Meanwhile, in the hospital...

Nelek, Warriyo, and Rus glanced over at Khan’s bed. When Ashley had left earlier that day, they had tried to liven up the atmosphere. But their attempts were futile.

Nothing weighed heavier than the decision they had made today.

"So, are we..." Rus trailed off as Nelek and Warriyo turned to him. His eyes stayed on Khan. "...officially part of Dominion?"

Khan didn’t answer right away. He had been quiet ever since Ashley left, the way he always went quiet. But this time, he drew a deep breath and finally faced his companions.

"I’m sorry," was the first thing he said.

Lines appeared on their faces.

"To make such a selfish decision... I apologize."

Nelek let out a quiet laugh. "Sorry? Why are you apologizing?"

"Nelek’s right," Warriyo nodded, offering Khan an understanding smile. "If anyone should be apologizing for being selfish, it’s us."

"We already told you. Your decision is ours," Rus said, his tone mild. "We put our lives in your hands to do with as you saw fit. We know you decided for us."

Khan let out a defeated sigh as he looked at these three stubborn men. Their group might be small, but their brotherhood had been all they needed until this suicide mission came along.

Even though they were safe, even though they were lucky enough to still have the option to live, Khan still blamed himself. If only he hadn’t been too greedy, if only he hadn’t trusted that their boss would keep his word and let them go once the job was done, they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Their lives wouldn’t be in Ashley’s hands.

But this was better than all four of them dying at once. Khan had already made his peace with dying that night.

"By the way, Khan — the people who attacked you..." Nelek cleared his throat, looking at him curiously. "Which one of them did that?"

Before the attack, Khan had told them he would be handling the payment for the outside assistance they had brought in. The original group was just the four of them, but Khan — accounting for every variable — had hired additional men in case things didn’t go smoothly.

Hence, the backup during the chase.

Without it, they were certain they would have been finished. Red had nearly reached them, after all.

Khan went quiet as he recalled what happened.

When he handed off the payment to their middleman, the man shot him the second Khan turned his back. The first shot missed, just enough for Khan to draw his own weapon and return fire. But even as he fled, the shooting continued, and one round found him.

It was still a miracle he had made it to the port, where Nelek and Warriyo watched him barely crawl out of the car.

"He’s dead," Khan said finally, meeting their eyes. "I shot him on my way out. Hit him in the throat."

The three nodded, asking nothing further. Khan wasn’t their leader for no reason.

"Well," Rus leaned back in his bed, folding his hands behind his head. "If that’s the case, let’s look on the bright side! We might have just joined Dominion, but at the end of the day, we’re out of that old man’s grasp!"

Everyone except Khan nodded.

"That’s probably the best part," Warriyo remarked. "Getting away from that old man’s twisted philosophy — that’s why we took this mission in the first place."

"There’s no way he can reach us now, right?" Nelek hummed, settling back against his pillow. "But I wonder what kind of work we’d be doing under the Madam of Dominion. That chopsticks woman is something else. She doesn’t come across as irrationally crazy, but crazy is crazy."

Rus nodded sincerely. Of all of them, he had spent the most time with her.

Nelek and Warriyo were going off what they had seen at the port, when Ashley confronted the Knights Gang. That was just a fraction of what Rus had witnessed.

"That woman is genuinely something else," Rus muttered, staring at the ceiling. "I mean — do you know that in the middle of a fight, she actually stopped to complain?"

Nelek and Warriyo turned toward him. Khan, too, slowly shifted his attention, listening.

"I’ve been putting off talking about it, but that woman actually asked to switch opponents mid-fight," his expression soured. "Just because she said hers was a pervert. He was a pervert — that Carrotman — but I’ve never seen anything like it."

Now that Rus was thinking back to that night at the cargo ship, his brows drew together. It was true that he had been avoiding the memory. Too much had happened afterward, and that particular moment with Ashley was still too strange to fully process.

Khan had accounted for every variable before proceeding with this mission.

What none of them had accounted for was the most unpredictable variable of all — their target. Ashley.

"But you know..." Rus sat up slowly and faced them. "Now that I think about it, that woman saved me more than once."

Nelek and Warriyo tilted their heads. "Huh?"

"Back at the cargo, I was up against this guy — strong, and on top of that, he was wearing a bulletproof vest," Rus explained. "Not to mention the backup he had. But if I’m being honest, even one-on-one, I wouldn’t have stood a chance."

He could have made excuses, told them he was outnumbered. But deep down, he believed in giving credit where it was due. Their group’s success rate was high because of Khan’s meticulous planning and the trust they had in each other’s strengths.

In a straight fight, though, they weren’t so confident.

Especially against trained men like those from Dominion — or someone like Mole Guy.

"But she came," Rus continued, nodding to himself. "Sure, she had a horde of enemies on her tail. But she came anyway... and saved my life right when that guy was about to finish me off."

He looked up at them. "That’s why she unsettles me. And honestly, I think Khan’s decision isn’t so bad. Having Dominion after us is one thing, but that woman is something else entirely. I don’t know how someone like her got that skilled, but I also know she’s nothing like that old man."

"She might be a walking disaster," he added knowingly, then turned to Khan with a small smile. "But I’m still breathing because she can redirect a shot from a distance. Khan, don’t beat yourself up over this. I would’ve made the same decision if it were me."

Nelek and Warriyo pressed their lips together, then turned to Khan and nodded.

Khan let out a shallow breath. "Still, I apologize," he said. "Because it seems like... finding Ghost and begging him to take us on as disciples will not be happening anytime soon."

All of them chuckled.

Then Nelek said, "Being part of Dominion might actually raise our chances of meeting Ghost," he pointed out. "Let’s just hold onto that."

Warriyo nodded. "Besides, we don’t even have a lead on where to find him."

Their group had wanted to leave their previous boss precisely because all four of them had become fascinated by Ghost’s work, following his trail like devoted cult members.

"If it’s fated, we’ll meet him!" Rus declared. "And if not, we won’t. Simple as that."

The others chuckled, all eyes drifting to Khan, until he finally sighed, shook his head, and let out a quiet laugh of his own.

And with that, the four of them settled into a kind of peace — accepting this strange twist of fate that had landed them somewhere very far from what they had originally set out to do, which was simply to leave their boss and find Ghost.