She didn’t hesitate. She scrambled backward, turned, and fled through the broken door, disappearing into the night. The Wolf, after another second of stunned panic, abandoned his fight with Veer and leaped back out the shattered window, retreating in absolute fear.
The room was suddenly quiet, save for Sparrow’s whimpering and the soft dripping of blood from the dead Chaleon onto the floor.
Veer stood panting, staring at the body. "What the hell was that?"
Kaya’s sassy confidence was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating intensity she hadn’t felt in a long ti. She walked slowly over to the corpse, kneeling to examine the wound. It was an impossibly clean, thin cut, made by sothing unseen.
"That," she said softly, her voice laced with a new kind of dread, "was the broker."
The ga had just changed. He wasn’t just watching anymore. He was playing. And he could kill his own n from a distance, without a trace. This was the power she was truly up against.
Seeing this, Kaya’s eyes turned cold, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. The thrill of the fight was gone, replaced by a chilling clarity.
Sparrow slowly poked his head out from behind the overturned table he’d been cowering under. He looked around at the destroyed room, the shattered glass, and the dead chaleon beastman on the floor. Trembling, he slowly transford back into his human form, his big, almond-like eyes wide with fear and confusion.
"What... what happened?" he asked, his voice shaking. "How did you kill him?"
Kaya shook her head, gritting her teeth. "Not ."
Veer, still breathing heavily from his fight with the wolf, spoke up. "That broker is really cruel, huh? Killing his own n. Making sure they don’t fall into our hands."
Sparrow paused. He had seen the scene unfold, but he had been so out of his senses with terror that he couldn’t even process how the Chaleon had died. He looked at Kaya and asked, "But why would he kill him? If the Chaleon had hit Cutie, there was a high chance Cutie would have died. Then why?"
Kaya paused, her cold gaze turning to him. "Because we have seen all three faces," she said quietly. Then, she looked up toward the dark sky visible through the shattered window. "And because the ti is up."
Sparrow followed her gaze. Outside, the last vestiges of twilight had faded. Night had fully fallen. The given ti—three days—had already been up for a long ti.
He looked at her, his confusion deepening. "But they almost had us. They would have killed us. So why?"
Kaya let out a soft, humorless laugh. "You know, the most illegal, unlawful, and every type of bad cri has a really systematic and strict system," she explained, her voice sharp and clinical. "They need to do their work by the given ti. And being a hitman ans you have to kill your target before the ti is finished. They missed it."
Sparrow stared at her, still not understanding. "But... they’re his hitn. Why would he kill his own people?"
A cold, mirthless smirk spread across Kaya’s face. "Yeah, they are," she said, her tone dripping with disdain. "But if you have a kingdom, you can get as many knights as you want."
The implication hung heavy in the silent, destroyed room. To the broker, these top-tier assassins were nothing more than disposable pawns. Their failure was their death sentence, and he had carried it out himself, with terrifying, unseen power.
Kaya looked at the dead chaleon, then at the empty spaces where the other two had been.
Kaya turned on her heel, her movents sharp and radiating a fury that made the air crackle. The storm brewing in her eyes promised violence. As she strode out of the destroyed room, her voice cut through the silence, cold as ice.
"Also discard that mongoose body too."
Sparrow, who was just starting to feel a sliver of relief, froze completely. "What?" he whispered, horrified. The mongoose was their only lead, their prisoner.
But without explaining anything, Kaya was already gone, the door swinging shut behind her. Cutie, ever her silent shadow, followed her hurriedly, unwilling to leave her alone in this state.
Veer and Sparrow were left in the wreckage. Veer surveyed the room—the splintered door, the shattered glass, the dead chaleon oozing blood onto the floor—and let out an annoyed sigh. He shrugged his shoulders and said in a slight grumbling tone, "Now I have to find a new place for us to live."
Seeing this, Sparrow was utterly dumbfounded. How could he be worried about real estate at a ti like this?
Driven by a grim curiosity, Veer and a trembling Sparrow went to the room where the mongoose had been chained. Just as Kaya had commanded, the mongoose was already dead. He hadn’t been killed ssily. Across his throat was the sa impossibly clean, thin line that had appeared on the Chaleon. The broker had been here too.
But the horror didn’t end there. Monts later, one of Veer’s n reported in from outside. The bodies of the other hitn—the Wolf and the Snake Woman who had fled—had been found dumped unceremoniously in the alley behind the hotel. They were dead, discarded like trash, each with the sa clean, precise cut across their neck.
The ssage was brutally clear. It was a direct warning from the broker to Kaya, a taunt shown with her own eyes. The people she planned to break, the leads she hoped to interrogate, had already been silenced. He had wiped the board clean of all her potential pieces, demonstrating his reach and his absolute ruthlessness.
Kaya was beyond angry. She stood on the hotel rooftop, the cold night wind whipping her hair as she stared out at the sprawling city lights. Her fists were clenched so tightly her knuckles were white.
Until now, it was just a chasing and hiding ga—a strategic dance where Kaya believed she held the upper hand. She was the hunter, setting traps, manipulating pieces, always three steps ahead. It was calculated, controlled, almost enjoyable in its complexity.
But now, the broker has touched a nerve.
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