Chapter 3

9PM. A WAREHOUSE.

The warehouse sat on a hillside overlooking Korevia, a forgotten relic from a time when industry meant something different in this city. The corrugated iron roof was rusted in patches, the red-brown flakes peeling away to reveal the weathered metal beneath.

The walls were stained with decades of rain and neglect, their once-bright paint faded to a dull, mottled gray. But the location was perfect—high enough to see everything, remote enough that no one came looking, isolated enough that the sounds of violence could be swallowed by the wind.

From the window, the city sprawled below like a circuit board of light, pulsing with the heartbeat of millions living, loving, fighting, and dying. The lights stretched in every direction, a vast grid of yellow and white and occasional red, the arteries of a metropolis that never truly slept.

The distant hum of traffic was a constant background noise, a reminder that the world continued to turn, indifferent to the dramas unfolding in its shadows.

A figure sat on the window rail, one leg dangling over the edge, the other bent against the frame for balance. The night wind tugged at her clothes, carrying the distant sounds of traffic, music, and the occasional burst of laughter from somewhere far below.

But the figure didn't react. She was as still as the rusted machinery in the corners, as patient as the shadows that pooled around her.

She had learned long ago that stillness was a weapon, that the ability to remain motionless for hours was a skill that separated the amateurs from the professionals.

Ava's eyes darted across the cityscape, not admiring the view, but cataloging it. Every flicker of light, every shadow that moved, every blind spot where danger could hide.

She had been trained to see the world as a chessboard—every person a piece, every building a potential vantage point, every dark corner an ambush waiting to happen. The city was a living organism, and she was a virus that had been designed to exploit its weaknesses.

She had a roll of tobacco between her fingers, thin and expertly rolled, the paper a pale brown against her dark skin. She brought it to her lips and took a long, slow drag, holding the smoke in her lungs for a moment before releasing it in a slow, controlled stream.

The smoke curled upward, dissipating into the darkness like a ghost escaping a grave, a brief moment of warmth in the chill of the night air.

She was dressed in a tight-fitted black dress that covered her body completely except for her hands and face. The material was matte, designed to absorb light rather than reflect it, to make her blend into the shadows rather than stand out against them.

It was not a dress in the traditional sense—it was a second skin, a uniform, a warning. It had been tailored to her body, every seam designed for maximum mobility, every inch of fabric chosen for its ability to silence sound and conceal movement.

The room smelled of tobacco. It was her taste, her signature, the one small comfort she allowed herself in a life stripped of almost everything else.

The scent mingled with the metallic tang of old machinery and the faint, coppery smell that always seemed to linger in places where violence had been planned. It was a smell she had grown accustomed to, and had learned to find almost comforting in its familiarity.

Her burner phone beeped—a short, sharp sound that cut through the silence like a blade. She didn't reach for it immediately.

Instead, she took another drag, letting the nicotine do its work, calming the edges of her mind, smoothing the rough corners of her thoughts. The smoke filled her lungs, warm and familiar, a small pleasure in a life that offered few of them.

Then, with a practiced indifference, she pulled the phone from a hidden pocket and glanced at the screen.

A message. Brief.

Encrypted. The kind of message that changed lives and ended them.

She read it once, then again. Her expression didn't change—it rarely did—but something flickered behind her eyes.

Annoyance, perhaps. Or resignation.

The mission parameters had shifted. They always did.

The targets changed, the objectives evolved, but the underlying truth remained the same: she was a tool, a weapon, a thing to be pointed and fired.

She rolled her eyes—a rare moment of genuine emotion, a crack in the carefully constructed mask—and pocketed the phone. She took one last look at the city below, at the millions of souls who had no idea what moved in the shadows above them, and then she threw the roll of tobacco out the window.

It spun end over end, a tiny comet falling toward the lights below, until it disappeared into the darkness.

She jumped down from the window rail, landing silently on the concrete floor. Her bare feet made no sound—she had learned to walk without noise before she had learned to read, and had practiced the art of silence until it became second nature.

The floor was cold against her soles, gritty with years of accumulated dust and grime.

She crossed the room to a table where a document and a briefcase lay waiting. The table was old, scarred with the marks of use, its surface covered in a fine layer of dust that she had disturbed when she placed the items there earlier.

The document was thin—just a few pages—but it contained everything she needed. Target name.

Location. Security details.

Escape routes. Preferred method of termination.

The kind of information that turned a stranger into a victim, that transformed an abstract concept into a real person with a life and a family and a future that was about to be cut short.

She picked it up and glanced through it, her eyes moving quickly, absorbing information like a sponge. Her gaze flicked across the pages, cataloging the details, filing them away in the organized compartments of her mind.

The face of the target—a man in his fifties, overweight, with the kind of arrogant confidence that came from power and money. The layout of the building—a penthouse in Ikena, three floors, a private elevator, a rooftop garden.

The rotation schedule of the guards—twelve men, working in shifts, a predictable pattern that could be exploited.

She dropped the document back on the table and turned her attention to the briefcase.

It was a standard issue case—black, nondescript, unremarkable. The kind of case that could be found in any airport, any hotel, any office.

But inside was anything but standard. She pulled the latches, and the case opened with a soft click, revealing a custom interior fitted for the tools of her trade.

Knives. Small, balanced, wicked-sharp.

She picked them up one by one, feeling the weight, testing the edge with her thumb. The blades glinted in the dim light, each one a work of art and an instrument of death.

They were made of high-carbon steel, forged to hold an edge that could slice through flesh like paper. She strapped them to her body—one to her forearm, one to her thigh, one hidden in the small of her back.

Each had a purpose. Each had a name.

Each had claimed lives before, and would claim more before the night was done.

Two pistols. Compact, suppressed, deadly accurate at close range.

She checked the magazines, racked the slides, and tucked them into holsters hidden beneath her dress. The weight of them was familiar, a comfort in its own way.

She had been carrying weapons since she was twelve years old, had learned to sleep with them, eat with them, live with them. They were extensions of her body, as natural as her arms or her legs.

Syringes. Filled with strange liquids—some designed to kill, others to incapacitate, others to extract information from unwilling tongues.

She took two, sliding them into a specially designed pocket in her sleeve where they would be invisible but accessible. The liquids glowed faintly in the dim light, a pale luminescence that seemed almost magical.

She closed the case, the latches snapping shut with finality, the sound of it echoing in the quiet room.

Then she put on her gloves—thin, tactile, allowing her to feel everything while leaving no prints. The material was a synthetic polymer, designed to be both durable and sensitive, to provide protection without sacrificing dexterity.

She flexed her fingers, testing the fit, making sure they didn't constrict her movements.

She pulled a black facemask over the lower half of her face, the fabric tight against her skin. Only her eyes remained visible, dark and depthless, reflecting the dim light of the warehouse.

They were the eyes of a predator, calm and focused, ready for the hunt.

Her gaze fell on the mirror that hung crookedly on the wall. It was old, cracked, spotted with age, but it reflected enough.

She saw herself—a woman in black, eyes like voids, a ghost made flesh. The image stared back at her, a stranger who wore her face, a woman she barely recognized.

She smiled at her reflection. It was not a warm smile.

It was not a friendly smile. It was the smile of a predator who had found her prey, the smile of a woman who had embraced the darkness inside her.

"Shall we begin?" she said to the woman in the mirror.

Her smirk grew wider. Her eyes glittered with cold amusement.

Then she turned and walked into the night.

Ava rode in full speed through the lonely road, the wind screaming past her helmet, the engine of the powerful motorcycle growling beneath her like a caged beast. The road was deserted at this hour—no traffic, no pedestrians, no witnesses.

Just her, the bike, and the mission. The asphalt stretched ahead of her, a black ribbon cutting through the darkness, lit only by the pale glow of her headlight.

Her eyes were fixated on the road ahead, but her attention was divided. Every few seconds, she glanced at her wristwatch—a specially designed piece of technology that was far more than a timepiece.

The face displayed a map, a pulsing dot marking her target's location, and a countdown timer that reminded her that time was never on her side. The watch was a marvel of engineering, a device that would have cost a small fortune on the open market, a tool that had been given to her by handlers who valued her success more than her safety.

The watch beeped—a soft, insistent sound that grew faster as she approached her destination. The beeping was a heartbeat, a countdown, a reminder that every second mattered.

She matched the brake, and the tire screeched in protest as the bike skidded to a stop beside the road. Dust rose in a cloud around her, settling slowly in the still night air.

The smell of dust and exhaust filled her nostrils, a familiar combination.

She glanced at the watch. The beeping stopped.

The pulsing dot was directly ahead.

She looked up and saw a cabin in the distance, its windows dark, its shape barely visible against the night sky. It was a small structure, built of wood and corrugated iron, the kind of place that had been abandoned and reclaimed countless times.

A truck was parked in front of it—a large, armored vehicle designed to transport valuable cargo. Or dangerous cargo.

Sometimes, they were the same thing.

"Sweet," she muttered, her voice muffled by the helmet. She swung her leg over the bike and dismounted, her boots silent on the packed earth.

She moved with the grace of a dancer, each step measured, each motion economical.

Just then, the cabin door opened, and two men emerged, their silhouettes sharp against the light spilling from inside. They were carrying a package—a rectangular case, metallic, heavy—which they loaded into the back of the truck.

The case glinted in the light, its surface reflecting the dim glow like a mirror.

"Baba, everything don set. Make we go," one of them said, wiping his hands on his trousers.

He was large, broad-shouldered, the kind of man who relied on size to intimidate. His face was weathered, his eyes tired, the eyes of a man who had seen too much and was too weary to care.

His gaze drifted across the clearing, and then stopped.

He had seen the bike.

He raised his brow in confusion, staring at it like it had appeared from nowhere. Which, in a sense, it had.

"Una see that bike there as we dey enter?" he asked his colleague, jerking his chin toward the motorcycle.

The other man—smaller, wiry, nervous—glanced at the bike and then quickly away. His eyes darted, his hands twitched, his whole body radiated anxiety.

"E fit be say na we no see am. Forget am, make we dey go, ahbeg."

"You sure?" The large man hesitated, his hand hovering near the gun holstered at his hip. He was a professional, trained to notice things, and trained to trust his instincts.

But he was also tired, and the promise of a warm bed and a cold drink was a powerful lure.

"Baba, I beg you." The smaller man climbed into the truck's driver seat, his voice tight with impatience. "Abeg, forget this thing."

The large man shrugged—convinced, or perhaps just unwilling to argue—and joined his colleague. The truck's headlights blazed to life, cutting through the darkness in twin beams of white light.

The engine rumbled, coughed, then settled into a low growl.

Ava pressed herself against the wall of the cabin, hidden in the shadow of the doorway. She could feel the vibrations of the truck through the ground, could smell the diesel exhaust, could hear the muttered conversation of the men inside.

Seconds later, the truck rolled past, close enough that she could have reached out and touched it.

Through the window, she saw the two men staring at the bike as they passed.

"You sure say this bike dey here?" the driver asked, his voice doubtful.

"Baba, forget this thing! Ah!" His colleague groaned, frustrated now.

"You see wahala for where no dey!"

Ava waited until the truck had passed, then came out of her hiding place. She mounted the bike, turned the key, and revved the engine.

The sound was loud in the quiet night, a declaration of intent.

She made a U-turn and followed the truck.

The driver saw her through the side mirror. His eyes widened.

He leaned in to get a better view, his mouth opening to warn his colleague.

"Wait o..."

Ava pointed a pistol. The driver's words died in his throat.