Bounty Hunter [REWRITTEN VERSION]

Chapter 60: Burn

MAIZE
Two years ago, 3 months later

There was a notepad in front of her face from where she sat in a morning coffee shop just outside of the area her last job had been pulled off. She watched the work on the streets outside; officers in navy and blue were warding off the blocked area across the street while others were leading out a dozen or so men and women in rough condition. The news was that a call had been made on accounts of suspicious sounds having been reported in the night. By morning, the police had found several dozen members of the Morako family gang all tied up in binds prepared for arrest like a nice present on Christmas day. A spectacle as to who was responsible, as from what she could hear, no one had been able to identify the suspect.

She watched, sipping a warm coffee as the members were taken away, blazing angry, as the building they had been using to smuggle heroin and other substances was being detained by the enforcement officers.

Maize ran a line through the name and address on the notepad before her. Several already had similar lines through different places dating back three months since she had begun her solo escapade; taking out every single branch of the Morako syndicate's extended family.

Now, all that was left was one more. The centrepiece of where it had all started.

* * *

Night.

Infiltrate.

Set the explosives.

Get out.

That was the plan. Straightforward. Simple. No hesitation.

It had been a few months, but her anger was ever fresh, as if the turning point in this whole contrapted mess had happened only yesterday.

They thought they could use her. They thought she was no better than the knives she carried, a chained weapon for them to unleash as they pleased. Only for them to turn and spit her back out, try to molten her iron, snap her blade from its hilt, the moment they realized nobody could wield her but herself. Then they thought they could end her.

Well if she was no better than a blade in their eyes, they were no better than the red circled targets in hers.

A dagger was a dagger. And a target was a target.

In other words, she was about to rein hell on them. In exactly the same manner they thought they could manipulate her through; the reactors were set. It was a perfect mockery of the very mission she had refused to fulfill before they turned on her. Sweet irony seeped gleefully through her bones. She was inside the mansion, running through the large basement halls where the garage would be her exit point. She knew the layout like the back of her hand—one of the biggest risks the gang had most likely thought of knowing she was still alive and at large. The detonator was right in her pocket. She knew that the only thing left to do was get out, say sayonara, and then set the damned place ablaze with the end of a counting down clock.

Everything had gone smoothly, she had run into no problems other than the guards and what had been expected. She had thought of every scenario she might come across and how to get out of it. More guards than expected? She had knives and boots for that. A cleaning lady—though the house had never had anyone outside of the gang work anywhere near the house? Shoo her the hell away from there, tell her to get at least a few dozen hundred meters away, and then enjoy the show. Security measures? They were nothing to her, she still had all of the codes.