The lounge smelled of old money and slow decay. Leather chairs. Low light. Cigars burning down to expensive ash. The kind of place built for men who believed time bent around them.
Ren sat across from three of them.
They wore tailored suits and practiced boredom. Syndicate men. Smugglers and brokers who spoke in percentages and funerals. Men who thought they understood power because they had survived long enough to accumulate it.
Ren leaned back in her chair.
"Number Nine wants his cut."
Lucian Graves sat in the center. Silver at the temples. Calm eyes. He took a slow pull from his cigar and exhaled without urgency.
"And if we say no"
Ren met his gaze. Did not blink.
"Then this meeting is the last quiet one you will have."
One of the men beside Lucian shifted. A small movement. A test. Ren noticed it and ignored it.
Lucian smiled faintly. "You are confident for someone walking in alone."
"I am not alone."
Silence settled.
Lucian studied her now. Not her face. Her posture. Her breathing. What she was not doing. No rush. No fear.
"And what exactly does Nine think he provides that earns him a share of our work"
Ren leaned forward just enough to change the balance of the room.
"Your routes stay open because he allows it. Your buyers stay alive because he ignores them. Your competitors disappear because he finds them inconvenient. That is not luck. That is maintenance."
The smile left Lucian's face.
"Ten percent," he said.
"No," Ren replied. "Fifteen."
"That is excessive."
"It is survivable."
Lucian tapped ash into a crystal tray. He did not look at her when he spoke again.
"You are new."
"Yes."
"And yet you make demands like you are permanent."
Ren stood.
"If you were going to refuse, you already would have."
That landed.
Lucian exhaled slowly. He gestured once. A black case was placed on the table and opened. Neatly wrapped stacks. Clean. Organized.
"First payment," he said. "Tell Nine we are square for now."
Ren closed the case.
"If this were anyone else," Lucian added quietly, "you would not be walking out."
Ren paused at the door.
"If it were anyone else," she said, "you would already be dead."
She stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her.
Only then did she take out her phone.
The call connected on the second ring.
"We agreed to fifteen percent," she said.
A pause.
Then Nine spoke. Calm. Almost absent.
"Are they comfortable"
Ren glanced back through the glass. The cigars. The drinks. The men pretending not to watch the door.
"Yes."
"And confident"
"Yes."
"Put the phone on the table."
Ren reentered the room and did exactly that.
Nine's voice filled the lounge.
"Lucian Graves."
Lucian stiffened.
"You are paying twenty five percent," Nine said. "Two million upfront."
Lucian opened his mouth.
A sound came through the phone. A sharp interruption. Someone screaming in the distance. Then silence.
Lucian went pale.
"Thirty percent," Nine continued, "three million upfront. Full access to your financials. Every account. Every intermediary."
One of the men stood.
"This is insane"
The interruption this time was shorter.
When it ended, no one spoke.
Nine's voice returned, unchanged.
"If you delay, you will lose everything you still care about."
Lucian swallowed.
"We will comply."
"I know," Nine said. "Send the cigars too. You have good taste."
The call ended.
Ren picked up her phone. She did not look at the bodies. She did not look at the men who remained frozen in place.
She walked out.
Outside, the city breathed as it always did. Unaware. Indifferent.
Ren exhaled once.
She understood now.
Power did not announce itself.
It called once and expected obedience.
And Number Nine always got it.