Blood Debts

Valemont City, 2:14 A.M. Rain hammered against the glass skyline like a thousand whispered confessions. The night was cold, electric,  the kind of night when men made bad decisions and ghosts came home.

A black car slid to a stop in front of The Orion Club, the beating heart of Valemont’s underworld. Inside, laughter and jazz tangled with the low hum of dirty money.

The driver stepped out first. Then the back door opened. Fredricks Mayford emerged, tall, composed, dressed in a charcoal suit that looked like it had never known a wrinkle.

His expression was unreadable, but his eyes, they burned with quiet purpose. “Name?”

The guard’s tone was bored, until he looked up. “Mayford,” Fredricks said simply.

The guard blinked. “Mayford? As in”

“Open the door.”

Something in his voice, not loud, not angry, but absolute, made the man obey without another word. Inside, the room was all smoke and arrogance. Crime lords, corporate giants, politicians, the kind of men who thought they owned the city.

At the center table sat Victor D’Lorne, older now but still a serpent in a suit. His laughter stopped when he saw Fredricks. For a moment, disbelief flickered across his face, then amusement.

“Well, if it isn’t the ghost of the Mayford boy,” Victor drawled.

“I was beginning to think you’d joined your family in the ground.”

Fredricks smiled, thin, surgical. “You always had a gift for talking to the dead, Victor.”

A ripple of tension spread through the room. Every man suddenly remembered the rumors, the boy who vanished after the massacre, the one who supposedly died in the fire.

Fredricks walked closer, each step deliberate. “You thought time would wash away what you did,” he said. “That a new name, a few handshakes, would buy you redemption.”

Victor leaned back, smirking. “Redemption’s for priests. I bought power.”

“Then let’s talk debt.”

Fredricks set a small object on the table, a silver pocket watch, its glass cracked, hands frozen at 11:47. The moment the bullets started that night. “Do you remember this?” he asked softly.

“I remember your father begging,” Victor said. “He wasn’t half as composed as you are.”

The next silence was a blade. “You should’ve killed me too,” Fredricks murmured.

Victor chuckled. “I tried.”

“Not hard enough.”

The lights flickered. The music died. Somewhere, a gun was cocked, but not by Fredricks. The man standing behind Victor froze, eyes wide. “Tell your men to lower their weapons,” Fredricks said calmly.

“Or what?”

“Or I finish what you started, but this time, you won’t get to walk away.”

Victor studied him, the stillness, the confidence, the cold certainty. Then, slowly, he raised a hand. His men hesitated, then stepped back.

Fredricks leaned in, his voice low enough for only Victor to hear. “This city forgot what my name meant. I’m here to remind them.”

He turned and walked out, the pocket watch ticking faintly in his wake, though its hands had never moved.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The storm had just begun.