2025-11-06 19:52:18Rain thickened outside, pattering against the windows in uneven rhythms. The bar carried the scent of old wood and whiskey soaked into grain. Luca sat motionless. The bartender across from him worked their jaw like they were chewing on fear.
“Start talking,” Luca said. Not harsh. Not impatient. Simply a directive.
The bartender braced both hands on the counter. “There were stories about you long before the fire. Stories about the way you could cross a street and every predator in the city looked away. Stories about how gangs called truces when you were near.” He shook his head. “Not because you were violent — but because they knew you could be. Knew exactly what would happen if you decided to.”
Luca listened. The words did not feel like compliments. They felt like ghosts.
“What was I?” Luca asked.
The bartender’s eyes flicked up. “You were the one who kept the balance. Criminals, politicians, monsters—something about you and your people… kept them from tearing each other apart.”
“My people,” Luca repeated softly.
The bartender swallowed. “The Pack.”
Luca didn’t react outwardly, but something inside him clicked — like a hand sliding into a glove it used to know well.
“And Rhea?” Luca asked.
Silence stretched for a long time.
The bartender’s voice grew quiet. Heavy. “She was the one who could calm you. The only one who could speak when the full moon hit and you—”
He stopped himself, shaking his head as if even the memory carried danger.
Luca felt a flicker of something — not anger, not sadness — something quieter. A pressure. A presence inside his chest, as if waiting to be acknowledged.
“What happened to the Pack?” Luca asked.
The bartender didn’t answer.
Someone else did.
A chair scraped in the back corner of the room. Footsteps approached. Slow. Deliberate. The same kind of measured pace Luca had — trained, controlled.
Luca didn’t turn. He just listened.
A woman slid into the stool beside him. No perfume. No jewelry. Just a leather coat and rainwater still dripping from her hair.
“You picked a bad night to come back, Luca,” she said softly.
Her voice carried gravel — like someone who had smoked too much, screamed too much, or lived too long in places where silence was dangerous.
Luca turned his head just enough to see her.
Sharp eyes. Not afraid — but evaluating. Like someone checking where the exits were before speaking.
“You know me,” Luca said.
She huffed something between a laugh and a sigh. “Everyone used to know you.”
Her gaze held the kind of grief that turns knives into memories.
“But now?” she said. “Now you’re a ghost. And ghosts tend to get hunted in this city.”
Luca considered her. “Your name.”
“Marrow,” she answered. “Just Marrow.”
The bartender stepped back, as if giving the two space. Or as if he didn’t want to be involved in what came next.
Marrow leaned her forearms onto the counter. “I’m going to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it.” Her voice was steady, but her fingers tapped once against the wood — a tell of nerves despite her control. “The Pack is shattered. Scattered. Some went into hiding. Some joined the Order to survive. Some…” her voice tightened, “…died waiting for you to come back.”
A beat of quiet.
Outside, thunder rolled like distant artillery.
Luca didn’t move. Didn’t exhale. But inside—
Something howled.
Not in memory. Not in fear.
In recognition.
“Who killed them?” Luca asked.
Marrow’s eyes shifted — not away — but inward. Calculating what answer would matter.
“No one killed them,” she said. “They killed each other. After you disappeared, there was no Alpha. No center. The moon hit, and there was no voice strong enough to hold them. It was chaos.”
Luca felt the pressure in his chest tighten. Not guilt — guilt requires memory. This was something deeper. Something bone-deep. Something old.
“Then someone burned the nightclub,” Luca said.
Marrow nodded once. “To erase you.” She paused. “Or to erase what was left of you.”
The bartender flinched at the wording.
The lights flickered as if the storm outside remembered something too.
Luca spoke carefully. “Rhea was part of this.”
Marrow didn’t look away. “Rhea was the center of you. Which makes her the most important piece in this entire mess.”
“And she betrayed me,” Luca said — not as a question, but as a shape of the truth.
Marrow didn’t speak.
She didn’t need to.
Luca stood.
Marrow stood too — instinctively — like her body remembered that when Luca moved, the world changed shape.
“Where is she?” he asked.
Marrow’s jaw tightened. “That depends on who you ask. Some say she’s hiding. Some say the Order took her. Some say she’s running from you.”
Luca’s expression didn’t change. “And you? What do you think?”
Marrow held his gaze. There was no hesitation in her answer.
“I think she broke you to save the city from what you were becoming.”
A quiet passed between them. Not empty. Heavy.
Luca didn’t blink. “Then I need to know what I was.”
Marrow nodded slowly. “Then we need to move. Now. Because the people who burned that nightclub?” She flicked her gaze to the door. “They’re already looking for you.”
The sirens outside cut suddenly — replaced by the deeper, lower growl of black-engine SUVs rolling slow.
Luca didn’t turn. He didn’t need to.
His voice was calm. Controlled.
“Back door?”
The bartender pointed with shaking hands.
Marrow moved first — fast but silent.
Luca followed — steady, unhurried, like someone who did not fear being caught.
As they slipped out into the rain-slick alley, Marrow whispered:
“You really don’t remember any of it, do you?”
Luca looked ahead, jaw set, eyes dark, something ancient pressing against the inside of his ribs like it wanted out.
“No,” he said.
Marrow exhaled — not relief, not frustration — something closer to dread.
“Then the city is already in trouble.”
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Latest Chapter
THREADS THAT REFUSE TO DIE
The storm rolled in quickly, clouds muscling across the sky as if the heavens themselves were bracing for what Annabelle was about to uncover. She stood beside the window, watching the first drops of rain distort the glass. Each streak felt like a countdown—slow, deliberate, unavoidable.Ashton and Bernard were at the table behind her, maps and old documents scattered across the surface. The room felt too small for the weight of what they were trying to untangle. Every page they touched carried a ghost. Every name whispered a threat.Annabelle finally turned.“Start from the beginning,” she said. “From the moment my mother first realized something was wrong. Don’t leave anything out this time.”Bernard exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose, the exhaustion in his posture revealing just how long he had been carrying this secret.“She was working late one night,” he began. “Cross-checking accounts for the charity foundation she managed. She noticed a transfer that didn’t make sense… th
THE MASK OF THE TRUSTED
Annabelle didn’t realize she was shaking until Ashton stepped in front of her again, placing both hands on her shoulders as if anchoring her back to the floor. Her breath came out in broken bursts, like the air itself had turned too sharp to swallow.Mr. Harrow.The man who had been in her living room after her mother’s funeral.The man who had spoken gently, offering to “help with the paperwork.”The man who checked on her every few months, just enough to seem caring, never enough to seem suspicious.Her knees weakened under the weight of the realization.“Mr. Harrow can’t be involved in this,” Annabelle whispered, though her voice already carried the hollow tremble of disbelief crumbling into truth. “He… he helped me. He guided me through everything. He was the one who said my mother’s case was closed. He said the evidence was lost in the fire—”Bernard’s expression told her everything.The evidence wasn’t lost.It was buried.“Annabelle,” Bernard said softly, “that’s exactly the ro
SHADOWS THAT NEVER LEFT
Silence swallowed the room so completely that Annabelle could hear her own heartbeat stumbling inside her chest. The words Bernard had just spoken clung to the air like heavy smoke.Connected to her mother’s death.Annabelle’s knees weakened again, and Ashton’s arm tightened instinctively around her waist, steadying her even before she realized she was falling. She leaned slightly against him, the weight of Bernard’s revelation pressing through her bones like a slow, crushing tide.Her voice was barely a whisper—thin, trembling.“Bernard… what do you mean connected? Connected how?”Bernard turned away for a moment, raking a shaking hand through his hair. It was the kind of movement a man made when he had reached the end of his strength, when the truth had been sitting on his tongue for too long.“It didn’t start with us,” Bernard murmured. “It didn’t start with anything you said or did. Annabelle… someone has been circling your family long before you even knew how deep your mother was
THE WEIGHT OF PROMISES
The morning crawled in slowly, dragging pale light across the windows like someone gently lifting a veil after a long night of tears. Annabelle stood at the balcony rail, fingers curled around the cold metal, staring at the horizon as if the sun owed her an explanation for rising again. Behind her, the room felt too silent, too heavy, as though every breath inside the walls had grown cautious.She heard Ashton moving before she saw him. His footsteps were slow, not from sleepiness but from the quiet uncertainty that had been lingering between them since last night. He paused at the doorway, watching her slender back, the way her shoulders lifted and dropped with a deep breath she didn’t release fully.“Annabelle,” his voice finally reached her, low and careful, like he was approaching a wounded animal. “You’ve been out here for almost an hour.”She didn’t turn. “I needed the air,” she murmured, her tone soft but edged with exhaustion. “I didn’t sleep much.”“I noticed,” he said, walki
Embers of Dominion
Dawn broke unevenly over the city, casting fractured beams of light through the smoke and debris that still clung to the alleys. Luca walked with deliberate steps through the streets, muscles taut, senses sharp, every shadow a potential threat, every whisper a piece of information. The Warden’s trial had left him changed—not merely stronger, but clearer, more focused. The silver memory now burned like a lodestar in his mind, illuminating the paths others couldn’t see, revealing threats before they could strike, and exposing weaknesses others assumed hidden.The factions were restless. His first strike, the chaos of the previous nights, and now the reverberations of the trial had sent tremors through their ranks. Rumors of a returning predator spread quickly, carried by whispers, graffiti, and subtle signals that Luca alone could read with precision. The city itself seemed to pulse in anticipation, as if aware that its rhythm was about to be rewritten.He moved toward the industrial se
The Warden’s Trial
The night hung heavy over the city, cloaking it in shadows that stretched and writhed like living things. Luca moved through the streets with lethal precision, senses stretched to their limits, every nerve attuned to even the faintest tremor of danger. He could feel the pulse of the city beneath his feet—the steady rhythm of life, crime, and chaos—and it guided him like a compass, warning him of traps, ambushes, and unseen threats. Every building, alley, and rooftop was a potential battlefield, and every shadow might conceal a predator or a pawn.Tonight, the air carried more than the usual scent of asphalt, smoke, and decay. There was something else—an undercurrent of power, subtle yet unmistakable. It emanated from the old quarter, where the Warden had first trained him, where the silver memory had been forged and hidden away. Luca knew instinctively that the trial he had sensed in fragments of his memories was now manifesting. This was not merely a confrontation with enemies; it wa
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