CHAPTER 32: EXPOSED
Three nights later, Karen and I were the last ones in the office.
Matt had disappeared again—"client meeting," the excuse wearing thinner each time he used it. Foggy had gone home early, unable to be in the same room as his absent partner. Which left Karen buried in bar complaint research and me cross-referencing shell company filings with the private investigators' latest batch of findings.
The coffee pot had burned dry an hour ago. Neither of us had bothered to refill it.
"I think I found something," Karen said, breaking the silence. "Look at this—Westfield Holdings filed permits for construction equipment the same day they acquired the buildings. They knew they were getting them before the sales closed."
"Inside information?"
"More like coordination. Someone in the city planning office had to be feeding them data." She made a note. "Ben can use this. It's not enough to prove Fisk's involvement directly, but it's another thread to pull."
The door exploded inward.
Four men. Black tactical gear. Faces covered. One of them had a gun already raised, pointed at Karen.
"Down on the ground! Now!"
Everything after that happened in fragments.
Karen's gasp of fear. The crash of files scattering as one of the men swept the conference table. My heart slamming against my ribs, blood roaring in my ears.
Four opponents. Four genuine threats, armed and dangerous and about to hurt someone I cared about.
The power woke up.
Enhancement flooded through me like fire—not the moderate boost from facing street thugs, something stronger. These men radiated competence, training, violence. My body responded to the threat with proportional force.
The gunman was my first target. I crossed the distance before he could track me, seized his wrist, twisted. The weapon discharged into the ceiling. I drove my elbow into his solar plexus, felt ribs flex under the impact, and he went down choking.
Two and three came at me together. Coordinated. Professional. They'd done this before—cornering targets, neutralizing resistance. But they'd never faced someone like me.
I pivoted, used the momentum of two's punch to spin him into three. They collided, tangled, and I hit them both—three rapid strikes, throat, solar plexus, temple. Two went down hard. Three staggered, tried to recover, and I swept his legs out from under him.
Four was smart. Four had used the confusion to grab Karen, knife pressed against her throat.
"Don't move," he said. "Or she bleeds."
The enhancement was screaming at me to attack. Every instinct said move, strike, end this. But Karen's eyes were wide with terror, and the knife was already dimpling her skin.
I forced myself to stillness.
"Let her go."
"Back up. Hands where I can see them."
I backed up. Raised my hands. The power thrummed through me, demanding release, but I held it tight. One wrong move and Karen would pay for it.
"What do you want?" I asked. Keep him talking. Find an opening.
"The files. All of them." His eyes darted to the scattered documents. "Your investigation into Wilson Fisk ends tonight."
Karen made a sound—part sob, part defiance. Even with a knife at her throat, she wasn't going to give them what they wanted without a fight.
Four made a mistake. He looked at the files.
I moved.
The enhancement made me fast—fast enough to cross the distance before his eyes came back to me. I grabbed his knife hand, wrenched it away from Karen's throat, and drove my forehead into his nose. Bone crunched. He screamed.
Karen scrambled away. I finished Four with a kick to the knee that dropped him, then a punch that put him to sleep.
Silence.
Four bodies on the ground, groaning or unconscious. Files scattered everywhere. A hole in the ceiling from the discharged weapon. And Karen, pressed against the far wall, staring at me like she'd never seen me before.
Because she hadn't. Not really. Not like this.
"Roy..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "What are you?"
My hands were shaking. Not from the crash—that was coming, I could feel it building—but from fear. I'd almost lost her. And now she knew.
"Someone who was given a chance to help," I said. The words came out hoarse. "Please, Karen. Please don't tell anyone."
She didn't answer. Just kept staring, processing, trying to reconcile the man she'd known with the thing she'd just witnessed.
I pulled out my phone and called 911. Reported a break-in, four intruders, no serious injuries. The professional lie that would keep questions at a minimum.
The police would be here in minutes. We needed a story. We needed—
"We were working late," Karen said suddenly. Her voice had steadied, shifting into something harder. "They broke in. You fought them off. Self-defense."
I looked at her.
"That's what happened," she continued. "That's what we'll tell them. The details..." She gestured vaguely. "Adrenaline. Everything's a blur."
She was covering for me. Already, automatically, even though she didn't understand what she'd seen.
"Karen—"
"Tomorrow." She cut me off. "Tomorrow, you're going to tell me everything. But right now, we have a story to stick to."
The police arrived twelve minutes later. We gave our statements. Four men in custody, charged with breaking and entering, assault, possession of illegal weapons. The firm's files were preserved—scattered but intact.
Karen went home with a police escort. She looked back at me once before the car pulled away. Her expression was unreadable.
Tomorrow, I'd have to explain. Tomorrow, everything could fall apart.
Tonight, I just hoped I hadn't ruined everything.
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