LOGINKAMARAThe shipyard district didn't just feel like another part of the city; it felt like another dimension. We had long since abandoned the SUV, parked five blocks back behind a row of rusted shipping containers that looked like they hadn't been moved since the seventies. Silas led the way, his hand never straying far from the hem of his jacket.He guided us into a narrow artery of the city known as the "Glass Graveyard." It was a stretch of residential high-rises that had been gutted by a massive fire years ago and never rebuilt.The street was teeming with a different kind of life. People lived here in the hollowed-out shells of apartments, burning trash in iron drums for heat. As we walked, I could feel the eyes, thousands of them, peering from the darkness of the ruined balconies.They looked at me with a terrifying mixture of greed and bone-deep fear. Suddenly, an older man stepped into our path. I flinched, expecting a threat, but he didn't reach for a weapon. Instead, he dippe
KamaraI climbed back into the SUV, the air inside feeling thin and recycled. Elijah didn’t look at me, but I could feel his gaze tracing the red rims of my eyes in the rearview mirror. Silas was already in the passenger seat, his posture relaxed, yet his eyes were constantly scanning the dark perimeter of the gas station. The image of him at that back door, hunched over a burner phone kept replaying itself in my mind."We’re moving," Silas said, his voice dropping into that familiar, authoritative bass. "Elijah, take the next exit. We’re heading to a property near the old shipyard. It’s off the grid. No cameras, no paper trail. I’ve got a contact there who can give us the layout of Matthias’s main estate.""And who is this contact?" Elijah asked, his voice dripping with suspicion. "One of your Mann family cleaners? Or someone more... independent?""Someone who owes me a life," Silas replied shortly. "That’s all you need to know."I sat in the back, the silence of the car pressing a
JACEI was lost somewhere in the red canyons of my own skin, drowning in the hot, copper tide of my own lungs. Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. My left eye was swollen shut, a curtain of bruised purple that blocked out half the world, and my ribs, I could feel the jagged ends of them grating against each other with every gasp.I was chained to a rusted industrial pipe, my feet barely touching the grease-stained floor of the basement. Across from me, Matthias sat in an armchair he must have had brought down specifically for this performanceHe looked pristine. Not a speck of blood on his silk lapels. He sipped from a crystal glass, the ice clinking with maddening cheerfulness."You’re dying, Jace," Matthias said, his voice a smooth, cultured purr that felt like a razor across my nerves. "I can see the light receding. It’s a slow leak. Quite poetic, really. The martyr who bleeds out in silence."I tried to spit at him, but all that came out was a thick, dark glob of bile th
KAMARAWe were miles out of town, parked in the shadows of a defunct car wash. Elijah was still seated in the driver's seat, his hands still white-knuckled on the wheel, while I paced outside clutching my phone tightly in my hand.Twenty minutes passed before a black sedan coasted into the lot and Silas stepped out, looking tense. His eyes scanned the perimeter then landed on me."Kamara, what the heck is this?" Silas began. "You sounded like the world was ending with that text."He stopped mid-stride as his gaze shifted from me to the SUV, landing squarely on Elijah Maldon. In a heartbeat, Silas’s hand was at the small of his back, his posture shifting into a defensive crouch."Silas, no!" I lunged forward, putting myself between him and the car. "No, no, no. Put it down. Elijah is with us.""Are you insane?" Silas growled, his eyes never leaving the car. "That’s a Maldon. Have you so quickly forgotten what one of them did to your family? Kamara, move. Is he making you do this? Is he
KAMARAThe tires of the SUV screamed against the asphalt as Elijah pulled a hard U-turn, heading away from the glow of the burning warehouse. My chest felt like it had been hollowed out with a rusted spoon. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Jace wounded, bleeding, and pinned under Brian, facing down the man who had just murdered his own brother."We have to go back," I whispered, my voice trembling. Then, louder: "Elijah, stop the car! We can’t just leave him there with that... that animal!"Elijah’s profile was carved out of cold stone, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "He told me to get you out. I’m getting you out. I don't do 'back,' Kamara. It’s a waste of fuel and lives.""You’re a coward!" I snapped, the grief turning into a hot, poisonous rage. "He’s your brother! He’s dying back there for us, and you’re driving away like you’re heading to a business meeting. Do you even have a soul? Or did Matthias beat that out of you, too?"Elijah’s grip tightened on the wheel until his kn
EARLIERMatthias stood amidst the bodies of his fallen men, his gun held with a loose, practiced ease. He didn't look like a man under threat.He looked at Oscar, and for the first time in seventeen years, a genuine, bone-chilling smile spread across his face."You played the bait exactly as I predicted," Matthias smirked, "You actually showed up. I suppose I should be impressed by your consistency, if not your intellect. However, where is the girl? Is she part of all this too?"He mockingly scanned the area. Nothing.Oscar’s chest heaved, his eyes burning with a decade and a half of stored-up bile. “I’m here to finish what should have happened seventeen years ago.""Finish?" Matthias laughed. “Seventeen years in the dirt, and you still haven't learned. You come here with your vendetta, thinking you’re the hero. But you’re just the same useless brother our parents discarded.""I’m not here to talk, Matthias," Oscar snapped, raging now."But I am," Matthias countered, his eyes scanning
Kamara’s POVIt was well past three in the afternoon and still no sign of him.Was he deliberately avoiding me… or was I reading into things the way I always did?I shoved the thought aside, focusing instead on the cup of ice cream in my hands, the once solid, now a sad, melted swirl I kept stirrin
Kamara The click of the lock was the loudest sound I’d ever heard. It wasn't the sound of a prison cell closing this time; it was the sound of the world being shut out.Jace didn't move for a long beat. He stood with his back to the door, his hand still resting on the deadbolt. The apartment was s
Jace’s POV“Won’t you invite me in?” Oscar finally broke the silence that had been lingering for more than half a minute..I tore my gaze away from the man and locked straight onto Oscar’s gray eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I demanded. “And how did you find this place?”His smirk soften
Kamara’s POVThe staycation ended the way all escapes did and I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I stepped into my apartment. Reality. It hit hard.A slow, unavoidable return to reality.Morning light filtered through my curtains as I finished buttoning my fit, a simple top matched with m







