King of the Underground

The Ghost's Name

Chapter 3: The Ghost’s Name

The penthouse atop the ZarTech Tower reeked of expensive cigars, bloodstained money, and quiet paranoia.

Kade Creed stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, shirtless, muscles lean and coiled, staring down at the city below. The scars along his back told stories no one dared ask about. He held a glass of red wine like it was a blade—delicate, dangerous.

Behind him, his consigliere, a man named Viktor Toma, read the message again. He didn’t like repeating himself.

“Reece Vandal swears it was Jaxon,” Viktor said. “Face, voice, tattoos—everything checks out. He walked into the Hollow like a war god. Broke Reece’s nose and made him kneel.”

Kade didn’t turn. “He was supposed to be dead.”

“He was supposed to rot in a frozen grave.”

Kade finally spoke. “If Jaxon’s back... there’ll be war.”

Viktor smirked. “Did you ever doubt that?”

Kade swirled his wine and drank. “Not once.”

In the underground, Jaxon made his second move.

He returned to the streets where he grew up—Block 9, the slums they used to rule when all they had were fists and ambition. The corners were run-down now, overrun by drug-pushers and wannabe soldiers in stolen gang colors. He saw a twelve-year-old boy holding a pistol too big for his hands.

He grabbed the gun from him without warning.

The boy flinched. “Hey, that’s mine!”

Jaxon crouched, staring him dead in the eyes. “You don’t even know how to hold it. You shoot sideways, and the recoil breaks your wrist. You shoot at a man, and you better kill him. Because if you don’t, he’ll come back... like I did.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “You... you’re Jaxon Creed.”

He nodded. “And I’m taking Block 9 back. From every punk who thinks a gun makes him king.”

The boy hesitated, then asked, “Need help?”

Jaxon smiled for the first time in years. “Yeah. I need messengers.”

By sundown, old names started crawling out of hiding.

Tyce Romero, former arms dealer turned junkyard rat.

Dom "Fangs" Delano, an ex-enforcer left for dead in a fire.

Miko, a hacker with one eye and a grudge against the city.

One by one, they met in the cracked halls of the Red Line Church—a sanctuary for the broken and damned. Jaxon stood at the pulpit like a preacher of war.

“They left us in the dirt,” he said. “Buried us. Lied about us. Kade built his empire with blood stolen from our veins.”

The room stayed silent.

“Now we take it back.”

Dom chuckled. “You planning to walk through his door and shoot your way to the top?”

“No,” Jaxon said. “I plan to make him watch it all crumble first.”

Meanwhile, in the penthouse, Kade stared at a screen.

A news report blared: "Mysterious violence erupts in Cape Heights as former crime lord resurfaces..."

Kade’s smile was cold.

“Time to remind big brother why I’m the one still standing.”

He turned to Viktor.

“Find Lyra. If she’s seen him, she’s compromised.”

“And if she refuses to come in?”

Kade’s eyes went dead.

“Then she disappears.”