2

I stood there, frozen, my mind spinning.

My art, my dreams, my future—they felt so far away now.

All I could think about was what we had lost and how there was nothing left.

Nothing except me.

I had always tried to be strong, to keep going no matter how hard things got.

But now?

Now I felt like I was sinking, and there was no way out.

2

ARBEN

I leaned against the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse, the lights of the city twinkling below like stars in the dark.

From up here, I could see everything.

People living their lives, completely unaware of the shadows moving around them.

They didn’t know about the power struggles, the deals made in the backrooms, or the blood that was spilled in the alleyways.

And they definitely didn’t know about people like me—people who controlled it all.

I took a slow drag from my cigarette, the smoke curling up lazily into the air.

It felt good, familiar.

The city was mine, and I had worked hard to make it that way.

From a young age, I had learned the rules of this game.

Born into a family where crime wasn’t just a way of life, it was life.

My father had built his empire on fear and violence, and I had taken it over when he was gone.

Now, I ran the Zefi mafia, and no one crossed me.

It hadn’t been easy, but I had made my mark.

In this world, it wasn’t about who you knew, it was about who feared you.

And they all feared me.

Whether it was drugs, gambling, or “debt collection,” everything went through me.

The streets were full of people who owed me—money, respect, their lives.

I didn’t care how deep their debts went.

If they couldn’t pay, there were other ways to make them useful.

I thought about Amina Kadir’s father.

He was one of those people.

A desperate man, drowning in the debts he had no chance of paying back.

He had come to me, begging for loans, promising me he would fix things.

I had seen it all before—men like him who thought they could outsmart the system, who thought they could gamble their way out of trouble.

But it never worked.

I loaned him the money, knowing full well he would never pay it back.

That wasn’t the point.

The point was control.

I had owned him from the moment he signed his name on the dotted line.

He didn’t know it then, but his life was mine.

And when he couldn’t pay, I took whatever I wanted.

He was terrified of me, but that fear only made him more obedient.

He was a man who had already lost everything, and I was just waiting for the right moment to collect.

But his daughter, Amina, was different.

I had seen her before, in passing.

She was always on the edge of my world, just a shadow in the background.

I had kept my distance, but it was hard not to notice her.

She wasn’t like her father.

There was something stronger about her, something that made me pause.

She was beautiful, sure, but it wasn’t just that.

It was the way she carried herself, the fire in her eyes.

She didn’t know how close she was to danger, didn’t know that I had been watching her for longer than she realized.

The truth was, I had already decided.

Her father wasn’t going to pay me back, and I wasn’t going to waste any more time trying to squeeze money out of a man who had nothing left to give.

So, I focused on Amina.

She was going to be my payment, and I knew that her father would agree to it.

Desperation makes people do crazy things, and he was more desperate than anyone.

I took another drag from my cigarette and let the smoke out slowly, watching it disappear into the night air.

The city below me buzzed with life, but up here, everything felt calm.

I reached for my phone as it buzzed in my pocket.

Another meeting, another chance to remind everyone why I was the one in control.

But my mind wasn’t on business.

Not tonight.

Amina Kadir.