The Devil's Debt のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 51 - チャプター 55

Night laid itself thick across the city, swallowing the rusted docks and fractured streets in black velvet. The kind of night where every shadow looked like a knife waiting to cut, where even the stars hid themselves as if unwilling to witness what the city was about to become. Elias moved like fire through the dark. His team was small, efficient—men who didn’t ask questions, only lit fuses and watched the world burn. Their boots whispered against the cracked asphalt as they fanned out across Pier 9, skeletal cranes looming overhead like rusted gallows. The salty tang of the sea clung to the air, laced with the sharp sting of gasoline. He paused, pulling a matchbook from his pocket, his teeth holding his cigarette steady as he struck a flame. The flare painted his scarred face in orange light before he tossed it down. Gasoline trails hissed alive, orange tongues racing across the ground. Within seconds, the first warehouse caught. Then another. Then another. The flames were greedy,

Lucian never believed in one plan. A single move was a weakness, a cage for the arrogant. Leaders who trusted one strategy died choking on their own certainty. That was why he was still standing where others had fallen—why the city still whispered his name with equal parts fear and reverence. When Marco’s voice came through the radio, dripping with rage about Marek’s decoy, Lucian’s mind had already leapt three moves ahead. The safehouse wasn’t safe anymore. Serrano’s men would come in waves, hungry, blinded by Marek’s whisper. And Marek himself? He wouldn’t wait. He’d want blood tonight. Lucian leaned over the map, his voice iron. “We don’t defend this ground.” Marco looked up sharply, sweat cutting through the grime on his brow. “Boss—this place is fortified. We can hold them off.” Lucian’s gaze cut through him, cool and merciless. “Hold them off? For what? To die in a cage Marek built for us? No. We let them come. We let them waste their teeth here while we vanish. Ayla, Marco

The gunshot tore the world apart. Lucian didn’t think. He moved. One moment Marek’s finger tightened on the trigger, the next, Lucian’s arms were around Ayla, dragging her into his chest, his body the only shield he had to give. The bullet slammed into him with brutal force. Fire ripped through his ribs, hot and merciless, stealing the breath from his lungs. Ayla’s scream burst from her throat, muffled against his blood-soaked shirt, her fingers clawing desperately at him as if she could hold the life inside him by sheer will. Marek laughed. A jagged, hollow sound that echoed off the ruined marble walls. “You can’t save her,” he snarled. “Not from me. Not from death itself.” The second shot came. Lucian grunted, his knees buckling. Pain thundered through his body, but still he held her. His hand fisted in the back of her shirt, his body the wall between her fragile frame and Marek’s gun. “Lucian!” Ayla’s voice broke, raw with terror, with love, with the unbearable fear o