A Second Opinion

"He was trying to snap my neck," I said, driving the needle through for the seventh stitch. "In my neighborhood, when someone tries to kill you, you don't ask for a second opinion."

Radek's chest rumbled with a low, appreciative vibration. "Anton used to say the exact same thing."

"Did he?"

"Every time Tibor tried to negotiate a dock tax," Radek murmured. "Anton didn't give speeches. He drew a line in the gravel and told them to step across."

"And Tibor killed him for it."

"Tibor ambushed him on a bridge with twelve men and three rifles," Radek said, his gray eyes turning cold as winter river ice. "Anton took down eight of them before he died. Tibor only survived because he hid behind his vanguard."

I pulled the eighth and final knot tight, snipping the nylon close to the skin. The five-inch laceration was closed in a neat, straight row of black sutures, the bleeding stopped, the edges cleanly sealed.

"Done," I said, setting the needle driver on the sterile drape.

I peeled off the nitrile gloves, dropping them into the waste pouch, and picked up a roll of sterile gauze and elastic wrap. I dressed the wound with antibiotic ointment, laid a thick pad over the stitches, and wrapped his shoulder snugly with the elastic bandage, pinning it secure with metal clips.

Radek flexed his left arm experimentally. The muscle pulled tight against the dressing, but the suture line held firm.

"Clean work," he said, looking at the bandage.

"Don't lift anything over twenty pounds with that arm for forty-eight hours," I said.

He let out a short, dry huff of laughter. "In forty-eight hours, we'll either have the ring or we'll be dead in a vat."

"I'm serious, Krizsek. If you pop those sutures, I'm using heavy fishing line and no ointment next time."

"Understood, Doctor."

I packed my shears and supplies back into the red jump bag, zipping it shut. The adrenaline had completely burned out of my bloodstream now, leaving my limbs heavy with exhaustion. I wiped my face with the back of my sleeve, smearing dust across my cheek.

"Alright," I said, leaning back against the warehouse wall. "Kolar said the ring is in Tibor's vault beneath the copper mash tuns. How do we get inside?"

Radek reached into his haversack and pulled out a heavy brass grease pencil and a folded sheet of butcher paper. He flattened the paper across the top of an empty wooden barrel between us.

With swift, practiced strokes, he began drawing the layout of the Zemanek Brewery.

"The brewery isn't just a processing plant," Radek explained, tapping the paper with the pencil. "It's a fortress built on the old foundations of the Blazsek family estate. Three square blocks of red brick, surrounded by ten-foot iron walls and razor wire."

He sketched a rectangular perimeter, marking the north edge along the river.

"The river dock is the intake flume," he continued. "Grain barges arrive three times a week. The lower levels are flooded with runoff and yeast slurries, connecting directly into the storm drainage system. That's our entry point."

"Why not the front gates?" I asked.

"Because the front gates have twenty armed guards, two scent-tracking checkpoints, and motion sensors linked directly to the river precinct dispatch," Radek said dryly. "Unless you want to defibrillate twenty wolves in a row, we go in through the wet pipe."

"I'm listening."

Radek drew a detailed cross-section of the main brewery building.

"The main floor holds the primary brew house," he said. "Four massive copper mash tuns, each holding twenty thousand gallons of boiling wort. The heat and steam in that room are intense. It masks all scent profiles. Tibor’s enforcers can’t track by smell inside the mash house."

He traced the pencil down into the subterranean cellar beneath the tuns.

"Below the mash floor is the old Blazsek cellar," Radek said, his voice dropping into a reverent, focused tone. "Anton built it eighty years ago out of reinforced river stone and iron beams. When Tibor took over, he sealed the main entrance and turned the inner sanctum into his personal vault."

"What's guarding the vault?" I asked.

"A three-inch solid iron door with a four-tumbler mechanical lock," Radek replied. "No electronics. No bypass. Tibor keeps the master key on his person at all times."

"And the signet ring is inside?"

"Anton’s ring, the old pack ledgers, and twenty years of syndicate payoff records," Radek said. "If we get that door open, we don't just take your father's birthright. We get the proof that exposes Tibor's murder of Anton to every elder and syndicate boss in the province."

My heart pounded against my ribs. A concrete plan. An actual target.

"How do we get Tibor's key?" I asked.

A slow, grim smile spread across Radek's scarred face. It wasn't a comforting expression, but it had the sharp, deadly certainty of a predator who had found his opening.

"We don't pickpocket him in the dark," Radek said. "We let him open the floor for us."

"Explain."

Radek tapped the butcher paper right above the mash cellar.

"Tomorrow night is the autumn equinox," he said. "The annual St. Jude mash-run syndicate feast. Tibor hosts sixty people in the upper taproom—dock bosses, councilmen, corrupt precinct captains, and pack elders. He opens the season's first batch of barleywine."

"A syndicate party," I said, raising an eyebrow. "Sounds cozy."

"It's chaotic," Radek said. "Barges will be unloading grain at the dock until midnight. Three brass bands playing in the courtyard. Roasting hogs over the open pits. Forty barrels of high-proof mash tapped in the main hall. And at ten o'clock, pack tradition requires Tibor to descend to the cellar to tap the ceremonial keg with the alpha signet on his hand."

The pieces clicked together in my head with clean, lethal logic.

"The noise and the roasting meat will drown our scent and sounds," I said, leaning over the blueprint. "The guards will be drinking. And Tibor will bring the key and the ring straight down to the cellar."

"Exactly," Radek said. "We infiltrate through the river intake flume during the barge unloading at nine. We wait in the sub-level mash conduit until Tibor comes down to tap the keg. We isolate him, secure the vault, and take the ring."

I looked at the pencil sketch on the rough butcher paper. It was dangerous. It was reckless. If we made a single mistake, we would be trapped in a subterranean stone vault beneath forty armed werewolves.

And yet, looking at Radek's steady, unyielding gaze, I didn't feel fear.

I felt the quiet, cold hum of certainty.

I reached into my pocket and touched the heavy brass Blazsek token. Twenty years ago, my father was murdered on a bridge, his legacy stolen by a usurper who hid behind gold and iron. Tomorrow night, the river city would remember who the Blazseks were.

"Tomorrow night," I said, looking straight into Radek's eyes.

Radek closed his hand over mine on the wooden barrel. His palm was warm, rough, and solid, sending a deep shudder of anticipation straight down my spine.

"Tomorrow night, Lenka," he said, his voice a low promise. "We take back your city."