The world was fire and silence.Jayden Cole woke to the smell of burnt money. Charred paper drifted through the smoke like dying snowflakes, some still bearing faint faces of currency his empire, turning to dust before his eyes. His ears rang; every sound came muffled, distant, underwater. When he tried to move, pain tore through his ribs. The last thing he remembered was the roar of the grenade, the flash swallowing the market, and the voice on the radio screaming Amara’s name.Now there was only ruin.He dragged himself from under the debris blood sticking his shirt to his skin. The street where his people once sold goods and laughter used to echo was a crater of bodies and twisted metal. Plastic melted into the ground. A man’s leg still twitched beside a cart. Sirens wailed somewhere far off, and the red-blue glow of police lights painted the smoke like a dying sunset.They’d done it. The puppetmaster had made his move.The TV trucks outside the perimeter were already broadcasting

The nights were getting quieter too quiet for the slums.Once, every street hummed with noise: music leaking from broken speakers, vendors shouting prices, kids laughing in the dark. Now the silence felt heavy, like the city itself was holding its breath.And in that silence, whispers grew.They called him The Dead King.A ghost who haunted alleys. A shadow who struck soldiers and vanished.Malikah listened to those whispers from a shattered window in the Burned Quarter, her gun resting on the sill. Below, patrols marched past, boots pounding the puddles that used to be playgrounds. She counted them by sound twelve men, two trucks, one drone overhead. The puppetmaster’s “Civic Renewal Force.”Her finger brushed the trigger, then stopped. No. Not yet. Jayden wanted silence for now. Silence was cover.Behind her, The Burned Boy was fixing a radio. His left cheek still bore the scars Jayden had saved him from and every time Malikah saw them, she remembered why they fought.“You think he’

The city didn’t sleep anymore at least, not the way it used to. Every alley whispered the same ghost story: Jayden Cole was dead. But under the blackened skeletons of District Nine, where the fire still clung to the walls like memory, death itself stirred.Jayden crouched on the edge of a broken rooftop, his eyes tracking the convoy below. The same convoy that carried blood money from his old operations now redirected under new ownership. His ownership.Only it wasn’t his name they carried anymore. It was the puppetmaster’s.A truck rumbled past the ruins, flanked by guards in black coats. The paint was new, clean, unscarred. It made Jayden’s knuckles tighten. They had scrubbed his legacy like a stain painted over the blood, renamed his empire, replaced fear with profit.But he wasn’t here for the money. He was here for the first message.Malikah’s voice echoed in his earpiece, faint through static. “Target confirmed. You sure you wanna do this alone?”Jayden didn’t answer.Below, the

The meeting took place deep in the underbelly of the slums, where the rain never reached and light came only from fires burning in barrels. The air was thick with smoke and suspicion.Jayden sat across from Big Sef at a long wooden table scarred by old knife fights and cigarette burns. Around them stood guards not his, not Sef’s, but neutral watchers from the Street Council, men paid to make sure no one left in a body bag.Big Sef’s laughter rolled like thunder through the room. “Jayden Cole,” he said, his gold teeth flashing in the gloom. “Didn’t think I’d see your ghost sitting across from me again. You really don’t know when to stay buried.”Jayden leaned back in his chair, hands clasped loosely. “Buried men don’t talk, Sef. You called this meeting. What do you want?”Sef grinned. “What I always want peace. The city’s bleeding, boy. The puppetmaster’s turned the cops into wolves. Every checkpoint’s choking trade, every raid burning homes. I lost six trucks last week.” He leaned clo

The slums had always whispered of death, but that morning, the streets screamed it.Jayden stood over the body of Dreeko, one of his earliest lieutenants a boy who once swore to protect the west block with his life. His body was dumped in the gutter behind the rail yard, throat slit clean, eyes open as if he’d seen something he couldn’t believe.Malikah crouched beside him, jaw tight. “Razor’s mark.”Jayden didn’t answer. His expression was unreadable, but the tremor in his hand as he touched Dreeko’s blood said enough.Burned Boy shifted nervously. “Boss… he was one of ours. If we let this go”Jayden stood. “We don’t let it go.”The rain began again, washing thin streams of red down the cracked concrete. He pulled his hood over his head and looked at the rising smoke from the east blocks Razor’s turf.“Tonight,” he said.Malikah straightened. “You mean?”“First strike,” Jayden cut her off. “No witnesses. No survivors.”By nightfall, the slum was on edge. Word of Dreeko’s murder sprea