BLOOD OWNS THIS CITY

The Ghost Wakes

The shoe pressed down on Marcus Webb's back, grinding his face against the cold marble floor.

"Clean it properly, old man."

The voice belonged to Viktor Volkov. Marcus knew it instantly. He'd been memorizing that voice for five years. Every inflection. Every laugh. Every word Viktor had ever spoken on the recording Marcus carried in his head.

Marcus stayed still. His janitor's uniform was soaked through with cleaning solution. The lobby of the Grand Plaza Hotel gleamed around them—chandeliers, gold trim, rich men in expensive suits stepping around the mess like he was furniture.

Viktor laughed and walked away with his entourage. Three bodyguards. A lawyer. A woman in red who held Viktor's arm like it was made of gold.

Marcus pushed himself up slowly. His left leg trembled. The bullet fragment near his spine sent a lightning bolt of pain down his thigh. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper.

Five years of hiding. Five years of watching. Five years of being invisible while these men drank champagne and counted their blood money.

The Ghost of the Eastern Front didn't crawl. But Marcus Webb did. Every single day.

He finished his shift. Changed out of the uniform. Walked six blocks through the rain to the Iron District.

The condemned apartment building leaned against the sky like a dying man. Marcus climbed five flights of stairs, each step a war with his own body. His room was a storage closet. No windows. A bucket for a toilet. A mattress he'd found in a dumpster.

Behind a loose brick, he kept his lockbox.

He pulled it out now. His fingers were steady even when his leg shook. Inside: a faded photograph. Six men in combat gear, arms around each other, grinning like they were invincible. All dead now. All murdered.

His dog tags. Two of them. One with his name. One with no name at all.

And a single bullet. The one they pulled from his spine in a field hospital five years ago. The doctor had said he'd never walk again. Marcus had walked. Limped. Crawled. But he'd walked.

He held the bullet in his palm. It was cold and small and had almost killed him.

But it hadn't.

Viktor Volkov. Leonid Petrov. Marcus's own father—a man he'd never met but whose name he'd finally learned six months ago. Simon Webb. The scientist who'd created the weapon that got Marcus's men killed. The man who'd sold them all out to save his own skin.

Five names on the list. Marcus had memorized them. Dreamed about them. Woken up screaming their names in the dark.

He was done hiding.

He picked up his dog tags. The metal clinked against each other. He slipped the second one around his neck—the one with no name, the one that belonged to his spotter, the man Viktor had personally killed with a knife.

"Not anymore," Marcus whispered.

His voice was a low rasp from the throat injury. It made him sound like a ghost. Fitting.

He stood up. His leg screamed. He ignored it.

The Ghost had died five years ago in a burning helicopter. That man was gone. But the rage that drove him was still there—colder now. More patient. More precise.

Marcus Webb was going to tear this city apart with his bare hands. Not for revenge. For justice. For his men. For every soldier the rich men in their towers had thrown away like garbage.

He pulled on a black jacket. The rain had stopped outside. The Iron District was quiet, just the distant hum of traffic and the occasional bark of a stray dog.

He had nothing. No money. No weapons. No allies. A broken spine and a broken heart.

But he had something better.

He had the truth. And Viktor Volkov didn't know he was coming.

Marcus walked out of the condemned building. The city's lights reflected off the wet streets. The Zenith Tower loomed in the distance like a glass spear.

He wouldn't go there tonight. Not yet. Tonight, he needed to find Mrs. Chen's restaurant. She ran a small place three blocks east. She hired veterans. She asked no questions. She was his first step.

His hand drifted to his pocket. The manifest he'd been planning to steal from Viktor's storage unit was still months away from being useful. He'd need evidence. He'd need allies. He'd need to move like a ghost—slow, invisible, lethal.

But first, he needed to eat. The rage was cold fuel, but it wouldn't fix the tremor in his hands.

Marcus walked. His leg dragged slightly. He kept his head down, his shoulders hunched. The city saw only another broken veteran. Another nobody.

Good.

Let them look. Let them assume. Let Viktor sleep peacefully in his penthouse with his bodyguards and his money and his delusions of safety.

Marcus Webb was coming.

And this time, he wasn't playing janitor.

Should Marcus tell Mrs. Chen who he really is, or stay hidden until he has more information?*