[Minutes Ago]

"Get in!" Warriyo shouted as soon as they reached the getaway car. He looked back at Nelek after loading the injured Khan inside, only to find Nelek standing there, staring at the car.

"Nelek!" he snapped. "Get it together!"

"This won’t do," Nelek muttered, scanning their surroundings before his eyes landed on Warriyo. They drifted briefly to Khan, already slumped inside. "Get his clothes."

"What?"

Without explaining himself, Nelek pushed past Warriyo and leaned into the car. He grabbed Khan’s bloody shirt and tore it clean off. He took the most saturated section, balled it up, and hurried to the front of the car.

"Nelek," Warriyo called, following him around to the hood, and stopped when he saw what Nelek was doing.

He watched, lines deepening on his face, as Nelek dragged the blood-soaked fabric across the hood in broad strokes, forming large, unmistakable letters.

[Madam’s Order]

"Madam’s order?" Warriyo whispered, baffled. "Nelek, what the hell is this?"

Still writing, Nelek explained. "Dominion will shoot us on sight. But we have to get close to them."

He straightened up and checked the letters; they looked clear enough. Then he turned to Warriyo.

"They’re not the type to listen first and ask questions later. She said she wasn’t valuable enough as leverage, but the tracker is. Let’s just hope this buys us enough time for them to hear us out."

*****

[Present Time]

"Hold fire on the white van," came a voice over the radio. "Master’s orders."

From the air, the chopper crew had spotted the writing on the hood of the white van. Those on the ground held their fire and redirected their attention to the vehicles that had been pursuing it.

Meanwhile, Nelek eased off the gas as he approached the line of cars blocking the road, glancing left and right as other vehicles swept past them without slowing down.

The blinding light from above stayed fixed on their car.

"Did... did the writing actually work?" Warriyo breathed, watching the brutal chaos unfolding behind them. He turned to Nelek, something close to awe crossing his face. "Are we safe?"

"I don’t know," Nelek answered, his breath still uneven. "For now, I think so."

Warriyo exhaled slowly, struck by how fast Nelek had thought of it.

Neither of them had genuinely believed writing on the car in Khan’s blood would work. They had only wanted to scrape their chances of reaching Dominion from nothing to something.

Who would have thought it would actually work?

Their car rolled to a stop several meters short of the blockade. Whatever relief Nelek and Warriyo had felt began to drain away as they sat there, watching armed figures hold position behind the open doors of each vehicle.

After a moment, a group of armed men approached — guns up, guards not even slightly lowered.

Nelek and Warriyo raised their hands immediately, not daring to move.

"Don’t shoot!" they called out. "We have your madam’s orders! Don’t shoot!"

They repeated it over and over until both car doors were wrenched open from the outside. Nelek and Warriyo were hauled out and pinned face-down on the ground while other Dominion members swept the interior of the car.

"There’s another one in the back!" someone shouted. "He’s injured!"

"Checking the back!"

The men moved in practiced sync, combing the vehicle for any sign of Ashley. Finding none, one of them called out to the man holding Nelek down with nothing but a boot and a rifle.

"She’s not here!"

Gin ground his teeth, eyes fixed on the man beneath his foot. He pressed the muzzle against the back of Nelek’s neck.

"Where is she?!" he growled.

Nelek winced, feeling the weight bearing down on him. "She’s still there — back at the terminal!"

"You..." Gin hissed, thumb moving to the trigger, and was about to fire when Warriyo blurted out,

"The tracker!"

Gin paused. He looked across at Vodka, who had Warriyo pinned. Vodka frowned, grabbed the man by the back of his collar, and wrenched him up slightly.

"What tracker?"

Warriyo swallowed, glancing at Nelek, then back at the man who would put a bullet in him for one wrong word.

"The madam told us to hand it over to you," Warriyo said, voice shaking. "She said it’s better leverage than her. And she said she wants to see us — all four of us later!"

Gin and Vodka exchanged a look, then glanced down at the two men on the ground.

"How do we know you’re telling the truth?" Vodka asked, receiving a nod from Gin to press further, his gun still trained on Warriyo.

Warriyo opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at Nelek.

Nelek grunted. "One of our guys stayed behind with her. We have no way to make you believe us, but that’s what she said."

"Yes!" Warriyo added quickly. "She said the tracker was better leverage than herself. She told us to come straight to Dominion. We knew you’d shoot us on sight, so Nelek came up with the writing — just to get us close enough to hand it over!"

Even so, Gin, Vodka, and the men around them remained unconvinced. By hierarchy, however, all eyes fell on Gin.

Gin’s expression hardened as he assessed the desperation on the men’s faces, then took in the state of their wrecked car. He recognized them. Before Dominion had mobilized, they had all memorized the faces of the people who had taken Ashley.

But these men had also been under attack tonight; something Dominion hadn’t anticipated. He weighed that.

But before he could decide, one of the abductors shouted.

"Madam’s orders!" Warriyo added in a rush. "That’s — that’s exactly what she said!"

Gin’s frown didn’t ease, but dismissing it outright wasn’t an option — not when Ashley’s name was attached to it. She had never invoked her title before. Whether this was genuine or not was a question for later.

"Detain these two for now," he ordered, then glanced toward the car. "And get that man some medical attention."

He turned back to Nelek. "Hand me the tracker."

Nelek and Warriyo stared — more stunned than relieved — that these men were letting them live, were getting Khan help, even while clearly not believing a word they’d said. All because of two words: Madam’s orders.

Nelek handed over the tracker, and Gin quickly worked on it on the side.

He pressed a finger to his earpiece.

"Master," he said. "The madam’s abductors just arrived. They’re carrying a tracker she reportedly told them to hand over."

He paused. "We haven’t confirmed if it was genuinely her order, but I’m sending you her assumed location now."

Gin tapped a key on his compact laptop. Across every screen in the operation, a red dot blinked into view — a precise, if unconfirmed, location.

"She’s on one of the cargo ships moving south," he added quietly. "They’re moving."

Silence fell over the line. Every person listening went still, eyes sharp.

In one of the choppers, Lucian slid the door open and looked out over the dark water below. Then he pressed his earpiece.

"Gin." His voice was calm. "If we find out they’re lying, kill them."

"Yes, Master."

He straightened and addressed the line, eyes sharp as he eyed multiple cargo ships below.

"Move."

With that, men from different choppers tossed out ropes from both sides, sliding down one after another and landing on the cargo ships nearest to where Ashley had last been seen.