2025-05-15 23:55:51
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CHAPTER 168: THE ARCHITECT PROTOCOL
The room was silent...cold, sterile, and without shadows. Not a single corner allowed for secrets. Luka sat in a chair that was more a throne than furniture...carbon-steel molded to the shape of the human spine. A surgical halo of lights floated above him, flickering now and then, as if the entire place breathed.He didn’t know how long he’d been under.The last thing he remembered was Eve’s voice at Dock 17. Now, he was deep inside the Foundation.The walls were matte-black, seamless, humming with barely-contained energy. There were no doors...at least, none he could see. Only a mirrored surface on the far end of the chamber, like the eyes of a god waiting to blink.Then the voice came again. Not Eve’s. A man’s.“Do you know what your father once said before he slit a man's throat in a public square?”Luka didn’t flinch. “Probably something about power. Or weakness.”“No,” the voice said, gentle as snow. “He said, ‘It’s not the death that matters. It’s who remembers it.’”A low hiss
CHAPTER 167: MIDNIGHT TEETH
The night hung heavy over Dock 17, the air thick with salt, oil, and the sharp tang of rain-soaked metal. Waves lapped against the corroded underbelly of the city’s forgotten edge, whispering secrets to those mad enough to listen. This place wasn’t a battleground...it was a mausoleum.And Luka Gale had come to bury a monster.He stepped out of the stolen black van alone, boots crunching over broken glass and rusted chains. His coat fluttered in the wind like the wings of some fallen avenger. The docks stretched before him, slick with rain, flanked by towering cranes and gutted shipping containers. Shadows moved...but none dared approach. Salvi had kept his word: no soldiers. No backup. Just silence.Except for the click of a lighter.A figure stood on the edge of the pier, striking a match beneath the steel skeleton of Crane 9.Arturo Salvi.He wore a three-piece suit, black as coal, with a blood-red tie and gloves that gleamed with wet leather. He turned slowly, letting the flame ill
CHAPTER 166: THE THRONE OF TEETH
The sanctum beneath the Moretti estate was carved from bedrock and madness.The walls were lined with bones...not metaphorical ones, but the actual remains of enemies, betrayers, and unfortunate souls whose names had been stricken from memory. Every vertebra embedded in the masonry, every skull staring blankly from its mortared place, was a warning: Salvi’s domain was not governed by men. It was ruled by nightmares.And at its center sat a throne.A grotesque sculpture of fused teeth...human, animal, and something else...interlocked and lacquered, glistening under cold blue lights. The Throne of Teeth.Arturo Salvi stood before it in a charcoal overcoat, sleeves rolled back, revealing the scars etched into his forearms...ritualistic, old. His eyes were dilated, alive with a cruel fire.Behind him, an iron door hissed open.“You should be dead,” the advisor muttered, his voice shaking slightly. “The Butcher was never meant to fail.”Salvi’s smile was thin and poisonous. “Everyone fails
CHAPTER 165: BLOOD DEBTS
The rain hadn't stopped for two days.It slicked the rooftops, ran in rivulets down rusted fire escapes, and turned the alleys of Westbridge into murky veins pulsing with tension. Salvi’s men were on edge. Everyone was. Something in the air had changed...like the city itself was holding its breath.Inside a candlelit church on Hollow Street, Arturo Salvi knelt before a desecrated altar.The saints’ faces had been chiseled off, their eyes gouged with rusted nails. The crucifix behind him was inverted, wrapped in barbed wire.He wasn’t praying.He was remembering.“Do you recall what I told you the night I buried Marco’s father?” he asked, softly.The man standing behind him...the same advisor from the Glass Tower...nodded. “You said blood always knows its debt.”Salvi turned slowly, eyes like broken glass. “Luka Gale owes me. A debt paid in blood.”“He’s not his father.”“No,” Salvi said, rising. “He’s worse. Carrick had rules. Codes. Even monsters need boundaries.”“And Luka?”Salvi l
CHAPTER 165: THE SALVI SIEGE
Rain painted the city in gunmetal hues, blurring light and shadow until they bled together. In a high-rise overlooking the industrial sprawl of the east quarter, Luka Gale stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the sky. Below, the streets crackled with tension...sirens in the distance, hushed rumors in alleyways, foot soldiers on edge.Behind him, the war council assembled.Alessia leaned against the long steel table, hair tied back, eyes scanning a digital map of Salvi’s network. Viktor stood beside her, arms crossed, scarred fingers tapping rhythmically against his bicep. Marco adjusted the grip on his custom revolver, while Silas leaned on a cane he didn’t need...only carried for show.Luka turned. “Status.”Alessia pointed to three red dots on the map.“Salvi’s safehouses. One at the old distillery in Verdant Row. Another near the docks...Warehouse 9. And this...” she tapped the largest icon “...is the Glass Tower. His fortress.”“Which one holds his books?” Luka a
CHAPTER 163: THE COLLECTOR
The rain had slowed, but tension dripped from every surface inside the broken café.The gunfire had stopped. Not because they’d won...but because she had arrived.The woman in the white coat stood at the center of the square, untouched by the chaos. Her pale hair was slicked back, her expression unreadable. Around her, Salvi’s men stood in uneasy silence, rifles lowered but eyes alert. The mercs had backed off too, like wolves giving space to a bigger predator.Inside, Luka stared through the fractured blinds.“She pointed at her watch,” Alessia muttered. “What the hell does that mean?”“That our time’s up,” Silas said darkly.Luka stepped away from the window. “We need answers.”Marco shook his head. “I’ve heard rumors. Carrick used to talk about a woman who handled the ‘black wire’...money, contracts, favors owed to shadows, not families. They said she didn’t work for anyone. She watched. She kept the game balanced.”“And when someone tipped the scales too far…” Viktor added, “…she
CHAPTER 162: THE WOLVES AT THE GATE
The rain came down like judgment.It hit the city hard, hammering the rooftops, pouring through rusted gutters, pooling in the cracks of streets that hadn’t been repaved since Carrick’s first body dropped. Above Dock 17, smoke still lingered in the sky, a black memory that refused to drift. But the fire was elsewhere now.At the Gale Estate...the so-called Glass Fortress...Luka stood at the long war table surrounded by ghosts of loyalty.Alessia, Marco, Viktor, Lena. The core.And yet the room felt fractured, like hairline cracks were forming beneath every word.Viktor leaned forward, his jaw tight. “You should’ve kept the archive.”“We’d be gods,” Marco added. “Feared. Untouchable.”Luka shook his head, soaked to the bone, hair dripping over his eyes. “No. We’d be targets. Everyone Carrick ever blackmailed would’ve come for us next.”“They still might,” Alessia said. “Except now, we don’t even have leverage.”“We have clarity,” Luka replied.“Clarity doesn’t stop bullets,” Marco snap
CHAPTER 161: THE THRESHOLD BELOW
The Kiln wasn’t on any map.You didn’t stumble upon it, and if you were told where it was, it meant you were already part of someone’s endgame.Luka’s convoy came to a stop at the edge of an abandoned industrial park southeast of the river...miles from the city’s core, past the bone-white factories and silent silos that once fueled Carrick’s empire. Fog clung to the crumbling asphalt like rot. The warehouse before them was enormous and half-buried...its windows blacked out, its entrance chained with a rusted iron seal shaped like a raven.Luka stepped out of the car, the keycard tight in his hand. Alessia was beside him, strapped and alert. Marco and Viktor flanked them, each sweeping the perimeter with their weapons drawn. Lena hung back, checking their uplink to the overwatch drone.“No heat signatures,” she said through her headset. “But something’s messing with the feed. Like the building’s jamming us.”“Carrick wouldn’t make it easy,” Alessia murmured.Luka approached the seal an
CHAPTER 160: THE GHOST PROTOCOL
Marlow’s study felt like a mausoleum disguised as a gentleman’s den.Every book on the shelf was aligned with surgical precision. The hardwood floors gleamed with polish. A grandfather clock ticked quietly in the corner like a bomb set to a rhythm only he could hear. Luka didn’t lower his gun.“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Luka said. “We know about Project Sepulcher. We know Carrick wasn’t working alone.”Marlow gave a weary smile, folding his hands. “You don’t know a damn thing, son. What you have is dust. Scraps. You’re playing scavenger in a war you don’t understand.”“I understand enough,” Luka said, voice low. “I understand it didn’t die with him.”“No,” Marlow admitted, eyes flickering. “It never dies. Not really. Sepulcher isn’t an organization. It’s a mechanism. One that activates when men like Carrick fall.”Alessia stepped forward, gun steady. “Then what is it? Tell us straight.”Marlow’s eyes met hers...calm, penetrating, as if he were dissecting her soul.“Sepulcher was b
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