Not everyone on your side is on your side.
Loyalty is loud when it’s tested. Quiet when it’s real.
And sometimes, the most dangerous rot is the kind that wears your colors.
Eve stood in the back of a strip-mall laundromat while the floor beneath her buzzed with activity.
Vasha was running a purge.
Not a massacre.
Not yet.
Just deadweight — low-level associates who’d grown careless, bloated, too comfortable.
Each one was walked in, questioned, assessed. Some left. Some… didn’t.
Eve didn’t flinch when the shots rang out.
She watched the spin cycles turn. Quiet. Focused.
“Did you know Terrell was double-dipping?” Vasha asked, returning from the basement. “Feeding intel to Krane’s people.”
Eve gave the smallest nod.
Vasha raised an eyebrow. “You let him stay this long?”
“I wanted to see who else he touched.”
Vasha’s smile faded. “You think the infection runs that deep?”
Eve finally looked away from the machines. Her eyes were flat.
“I don’t think. I know.”
Marco met the last man in an underground parking garage.
His name was Keeler — accountant-turned-cleaner-turned-ghost.
He smiled when he saw Marco. Too wide.
“You were always the dog, huh? Loyal. Blind. Dangerous.”
Marco didn’t smile back.
“You were always the snake.”
Keeler shrugged. “Why’d she send you? She could’ve pulled my file, put a bullet in me from a rooftop. But no — she sends her favorite pet.”
Marco pulled out a folder. Tossed it at Keeler’s feet.
Keeler opened it. Froze.
Inside: pictures of his daughter. His real name. And a contract dated six months ago with Krane’s syndicate.
Marco stepped forward. Close.
“She didn’t send me to kill you.”
Keeler looked up.
“She sent me to see if you’d beg.”
A pause.
Keeler didn’t.
Didn’t flinch.
Didn’t even breathe wrong.
So Marco walked away.
The car behind him rolled forward.
A single shot cracked the air.
Keeler’s body dropped.
No mess. No panic.
Just silence.
Nathan watched from the shadows as a meeting took place in an abandoned office park.
Three men in suits. One woman. And someone he hadn’t seen in years.
A fixer named Juno. Ex-Interpol. Now working off-the-books for whichever suit paid her rate.
She passed a briefcase to one of the men.
Nathan couldn’t hear the words. Didn’t need to.
What mattered was the man who received the case:
Deputy Director Lang, Nathan’s own superior at the bureau.
So that’s how they were getting intel on the network.
Nathan took photos.
Didn’t send them to Harper.
Didn’t send them to anyone.
He burned the original and dropped copies at a safety deposit box registered to a fake identity.
Just in case.
Back in the laundromat, Eve confronted something worse than betrayal: hesitation.
A mid-level operator named Kye — smart, careful, and recently sloppy.
He flinched when Eve entered the room.
“Ma’am—”
She held up a hand.
“You’ve missed three payments to our East River partners. I counted two lies in your last report. And one of your guards was arrested last night — carrying product with our signature.”
Kye’s throat bobbed.
“I can explain—”
“I’m sure you can.”
She sat across from him.
“But I don’t care.”
Kye blinked. “What?”
“You were useful. Until you weren’t. This isn’t personal. It’s architecture.”
Vasha entered, silent as wind. No weapon drawn. Just presence.
Kye stood. Panicked. “Eve, I’m not a threat.”
Eve met his eyes.
“No,” she said. “You’re worse. You’re drag.
And I don’t carry deadweight.”
That night, Nathan returned to his apartment and found something on his table.
A chess piece. The queen.
No note. No prints.
But he understood.
It wasn’t a threat.
It was an invitation.
Baawa Unfiltered 