He screamed. Loud, broken and incoherent.Adrian stepped closer and spoke for the first time.“Kneel.”His voice was calm and flat. Not loud nor threatening, but the man obeyed instantly.He was crying openly now, shoulders shaking, blood pooling beneath him as he tried to suppress the screams. When he failed, Adrian tilted his head slightly.“Shut up.”The man clamped his mouth shut so hard his jaw trembled. Tears streamed down his face, snot running freely as he forced himself silent, eyes locked on Adrian’s mask.Hoping against hope that if he listened, his life would be spared.Adrian nodded once.“Good.”He fired.The bullet passed cleanly through the man’s skull. His body tipped forward and hit the floor without another sound.The pistols vanished from Adrian’s hands as if they had never existed.He turned and walked toward the couch.Evan was pressed against it, trying to make himself smaller, hands shaking violently as he stared up at the mask approaching him. His breath hitc

Almost thirty minutes later, a police cruiser slowed down behind a taxi and flashed its lights.The driver noticed immediately and pulled over, confusion plain on his face as the cruiser stopped behind him, red and blue lights reflecting off the road. One of the cops stepped out and walked up to the passenger side, leaning in to look through the window.His eyes went straight to the back seat, to Liana and Xander.“Step out of the vehicle,” the cop said, voice firm and leaving no room for argument.The taxi driver stiffened. “Officer, I didn’t do anything. I just picked them up-”“You’re clear,” the cop replied without turning his head. “Once they’re out, you can go.”Liana opened the door and stepped out first, bare feet hitting the asphalt. Dust clung lightly to the hem of her dress from the farm, irritation already written all over her face. Xander followed, shoes crunching against the gravel as he straightened up beside her, jaw tight.The cop waved the taxi away. Xander paid the

The masked man walked out of the penthouse a few minutes later, his pace unhurried, like he had done something casual like going out for a walk.He stopped in front of the car and turned around once more to see that Xander was still standing near the door.He was barefoot and only wearing his boxers, arms held stiffly at his sides, fear written plainly across his face. A dark bruise was already forming on his shoulder, wide and ugly, the kind that came from a grip that had been held for just a second too long. It would ache for days, maybe weeks, before it fully faded.The masked man looked at it briefly, then back at Xander.“Keys,” he said calmly.Xander didn’t argue. His hands trembled slightly as he went in to get them. Soon, he came back and tossed them towards the masked man, who kicked the keys upwards as they were a bit too close to the ground for him to directly catch them. Then, he caught the keys mid air before looking back up at Xander. “You’ll see your car again once yo

Adrian clicked his tongue.He felt a level of annoyance that he had rarely felt in his life. He stopped thinking about positioning, about minimizing damage, about ending things cleanly. The moment the mask came off, whatever restraint he had been maintaining simply dropped. He shifted his weight forward and moved before any of them could react properly.His fist drove straight into the face of the guy who had pulled the mask, the impact landing clean and brutal. There was a sharp crack as the man’s nose collapsed under the force, blood spraying immediately as his head snapped back. Adrian didn’t wait for the body to fall. He followed with a tight one two, both punches landing square, the second lifting the man off his feet before he crashed into the sand in a heap.One of the boxers moved instantly.Adrian twisted his torso and fired a back kick without even turning fully, his heel slamming into the man’s midsection. The kick knocked the air out of him and sent him stumbling back sev

By the time Adrian reached the city limits, the clock on his phone was already creeping toward one in the morning. Sleep tugged at him as a dull heaviness settled in after everything that had happened. He parked the battered car near a quiet park, far enough away from Letty’s apartment that no one would connect the two, and shut the engine off. The night air was cool and still as he stepped out and started walking, hands in his pockets, pace slow.He didn’t bother pulling anything from the system shop this time. As much as he loved the bike he rode earlier in the day, he knew that he had to walk for now.The streets were mostly empty at this hour, streetlights casting long shadows across the pavement. His attention drifted between the road ahead and the system display floating calmly in front of him, the earlier chaos feeling distant, like something that had already been filed away.But he knew, that he wasn’t done yet. That there was more work for him to do thanks to the small misha