The sun had barely crested the skyline, brushing the city in washed-out gold, when the delivery van rolled silently into Diego Flinch’s compound. Its sides bore innocuous lettering: EducaLogistics – Learning Materials for Youth Programs. Guards eyed it suspiciously but let it pass; a civic-minded front was beyond reproach.Inside, crates were stacked neatly, marked with neat labels and hand-written annotations. Diego’s assistant, a young man named Raul, opened the first box and froze. “Boss… it’s books,” he said hesitantly. Each spine was black leather, embossed in gold: The Anatomy of Power, The Fire Shall Burn Again, and The Code of Kings.Diego’s eyes narrowed, fingers brushing over the leather spines as a chill ran down his back. The handwriting inside - the annotations in margins, the careful observations on human behavior - mirrored a voice he had known intimately as a boy: Harold’s voice.“This&

The grand ballroom of the Martinez Foundation glittered under chandeliers that cast a thousand fractured lights across polished marble floors. Crystal glasses clinked, laughter floated above orchestral strings, and cameras flashed incessantly, capturing the perfect smiles of politicians, philanthropists, and the city’s elite. Diego Flinch, in a sharply tailored suit, moved through the crowd with the practiced charm of a man who had learned to navigate power like a well-rehearsed dance. Every handshake, every nod, was a measured step toward legitimacy.Above him, on the balcony that overlooked the gala, a lone figure stood in shadow. Harold Flinch, hair damp from the misty drizzle outside, binoculars pressed to his eyes, scanned the room with a predator’s patience. He could see the little tremor in Diego’s hand as he raised a glass to Senator Martinez, the subtle tightening of his jaw as he nodded politely to questions, he did not wish to answer. The boy he had once saved now stood in

Lucia Navarro had read the leaked Book of Fire three times, yet each reading cut deeper than the last. The prose carried precision-too personal, too alive-to be a composite. She sat alone in her small apartment, lights dimmed, the city murmuring through the rain-smeared window. On her table, a fresh document flickered on her laptop screen: an anonymous email attachment labeled “BoF_OriginalNotes.docx.”She hesitated before opening it. The moment the file loaded, her breath caught. It wasn’t just ‘The Book of Fire’ - it was an earlier draft, full of margin notes and edits written in the same angular script as the final version.But these annotations… they mentioned names she hadn’t seen before.---D.F. understood the language of fear before he could spell his own name.---He watched me write, once. Said ink smelled like smoke.---The crown and the fire - one dream, two hearts.Lucia froze. “D.F.,” she whispered. “Diego Flinch.”Her fingers trembled

The first explosion came before dawn, a deep-throated roar that rolled through the sleeping city like an animal waking in hunger.A car on Calle de Sol disintegrated into a plume of orange light, the shockwave rattling windows three blocks away. The fire devoured what remained of the driver - one of Hugo Martinez’s aides - before the sirens even began to wail.By morning, three more were dead. An accountant found hanging in a parking garage. A district judge shot twice in the chest as he stepped out of a café and a van of masked men disappearing down a flooded street.The newspapers called it retaliation.The people called it war.-----------------The south side drowned in police lights that never seemed to be turned off. Curfews strangled the nights, and even the stray dogs learned to stay silent after sunset. Barricades went up near the ports; helicopters patrolled the air like mechanical vultures. Yet the violence didn’t slow - it only sharpened, na

The church stood half in ruin, half in grace. Candlelight trembled against cracked saints on the wall, paint flaking like memory. Dust hung in the air, turning the golden beams into fog. The rain outside whispered against the broken stained glass, every droplet echoing through the hollow nave. The pews were scattered, some overturned, others scarred by burn marks and forgotten prayers.Harold waited in the silence. His breath fogged in the cold; his hands folded in front of him like penitent. The candle beside him hissed, its wax pooling over the table like slow blood. He had chosen this place for its emptiness--holy ground abandoned, the perfect mirror for two men who had lost faith long ago.Footsteps arrived first, deliberate and slow. Diego’s shadow appeared before his body, cast long by the flickering flame. When he finally emerged from the doorway, the years between them seemed to shrink and expand all at once. He looked older--harder. The once-lean boy who survived the alleys