man’s thin lips.

“Let’s go.”

He yanked Siron’s arm hard. Not toward the entrance, but back toward the VIP section near the stage. If he let himself be dragged, something fucked was going to happen. Isaac’s warning only hardened the certainty.

Siron darted a look around. He snatched a fork off a table and drove it with all his strength into the back of the man’s hand.

“Gkk—!”

Startled, the man let go. Siron didn’t waste the opening; he hurled himself into the crush. Shoulders slammed him, feet stomped him, but he felt no pain at all. The entrance was already chaos, people shoving and falling, screams breaking out everywhere.

Worse, more shots rang out in the lobby. Realizing the area outside the doors was even more dangerous, people surged back in, and Siron was swept along helplessly with the flow.

“Close the doors! Don’t let them in!”

As dozens of bodies fought to pass through at once, someone shouted urgently. Some of them, blood-soaked and half out of their minds, shoved through the crowd screaming someone’s name and trying to force their way outward. Watching the melee of door-closers and door-crashers tangle into a vision of hell, Siron swallowed dryly and stumbled backward in the human tide. With each nearer gunshot, people clawed their way inward like a horde of zombies.

Suddenly a piercing, howling feedback rang out, followed by a bellow:

“There’s a terrorist among you. We’re looking for the terrorist. Help us confirm identities and we won’t kill you.”

The amplified voice boomed through the vast hall, drilling into ears.

“But if you get in our way, we can’t promise your life. Don’t get clever—get on your knees, now!”

A frigid quiet swept the carnage. Most people, realizing the armed men were not random mass shooters, felt a flicker of relief. Siron didn’t believe a word.

If terrorists were the target, at the very least the police or a military tactical unit would be here. But the man with the bullhorn sounded far too glib for a trained operator, and needlessly menacing to civilians.

“Move back. No funny ideas—move, move!”

Firing warning shots into the marble floor, they herded the crowd into the hall like livestock.

Crazy bastards. You’re really going this far?

They weren’t hunting terrorists. They were here for Siron, Baekgyeong, and Isaac. And damn it all, Siron was the kind of face that stood out in this room, which made not being seen the most important thing. He crawled under a long buffet table whose cloth fell to the floor and blocked line of sight.

If the main doors were impossible, there were three fallback routes. The VIP lounge emergency exit; the server station to the outside. The third wouldn’t come to him in the panic. He’d gamed out several worst cases and made his own preparations, but a situation where no one could pass through the doors at all—he’d never imagined it.

Shrugging off his vest, Siron crawled along the floor under the tables, then slipped out with a terrified group through the staff door connecting the hall and the server station. Only a short corridor lay between them.

He made it to the server station by a hair, but men in black tactical gear with half their faces covered had already seized it.

They had the incoming crowd on their knees in rows, checking faces one by one.

Before they noticed him, Siron hurried back and slid under the tables again. He clawed through his memory, grasping for the magic of The Secret—that if you want it badly enough, thought becomes reality. He was sure the hotel plans had shown an unexpected path to the outside.

The trapdoor in the stage.

Scrunching his brain until it ached, Siron finally recalled the third option. Dead center of the stage, a passage led from backstage to the machinery room. Midway along that passage there was a door to a corridor with an emergency stairwell.

He cautiously poked his head out from the tablecloth and checked the surroundings. The VIP seats were empty. Right after the shots, the guards must have evacuated the VIPs separately. But the man who had crushed Siron’s earpiece was still here. He stood on a table, watching the entrance, hunting for Siron.

Siron took a deep breath to steady his pounding heart. The stage was maybe twenty meters away. Doable. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the entrance, and the fallen tables and fixtures would give him some cover.

And there was no other choice. The gunmen were rapidly matching faces to phone screens.

They have our photos.

Siron felt his heart drop through the floor.