Chapter 1: The Betrayal at the Pier

The pier lights flickered, casting uneven pools across damp concrete. Dracona stepped from the car with her Beretta tucked inside the folds of her coat. Viktor walked two paces behind her, his suit jacket straining at the shoulders. Four of their men fanned out to the sides. She checked her watch. Ten past the agreed time already.

The buyer appeared from the far end of the warehouse, two figures at his back. He raised one hand in greeting. No briefcase. That alone set something wrong in her chest.

"You're late," she said.

"Traffic." The buyer smiled without warmth. "And we needed to confirm the manifest. Your father's paperwork always carries surprises."

She kept her expression flat. "The price we discussed remains. Half now, half on delivery. Viktor here carries the codes."

Viktor moved forward and placed the tablet on the concrete between them, the screen already glowing with encrypted keys. The buyer nodded at one of his men, who stepped ahead carrying a metal case. He set it down, flipped the latches. Inside, stacks of notes sat in neat rows. No weapons visible. That detail prickled along her spine.

Dracona watched the buyer's hands. They stayed loose at his sides. She lifted her chin slightly. Viktor opened the tablet and began the transfer sequence. Numbers scrolled. The buyer leaned over to check the screen.

A single gunshot cracked across the open space.

Viktor staggered once, then dropped hard onto his knees. The tablet slipped from his fingers and clattered sideways. Blood spread fast beneath his chest. Dracona's hand moved without thought. She drew the Beretta and fired twice in return. One of the buyer's men jerked and fell. The other scrambled back behind a rusted shipping container.

The buyer lunged for the case. She sighted and fired again. The shot went wide. He vanished into the warehouse doorway. Footsteps echoed inside. Then silence.

Her men recovered Viktor, hauling him between them toward the cars. Dracona stayed where she stood, gun still raised, breathing through her teeth. Viktor coughed once and stopped moving. One of the men checked for a pulse and shook his head.

She holstered the weapon and walked back to the lead car. The driver waited with the door already open.

"Get Viktor to the medics," she said. "The rest come with me."

No one argued.

Back at the compound, she climbed the service stairs two at a time. The war room lights burned low. Her father sat at the long table, a bandage already taped across one forearm from an earlier incident she had not yet asked about. She placed her Beretta on the polished surface and met his eyes.

"They killed Viktor and took the codes. We need leverage."

Her father studied her a moment. "Potter territory. Hit their heir."

She nodded once. "I'll handle the extraction."

The search began at midnight. Their people swept Harry Potter's usual routes, the nightclubs he frequented, the back offices where his family handled cash. Three hours in, a report came through. He had been spotted leaving a private card game two streets from the river, alone. One vehicle only. Easy.

Dracona rode in the second car of the four-vehicle team. She kept her hand on the door handle the entire ride. They caught him at the intersection where the road narrowed. Two cars boxed his in from the front. The third slid sideways across the lane behind. Her team jumped out before he could reverse.

Harry Potter fought. He landed one solid hit to the first man's jaw and nearly reached the curb before a tranq dart took him in the thigh. He went slack against the car door. They bundled him into the back seat and covered him with a tarp. The convoy left the city limits within four minutes.

Her safehouse sat behind an old textile mill on the edge of an industrial park. Reinforced doors, no windows on the ground floor, camera feeds routed to her private server. The men carried Harry inside and strapped him to a chair in the lower room. They left once the restraints held. She locked the door behind them and circled the chair once.

He came around slowly. His head lifted. Dark hair hung across his forehead. One eye focused on her, then the other. He tested the straps. They held.

"Dracona Malfoy," he said. "So this is how your family collects debts."

She pulled a chair opposite his and sat. "Your people crossed a line tonight."

"My people?" He gave a short laugh that turned into a cough. "The buyer who shot your man works for my uncle. They set me up to take the fall for the dead deal. I was there to warn the seller off, not to run it."

She studied his face. No obvious tells. Sweat at the hairline. Jaw tight. Nothing she could read for certain.

"Convenient story."

"It's the truth. The shipment you carried tonight was already flagged. My uncle sold the route to the buyer. I found out three hours before the meet. I tried to reroute the protection. They flipped the plan on me instead."

She tapped one finger against her knee. "Why tell me this?"

"Because killing me hands them exactly what they want. They lose a rival heir and gain your family's full attention. They consolidate while we burn resources on each other."

Dracona rose and walked to the small table near the wall. A bottle of water sat there. She opened it, took a sip, and set it back down. She turned to face him again.

"Your family will search. Mine will expect results. If I keep you, every hour increases the risk."

"Then decide fast," he said. "Either you use me or you don't."

She returned to her chair. The overhead bulb swayed slightly from the ventilation current. Shadows shifted across his bound wrists. She considered the angles. Leverage against the Potters meant keeping him alive. Yet any information he gave could be bait. She weighed the cost of each choice against the body count already logged tonight.

Viktor's blood still marked the hem of her coat. She had not changed clothes since the pier.

Harry watched her without blinking.

She leaned back, fingers steepled under her chin. The decision sat between them like another loaded round. She could end it here with one clean shot. Or she could leave the room and lock the door behind her. Either path would shape what came next. The room stayed quiet except for the low hum of the ventilation system working above them.