Dante barely had time to adjust to the new weight in his blood before the walls shook—not the tremor of a mere impact, but something deeper, more fundamental. The kind of quake that came when reality itself held its breath.

  A deep, resonant boom rolled through the Undermarket like a war drum struck from the other side of the world. No—the other side of reality. The air thinned, not in the way of rising altitude, but as if something vast and unseen was drinking it in, pulling the breath from lungs, the substance from matter.

  Dante turned, pulse hammering in his throat.

  The Broker only smiled, adjusting his cuffs with casual amusement. “Ah. Right on schedule.”

  The crowd of Pactmakers and traders parted without a word, without a sound, like a tide withdrawing before the oncoming storm. They knew. They all knew. And that meant Dante was in more trouble than he had realized.

  Through the parted bodies, it entered.

  A low-level Enforcer.

  Humanoid, barely. It wore a suit—immaculate, pressed, precise—but there was something wrong about it. Too stiff, too rigid, like it had been constructed for a body that only approximated human proportions. Its posture was unnervingly perfect, a machine’s interpretation of grace.

  Then there was the face. Or rather, the absence of one.

  Smooth. Blank. A slab of featureless flesh, as if someone had forgotten to carve the details. No eyes. No mouth. No humanity.

  It was the kind of wrong that made the brain rebel, the eyes slide off it like they refused to process what they were seeing. A thing shaped like a man, but not built to be one. Its presence exuded an unnatural stillness, like the world itself hesitated around it, uncertain whether to acknowledge its existence. It didn’t breathe. Didn’t shift its weight. Didn’t do anything a living thing should do. It simply was. And somehow, that was worse.

  The Undermarket, for all its cutthroat deals and dangerous patrons, knew fear—and fear knew when to shut up. The crowd had gone utterly silent. Pactmakers who had spent their lives dancing on the knife’s edge of legality and survival now stood frozen, pressing themselves against stalls and walls, making themselves small. Even the air felt thinner, like the place itself was trying to shrink away. No one ran. Running implied there was somewhere safe to go.

  Dante swallowed hard, pulse a drumbeat in his skull. He had no debts large enough to warrant an Enforcer. Not one of these. Low-level or not, they didn’t send them for minor infractions. These were for the ones who ran too long, who owed too much, who thought they could cheat the system and walk away. Debtors who had forgotten the first rule of a Pact: the House always collects.

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  No mercy.

  It moved with the slow, patient inevitability of a collector who never left empty-handed.

  Dante didn’t need to ask why it was here. The moment its hollow, eyeless gaze fixed onto him, his contract burned—not metaphorically, not in guilt or realization, but literally, a searing brand ripping through his veins like molten ink.

  Then, a sound.

  A single word.

  Grating, heavy, and absolute.

  “Payment.”

  Dante’s stomach twisted into knots. Shit.

  The Enforcer didn’t lunge. It didn’t sprint. There was no wasted motion, no build-up, no warning. One moment it stood across the room, the next—it was simply closer. The space between them erased as if it had never existed, a blink of reality rewritten without Dante’s consent. His breath hitched, a primal, lizard-brain terror seizing his chest. It wasn’t just fast. It was inevitable.

  The Pactmark on his arm burned. A silent scream in his blood, a demand, a reminder. Whatever was inside him—whatever weight had settled in his veins when he signed—it knew this thing. Knew it, and feared it, and wanted, more than anything, to fight back. But Dante wasn’t a fighter. He was a guy who skipped rent and talked his way out of bar tabs, who survived on luck and charm and knowing when to run.

  But there was nowhere to run.

  And the Enforcer was almost on him.

  Then—it moved.

  Not like a person. Not like anything with joints and muscles and the reasonable laws of physics. One moment, it was across the room. The next, it was nearly on him.

  Dante barely threw himself aside in time as a hand like sculpted marble slammed into the stone floor where he’d just been standing. The impact wasn’t just strong—it was cataclysmic. The ground cracked, spiderweb fractures racing outward like something ancient and hungry had just woken beneath them.

  Fast. Too fast.

  Dante staggered back, heart hammering against his ribs. He wasn’t a fighter. He wasn’t some hardened criminal or a battle-scarred warrior. He was a bartender. A deadbeat. A guy who could duck a thrown punch in a back-alley brawl, sure, but this?

  This was something else.

  The Enforcer straightened, its movements slow, methodical. Its head tilted in a way that almost—almost—suggested mild disappointment.

  Then it raised its hand again.

  And Dante’s right arm moved on its own.

  A pulse—deep, shuddering, like a second heartbeat surging through his veins.

  The burning lines of his Pact ignited, and for the briefest moment, the world around him blurred.

  His fingers flexed—blackened energy twisting between them. Not flame, not lightning, but something colder, something hungry.

  His instincts screamed.

  Use it.

  He threw his hand forward.

  The shadows answered.

  A tendril of ashen darkness lashed out, streaking toward the Enforcer and striking it dead center in the chest. It didn’t flinch. But the attack stuck.

  Not just a hit—a hold. The tendrils clung like living chains, wrapping tighter, siphoning something unseen.

  Dante gasped. He could feel it.

  The connection.

  This wasn’t just binding the Enforcer. It was draining it.

  The Enforcer jerked. Its smooth, featureless face cracked. A thin fracture ran down the center like a fissure in porcelain.

  For the first time—it hesitated.

  Dante’s pulse slammed against his ribs.

  I can fight.

  Not just survive. Not just run.

  Win.

  The Enforcer straightened again, its body adjusting. Learning. Preparing for the next move.

  Dante exhaled sharply, and without thinking, without knowing, he shifted his stance—one he’d never learned, but somehow understood.

  The Broker chuckled from the sidelines, arms crossed, watching with keen amusement.

  “Well, well.”

  He tilted his head, grin widening.

  “Looks like you might just survive your first debt after all.”