Chapter 593: Mierda, You’re Dangerous
Chapter 593: Mierda, You’re Dangerous
Veronica laughed. The sound was warm. Genuine in a way her corporate persona rarely allowed.
The briefing room for the A-Rank Gate operation sat two floors below the executive suite, buried in the infrastructure of Olympus Rising like a bunker within a palace. The walls were reinforced concrete behind decorative paneling. Screens covered every surface. The central holographic display projected a three-dimensional model of a Gate environment that rotated slowly, revealing layers of terrain data and threat markers in shades of red and amber.
Twelve Hunters occupied the room. All B-Rank or higher. All wearing the gold and white of Olympus Rising with the casual comfort of people who’d bled in those colors. They looked at me with varying degrees of curiosity when I walked in.
Helena guided me to an observation chair against the back wall. Maki sat on my lap. I watched.
The briefing was run by a woman named Commander Reyes, mid-thirties, buzz cut, a scar that started at her left temple and disappeared into her collar. She spoke about the Gate the way a surgeon speaks about a tumor. Clinical. Thorough. Every detail assigned a probability and a contingency.
The Gate had appeared three days ago in the industrial district. B-Rank initial assessment, upgraded to A-Rank after the preliminary scouting team encountered resistance consistent with high-tier Boss spawns. Estimated hostile population of two hundred D-Rank cannon fodder supporting approximately thirty C-Rank elites and a Boss entity of unknown classification.
"Unknown classification" meant something had surprised the scouts enough to pull back and request a full tactical team.
I listened. Absorbed. Filed away every detail about formation doctrine, communication protocols, retreat procedures, and loot division hierarchies.
This was how the real world operated. Not the Academy’s controlled simulations. Not tournament arenas with safety protocols and referees. This was the machinery that kept humanity alive against the things that crawled through the wounds in reality.
And somewhere in that machinery, my father had built something that changed the rules.
After the briefing, I spent twenty minutes in the hallway waiting for the elevator when Reyna appeared.
She wore training clothes. Red tank top. Black compression shorts. Her crimson hair pulled back in a braid that showed the elegant lines of her neck and jaw. The regeneration sleeve was gone, replaced by a simple wrap around her forearm that she probably didn’t need anymore but wore out of habit.
"Heard you crashed Veronica’s breakfast meeting."
"I was invited."
"Veronica invites people the way a spider invites flies. With extremely comfortable seating and no visible exits."
"Your sister is terrifying."
"I know." She grinned. "I taught her everything she knows."
We stood in the hallway. Morning light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows and turned her hair into something that belonged in a Renaissance painting. Crimson and copper and gold where the sun caught the highlights.
Her eyes dropped to the cat on my shoulder.
"Two tails."
"Birth defect."
"That cat is staring at me like I owe it money."
Maki blinked slowly. Twice. The feline equivalent of a threat assessment.
"She does that."
Reyna reached out and scratched behind Maki’s ears. Maki’s entire body went rigid for one second before melting into a puddle of purring surrender. Both tails wound around Reyna’s wrist.
"Traitor," I muttered.
"Animals like me." Reyna pulled her hand back. Maki made a sound of pure betrayal. "Look, about last night."
"You don’t have to explain anything."
"I’m not explaining. I’m clarifying." She crossed her arms. The tank top shifted. I kept my eyes on her face through sheer willpower and the knowledge that Natalia’s pendant would probably give me frostbite if my heartrate jumped. "The kiss outside the building. That wasn’t La Sirena performing for cameras. That was me."
"I know."
"Do you? Because I’ve spent my entire life being a product. A brand. Every smile I give in public has been focus-grouped and market-tested since I was fifteen. Last night was the first time I kissed someone because I wanted to. Not because a manager told me it would trend well."
The vulnerability in her voice hit different than Natalia’s jealousy or Emi’s devotion or Skylar’s defiance or Cel’s quiet longing. Reyna’s vulnerability was a clenched fist slowly opening. Every finger uncurling against its own instinct.
"Reyna."
"What?"
"I kissed you back."
"I noticed."
"That wasn’t strategic either."
Her emerald eyes held mine. Something crossed her expression that I’d seen once before in the tournament. After I’d absorbed her lightning and she’d looked at me like I was the first interesting thing she’d encountered in years.
"Mierda," she whispered. "Veronica was right. You are dangerous."
"Your sister thinks everyone is dangerous."
"My sister is usually right." Reyna uncrossed her arms. "I have training in twenty minutes. But tonight, after your assessment, there’s a place I go when I need to think. Rooftop garden on the forty-seventh floor. Nobody knows about it except me and the maintenance crew."
"Are you asking me on a second date?"
"I’m telling you where I’ll be. Whether you show up is your problem, not mine."
She walked away. Combat boots on marble. Each step leaving echoes that bounced off glass walls and expensive artwork.
Maki watched Reyna disappear around the corner, then turned to me with an expression that somehow conveyed deep judgment despite being a cat.
"Master collects women like Maki collects warm spots."
"Shut up."
"Maki is merely observing."
"Observe quieter."
The pendant pulsed cold against my chest. Not the burning frost of Natalia’s anger. Something slower. Steadier. The patient cold of a woman who knew exactly what was happening three hundred miles away and had decided to wait rather than react.
That was worse.
That was so much worse.
Because Natalia waiting meant Natalia planning. And Natalia planning meant I was going to pay for every elevated heartbeat, every lingering glance, every kiss that tasted like wine and poor decisions, all compiled into a comprehensive dossier of romantic transgressions that she would present with the cold fury of a prosecutor who also happened to share my bed and could freeze my blood with a thought.
I loved that woman. Genuinely. Down to the bone. Through the Covenant and past it, into something that existed before the System and would exist after it.
But I also stood in a hallway three hundred miles from home, thinking about a rooftop garden and crimson hair and the way Reyna’s voice cracked when she said the word "first."
Nel’s voice came soft. Almost gentle.
The Audience is invested.
"I bet they are."
Apollo rates this particular subplot at nine point three out of ten. Aphrodite has officially sponsored a side-pool on whether you survive Natalia’s eventual response.
"What are the odds?"
Sixty-forty against.
I touched the pendant. It pulsed once more. Warm. Brief. Like a hand reaching across an ocean to hold mine.
"Tell Aphrodite I’ll take those odds."