Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Night Boss: Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

Rico had done a lot of things he wished he could forget.Some nights, the memories came crawling back, poisonous. This was one of those nights.He sat on the edge of his cot in the bunkroom, elbows on his knees, staring at the wall as if it might tell him a different story. It didn’t. The truth was the truth, and it played in his head in jagged, unrelenting pieces.The smell of burnt rubber and gunpowder.The crack of a pistol, too loud in that narrow alley.The way the man’s eyes went wide, then glassy.He hadn’t meant to do it. It was supposed to be a scare job. The target was just some mid-level courier in a rival drug cartel — someone Kross wanted to send a message to. But Rico, barely nineteen then, jumpy and trying to prove himself, had pulled the trigger when the guy made a sudden move.A second later, blood was pooling under the man’s shoulder, then chest. He hadn’t gotten back up.Kross’s crew had frozen.Rico had run.The Boss didn’t know all the details, not yet. He knew Ri

The decision came to Rico like a blade in the dark.He had to leave.It didn’t matter what The Boss said, or how gentle his voice had been the night before when he’d admitted what he’d never thought a man like him could say. Love. That word had sat between them like a lit candle, flickering in the dark. For hours afterward, Rico couldn’t shake the warmth it gave him. But love was a dangerous luxury in this world. A weakness. Kross would never forgive, never forget. And once he found out where Rico’d been hiding, once he connected the dots — The Boss’s shop, the mess Rico’d made — there would be blood.The only question was whose.Rico couldn’t stay and wait for the answer.The shop was quiet that morning, too quiet. Normally, the sounds of the dockside carried through the shutters: the echo of crates being unloaded, the bark of men calling to each other, the gulls shrieking overhead like they owned the sky. But today, all Rico heard was the ticking of the wall clock and the occasional

The shop had always been noisy in the mornings. Hammers hitting steel, wrenches clanging against bolts, music playing too loudly from a radio in the corner. The kind of noise that could drown out a man’s thoughts, let him disappear into the rhythm of work. But lately, the sound carried differently. Every strike, every laugh, every curse ricocheted through the empty space Rico had left behind, echoing against walls that suddenly seemed too wide and too bare.The Boss stood at his usual place near the back, his hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks. He had always been a presence more than a participant, watching the boys with an expression that revealed little. That part hadn’t changed. His mask remained intact — stern and composed. But under the surface, he was drowning.Rico’s disappearance had carved out something vital. It wasn’t just the boy’s work ethic — though no one could deny Rico had kept the shop humming with an efficiency that surprised even veterans like Matteo. It w

The days bled into each other with a dull, dragging weight. The Boss sat at the head of the long table in the back of the shop, cigar smoke curling in slow spirals above his head, his hands steepled in silence. The boys—Morgan, Jaylen, Matteo—spoke cautiously around him, filling the void with trivial matters, updates on collections, neighborhood gossip, or half-hearted jokes that quickly died in the air.But no matter how hard he tried, The Boss couldn’t pretend anymore. Rico’s absence clung to him like a phantom. The shop felt hollower, as if some essential piece of its rhythm had been ripped away. The chair in the corner where Rico usually sat, wiping down knives or tinkering with the espresso machine, stood empty, and every time The Boss’s gaze slipped toward it, he felt a hollow throb in his chest.Outwardly, he wore the same mask he always did—commanding, untouchable. He barked orders, lit cigars, counted money, and reviewed the ledgers. But the mask was beginning to crack in way

Kross sat in his office, a room that seemed to grow darker each day Rico remained missing. The blinds were drawn halfway, cutting the sun into long bars of gold across the desk. Papers lay scattered, but he wasn’t reading them. His fingers drummed on the desk, eyes fixed on the ashtray already heavy with half-smoked cigarettes. He wasn’t a man given to patience, and yet Rico’s disappearance forced him into a state he loathed most—waiting.Waiting for news.Waiting for movement.Waiting for Rico.But the silence was so tough. Not a whisper of Rico in the underworld, not a sighting in the streets, not a trace left in the alleys where he might have hidden. The city was vast, but Kross knew it like the back of his hand. And yet, Rico had managed to vanish as though swallowed by the concrete jungle.“Boss,” muttered one of his lieutenants, peeking into the room, “we’ve checked the west docks again. Nothing. He hasn’t been there. The Boss’s shop boys aren’t talking either.”Kross leaned bac