Page 100 of Playing with Fire

"Those heat signatures Leo detected weren't guards, were they?" I realized aloud. "They were incendiary devices. Positioned at strategic points throughout the building."

"Precisely," Felix confirmed, looking pleased that I'd caught on. "The thermal signatures mimicking human bodies are actually my custom incendiary packages. Military grade. Burns at temperatures high enough to melt steel. Specially designed to be odorless, colorless when applied. But once activated..." He closed his eyes briefly, expression almost rapturous. "They create the most beautiful flames you've ever seen."

"What about Algerone?" I asked, playing for time, mind racing through alternatives, escape routes, anything that might get us both out alive. "You burn the building, he dies too."

"A necessary sacrifice," Felix replied, though something flickered across his face—regret, perhaps. "He understood, in the end. Accepted his role in this final act. A father for a father. I just had to figure out which one you were willing to die for."

"You're insane.”

"No, Xavier." Felix shook his head slowly. "I'm a child of fire. Just like you. The difference is that I've accepted what that means. The responsibility it carries. The price we must pay."

My hand inched toward the gun concealed at my hip, wondering if I could shoot with enough accuracy to knock the remote from his hand before he triggered it. The distance was significant, the margin for error nonexistent. I was a damn good shot, but was I that good?

"Don't," Felix warned, seeing the movement despite my attempt at subtlety. "No matter how fast you are, you can’t hit me before I push the button."

"There are innocent people nearby," I argued, searching for any leverage, any way to reach whatever humanity might remain in him. "My team. They have nothing to do with your father's death."

"Collateral damage," Felix replied. "Unfortunate but unavoidable. Just like me when you burned my father alive. Just like my mother, who had to raise me without any support from him. Just like the decade of poverty we endured after he was gone, and the alcohol and the drugs my mother took to cope, and the bullet she ate to escape it!” His eyes hardened again. "The world is full of collateral damage, Xavier. People caught in the crossfire of others' vendettas."

My jaw tightened as he spoke, each word soaked in rage and self-pity like he expected it to mean something to me.It didn’t.

Yeah, I’d killed his father.

But that was business. This? This was personal.

“You want sympathy?” I asked, voice flat. “You think a sob story makes this okay?”

He flinched—just a little—but I stepped forward, my hand dropping from my side, not because I was backing down, but because I wanted him to see I didn’t need the gun. Not for this.

“You set fire toLeo’shome,” I said, my voice turning sharper, colder. “Burned downmyfamily’s business. Put a fuckingbombin my dad’s car and landed him in the hospital. You nearly killed my father. And you want to stand there and talk to me aboutcollateral damage?You didn’t come here for justice, Felix. You came for destruction. And you thought I’d let you walk away from that?”

He shook his head. “You’re not that kind of man, Xavier. Neither am I. We finish what we start.”

He raised the remote, thumb hovering. “Any last words? A final confession, maybe?”

“You want a confession? Fine.” I took a step closer. “I’d kill him again. Faster this time.”

His expression flickered. A crack. He hadn’t expected that.

“But you?” I went on, voice like ice sliding under skin. “You made it personal. You didn’t come for justice. You came forme.Formine.And that was your mistake.”

His jaw clenched. “Fuck you,” he said.

Then his thumb dropped on the button.

For a moment, there was only silence.

Then the world ignited.

Flames roared to life from hidden points across the structure—walls, beams, even the floor beneath my boots. Heat slammed into me like a battering ram, forcing a flinch I didn’t have time to be ashamed of. I threw up an arm, shielding my face as the air warped in front of me, shimmering and alive.

The fire wasn’t wild. It was deliberate. Controlled. Lines of accelerant carved through the space like veins, fire racing along them.

A deep boom rattled the floor. Then another. Explosions, timed and placed. The structure shuddered as concrete and steel came crashing down across the path I’d used to enter. Smoke curled in thick black ribbons, rising fast. Breathing was already getting harder. Each inhale seared like sandpaper.

The metal above groaned—catwalks expanding, warping, their joints shrieking under pressure.

I backed up toward a support beam, dragging my arm across my mouth as if that could make the air cleaner. Sweat streamed down my spine, heat building in every direction.

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