Chapter 190: Rescue Mission
The apartment door had barely swung open before Marina was on him.
"Nicholas!"
She hit him at a full run, her arms locking tightly around his chest. He could feel her whole body trembling violently against him. When she finally pulled back, her eyes were wet and wide with a deep fear that had clearly been building for hours.
"I saw the broadcast on the news," she said, the words tumbling out in a panicked rush. "The dome, that terrible man, all the heroes trapped inside—and then the news anchor said Phantom might be going in to help! I thought you were already down there! I thought you’d gone straight into that place without even coming home first! I thought..." Her voice cracked, tears spilling over. "I thought I’d lost you to one of those nightmare events again."
Nicholas felt the old, familiar warmth rise in his chest—the gentle feeling that only ever surfaced in this apartment, with these two people. He raised his hand and rested it gently on the back of her head, soothing her the way he had a hundred times before.
"I’m right here," he said, his voice dropping into a soft, quiet tone that no one at the Hero Association would have ever recognized. "I’m not in any dome, Marina. I came home first, didn’t I? I would never leave without coming to tell you." A small, genuinely warm smile touched his lips. "Don’t worry. I’ve got everything completely under control. I always do."
Marina let out a long, shaky breath against his shoulder, some of the sheer terror finally draining out of her frame.
"...You’d better," she mumbled into his coat. "You promised me. You promised that if things ever got too dangerous, you’d walk away."
"I remember the promise."
He didn’t mention that tonight was already well past ’too dangerous.’ Some burden a big brother kept entirely to himself.
By the front door, half-forgotten in the hallway, Julie leaned toward Selena and whispered behind her hand, her eyes shining with emotion.
"Awww," Julie cooed softly. "Look at him. He’s such a sweet, loving big brother." She sniffled dramatically. "I take back every joke I made about the invoice earlier. He’s a total softie under that mask. My heart can’t take it!"
Selena watched the tender reunion with a completely flat, unreadable expression, her arms tightly folded across her chest.
"He’s a snake in sheep’s clothing," she muttered back under her breath.
"What? Come on, look at them! That is totally genuine!"
"Oh, it’s genuine. That’s the terrifying problem." Selena’s eyes didn’t leave Nicholas for a second. "That warm, gentle, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly big brother? He’s the exact same man who dragged a god into a headbutt three hours ago and calls cold-blooded murder ’the work.’ That soft smile and the creature that walks into a doomsday dome for a paycheck are the exact same person, Julie. The nice one is real, and the terrifying one is real, at the exact same time." She shook her head slowly. "A wolf that actually loves its cubs is still a dangerous wolf. Don’t ever forget which one you’re standing next to."
Julie looked over at Nicholas, then back at Selena, her emotional sniffling faltering slightly.
"...Okay, that’s actually way scarier than if he was just faking the nice act."
"Now you’re getting it."
At that moment, a tiny figure came barreling out of the back hallway at top speed.
"BIG BROTHER!"
Katie latched onto his leg like a limpet, beaming up at him with pure joy. Nicholas’s hand dropped automatically, ruffling her hair.
"How’s my little Katie doing?"
"Katie’s doing great! Big sister was crying all evening, but I told her you’re the strongest guy ever, so it’s totally fine!" She puffed her chest out with immense pride. "You beat the golden monkey man on TV! I SAW IT! You’re still my number one hero!"
"I thought your number one hero was Nectron this week."
"Nectron got captured by the bad guys," Katie said flatly, with the brutal, unvarnished honesty of a child. "So now it’s you again. Congratulations!"
Nicholas actually huffed a quiet laugh—a rare, genuine sound that caused Selena’s eyebrow to tick up in surprise.
He crouched down to Katie’s eye level, his tone turning gentle and playful.
"Listen, Katie. Big brother has to do a little bit of work with these two." He gestured back toward Selena and Julie in the entryway. "Just some boring, grown-up stuff. Can you keep Marina company for me for a bit? She’s had a really scary day, and she needs her best girl right now."
Katie instantly snapped off a crisp military salute. "Katie will protect big sister! Leave it to me!"
"That’s my girl."
Nicholas straightened back up and glanced at Marina. She was watching him with the tired, knowing look of a sister who understood there was far more going on than he was admitting, but who had decided, for tonight, not to push him for answers.
"...Go on," Marina said softly, giving him a small nod. "Do your boring grown-up stuff." She paused, her voice softening further. "Just make sure you come back to the dinner table when you’re finished. All of you. I’ll cook enough for everyone."
"We won’t be long," Nicholas promised.
He led Selena and Julie down the quiet residential hallway—past the kitchen, past the bedrooms—to a plain, unassuming door at the very end. To anyone else, it looked like nothing more than a standard storage closet. Nicholas stepped up to it, pressing his bare palm flat against a seemingly random section of the drywall beside the frame. He held it there for two seconds until something deep behind the plaster gave a soft, heavy mechanical click.
The hidden wall panel slid smoothly aside.
Selena’s breath caught in her throat.
The space beyond was not a storage closet.
It was a small, windowless, reinforced room lined floor to ceiling on every single wall with the deadly tools of a life she had only ever half-believed he had lived. High-caliber sniper rifles were racked in neat, immaculate rows—disassembled, oiled, and gleaming under the harsh LED lights. Handguns of a dozen different makes and origins sat in custom foam cases. Tactical blades of every length—straight, curved, and serrated—hung in precise rows like an exhibit in a museum of death. Coils of high-tensile wire, specialized gear, and heavy cases of military ammunition were stacked with the tidy precision of a man who carefully counted every bullet. It was clean, ruthlessly organized, and chillingly professional—the private armory of a man who had spent a lifetime ending others, and had never truly expected to stop.
Julie’s jaw hung wide open. For the first time all day, her hand didn’t even twitch toward her phone.
"...Nicholas," Selena said slowly, her eyes wide as she stared into the room. "This is in your home. Behind a wall. Right where your little sister sleeps."
"It’s reinforced and sealed behind a biometric lock," Nicholas explained calmly as he stepped inside. "Katie couldn’t open it if she tried, and she doesn’t even know it exists."
The way he moved through the space instantly changed—his posture relaxed and easy, like a craftsman walking into the one workshop in the world that fit him perfectly. He ran a bloodied hand along a rack of custom combat knives, evaluating them.
"Old habits," Nicholas murmured. ’When we moved into this apartment, I told myself I wouldn’t ever need any of this gear again.’ He selected a sleek combat knife, pulling it from its sheath and checking its dark edge against the overhead light. A cold, comfortable focus settled over his face. "Turns out I was wrong."
He turned back around to face the two women standing frozen in the doorway.
"The dome strips away supernatural powers," Nicholas said flatly, gesturing toward the steel, the blades, and the quiet, lethal order surrounding him. "It doesn’t take away any of this."
He held the combat knife out by the blade, offering the hilt directly toward Selena.
"So. Let’s find out what you’re actually made of, supervisor."