Ares and Mira moved like whispers through the abandoned alleyways behind the train yard. The dawn sky was bruised purple, and streetlamps still dripped pools of orange light onto broken pavement. Their breaths came in cold gasps, hearts pounding to a rhythm of war and revenge.“They’ll be scrambling,” Mira said softly, eyes scanning the morning mist. “Bodies found, broadcast live. Hale’s men’ll be on edge.”Ares nodded. “Exactly.” He glanced at his sister’s photo, tucked deep in his pocket - a silent vow burning in his chest. “We hit him where it hurts.”Mira’s lips curved into a sharp smile. “You mean corridors of his own towers? Exposed pipes and dusty old wiring?”He returned the grin. “Yes. Everything he built - ghosts in glass.”They paused at an intersection. A lone street vendor stirred his cart of roasted nuts. He saw them, stared, then looked away. Ares watched him go - ordinary life brushing past vengeance. That tension thrilled him.“Plan?” Mira asked.Ares stepped to a pee

The stale scent of oil and dust clung to the old warehouse, mixing with the low hum of quiet voices and the faint rattle of weapons checked in the dark. Ares stood near the center, under a single flickering bulb that swung gently above him. The light made him look carved from something harder than stone.Mira watched him from a stack of crates, arms folded tight around herself for warmth she couldn’t find. She studied the way he moved - quiet, deliberate. No wasted words, no nervous glances. He was different here, more alive than she’d ever seen in the polite cages of her family’s world.Kane approached, a thin grin cutting through his beard as he saluted Ares with two fingers. “Convoy’s on the move. Docks. He’s trying to slip out by dawn.”Ares tilted his head slightly, the only sign he’d heard. His eyes flicked to Mira before returning to Kane. “And Armstrong?”“Pulled his muscle off the casinos. He’s backing the traitor’s run. If we hit him now, we clip both wings at once.”Ares tu

The heavy doors of the Lancaster estate loomed ahead, carved wood that had shut Ares out for years. He remembered standing on those marble steps once - cold rain soaking his only suit while Mira’s father ordered him off the property like trash tossed at the curb. He remembered how the guards laughed when he turned away instead of fighting back.Now, those same guards flinched as he stepped through the gates without slowing. Mira stayed beside him, her fingers curled around his hand so tight he felt her pulse beating through his skin.Behind them, Kane’s men fanned out through the hedges and garden paths, silent ghosts among rose bushes and trimmed lawns. The night clung to their shoulders like old sins.Ares reached the first step. He paused, looking up at the grand entrance - its pillars cracked by time and secrets that no expensive paint could hide.“You don’t have to go in,” he told Mira, his voice a low promise.She looked up at him, hair damp from the mist rolling off the gardens

Ares stood alone in the ruined warehouse, the taste of gunpowder sharp on his tongue.Blood dripped from his knuckles, mixing with the cold rain leaking through holes in the rusted roof.Around him, the bodies of men who thought they could bury him a second time sprawled like broken marionettes.Mira stepped out from behind a stack of crates, breath misting in the bitter air.A bruise bloomed under her eye, a cut split her lip, but her grin stayed unbroken.“They’ll crawl back to their master in body bags,” she rasped.Ares didn’t smile.He flexed his fingers, feeling every crack in the bone, every promise that the pain wouldn’t end until this city remembered his name.He dropped his gaze to the corpse at his boots.A burner phone buzzed weakly in the dead man’s pocket.He stooped, wiped blood on his sleeve, checked the flickering screen.One name curled his lips, almost a grin if he had warmth left in him.Jonas Lin.Mira peered at the screen, rain dripping from her hair.“Jonas still breathes?Coc

The rain didn’t stop.It hammered the rusted gutters as Ares and Mira stepped out of the ghost print shop.The alley swallowed them like a secret.Water trickled down Ares’s collar, soaking the scars that ran like old maps under his skin.He didn’t flinch.The cold only reminded him he was alive.Mira lit the cigarette she’d been rolling all night.The flame hissed in the downpour, but she cupped it until the tip glowed angry orange.She took a drag, exhaled smoke that danced with the steam rising from the street.Her bruised eye looked worse under neon, but her mouth twisted into a grin when she caught Ares staring.“Don’t say it,” she muttered.Ares said nothing.He pushed ahead, boots splashing through oily puddles.Behind them, Jonas Lin’s muffled sobs faded into the hiss of rain.They’d left him breathing, but breath didn’t mean mercy.Not anymore.They reached the SUV.Mira flicked her cigarette into the gutter, the ember dying with a soft hiss.She opened the passenger door, but Ares didn’t get