2025-08-25 09:51:46The night air in Westbridge shimmered with neon and smoke. Clubs pulsed with bass, liquor flowed like rivers, and men with dirty money laughed too loudly in dark corners. To the casual eye, it was just another Friday night in the city. But Jackson Carter knew better.
Beneath the music and champagne, Westbridge belonged to monsters. Men who dealt in blood as casually as stockbrokers traded shares. Men who had murdered his family and walked free. Men who thought themselves untouchable. And tonight, Jackson intended to touch them.
The limousine rolled to a slow stop outside The Gilded Serpent, a private club reserved for Westbridge’s elite. Jackson stepped out, his polished shoes clicking against the marble pavement. Cameras flashed as guests turned their heads. Nobody recognized him, and that was the point.
He wasn’t Jackson Carter anymore. He was Mr. Black, a reclusive investor who had risen out of nowhere with impossible wealth and mysterious connections. His name had begun circulating in the underground only weeks ago, whispered in fear and curiosity. Nobody knew where his fortune came from, and nobody dared ask.
He adjusted the cuff of his charcoal suit, nodded once to his driver, and strode toward the golden doors. The bouncers, hulking men with tattoos peeking out of their collars, stepped aside immediately. Money talked, and his had been screaming in their ears for days.
Inside, the club glowed with decadence. Crystal chandeliers rained light over velvet couches, women in glittering dresses sipped champagne, and cigar smoke curled above poker tables where millions were lost in minutes. A jazz band played in the corner, their notes smooth and dangerous.
Jackson’s eyes scanned the room until they landed on him. Victor Moretti.
The man was larger than life, seated at the center of a semicircle booth, his suit tailored, his fingers heavy with gold rings. His laugh rumbled over the music as he clapped a hand around another man’s shoulder.
Beside him sat his lieutenants, shadows dressed as men, killers who had carved their names in blood across the city. And then there was her. Elena Moretti.
She sat quietly at Victor’s side, her beauty muted by the darkness in her eyes. A diamond necklace glistened at her throat, but her smile was hollow, her gaze drifting anywhere but her husband’s face.
When she brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, Jackson’s chest tightened against his will. Focus. He reminded himself. This wasn’t about her. Not yet.
Jackson approached the bar first, ordering a glass of aged whiskey. His reflection stared back at him from the polished counter, cold, unreadable, unbroken. He sipped slowly, letting the fire burn his throat, and waited. It didn’t take long. Victor noticed him.
Of course he did. Jackson had made sure of it, sending subtle ripples through the city’s underworld, making investments in properties Victor had his eyes on, turning heads with whispers of deals too large to ignore.
And now, the shark had scented blood. “Who the hell’s that?” one of Victor’s men muttered.
Victor leaned back, his sharp gaze pinning Jackson like a knife. Then he raised a hand, summoning him. The moment stretched. Jackson set down his glass, straightened his jacket, and crossed the room.
Each step was measured, confident, his pulse steady despite the fire in his veins. When he reached the table, Victor’s voice boomed. “Mr. Black, isn’t it? The man with money flowing like the river Nile.”
Jackson smiled faintly. “Mr. Moretti. An honor to meet a man whose name carries such… weight in Westbridge.”
The table chuckled at his choice of words. Victor’s eyes narrowed, gauging the stranger. “You’ve been busy. Buying land, investing in businesses, dropping money where it counts. You move like a man who wants to be noticed.”
“Or a man who wants to belong,” Jackson countered smoothly.
Victor studied him for a long moment. Then, with a grin, he patted the seat beside him. “Sit. Drink with us. Let’s see if you belong.”
The hours that followed were a dance. Victor asked questions, subtle but sharp. Jackson answered with half-truths and crafted lies, every word designed to weave a new identity.
He was a ghost investor from overseas. He had contacts in Europe, pipelines of money no one could trace. He spoke enough truth, using his actual fortune, to make the lies believable.
And slowly, Victor leaned in, intrigued. But not everyone at the table was convinced. One of the lieutenants, a scarred brute named Carlo, sneered openly. “I don’t buy it. Nobody comes out of nowhere with pockets that deep. Not unless they’re hiding something.”
Jackson turned his gaze on him, unflinching. “Then perhaps you’re not looking hard enough.”
The table went quiet. Carlo bristled, his hand twitching toward the knife on his belt. But Victor chuckled, breaking the tension. “Easy, Carlo. Mr. Black’s got bite. I like that.” He raised his glass. “To new friends.”
Glasses clinked. Jackson drank. Later that night, as the band played softer and the laughter grew hazier with liquor, Jackson excused himself from the table. He needed air, or at least, that’s what he told them. In truth, he needed a closer look at Elena.
She had slipped away from Victor’s side, standing near the balcony, staring out at the rain-slick city. Alone. Vulnerable. Jackson hesitated, then walked toward her. “Beautiful view,” he said quietly.
Her head turned, eyes narrowing slightly. Up close, her beauty was breathtaking, high cheekbones, full lips, eyes that carried storms. But it was the sadness beneath them that struck him hardest.
“You’re not from here,” she said flatly.
“No,” Jackson admitted. “And neither are you, not really.”
Her brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”
He leaned on the balcony rail beside her, careful not to touch. “I’ve seen women who smile because they want to. And I’ve seen women who smile because they’re forced to. I know the difference.”
For a moment, her mask cracked. A flicker of truth in her gaze, quickly buried again.
“You should be careful, Mr. Black,” she said, voice soft but laced with warning. “This city eats men like you alive.”
Jackson’s lips curved faintly. “Then I’ll just have to bite back.”
Their eyes held, charged, unspoken words passing between them. Something dangerous. Something inevitable. And then, The club doors slammed open. Gunshots shattered the music.
Screams filled the air as bullets tore through glass and wood. Men in black masks stormed in, rifles raised, cutting down anyone in their path. The chandeliers swung violently as chaos erupted.
Victor roared, flipping the table for cover, dragging his men behind him. The jazz band scattered. People trampled one another in desperation. Jackson didn’t move.
He stood in the open, heart pounding, eyes locked on the attackers. And in that moment, as bullets ripped through the club, he realized this wasn’t random. This was a message.
Gunmen storm The Gilded Serpent, turning Jackson’s first meeting with Victor into a massacre. Jackson is caught in the middle, his carefully built mask at risk of shattering in the hail of bullets.
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Chapter 22 – A Wolf in the Flock
Victor’s shadow filled the ruined sanctuary. His men fanned out in a black wave, rifles raised, boots crushing over shards of glass and corpses. Smoke hung thick, haloed by the fractured moonlight through broken stained glass.At the center of it all, Jackson, pistol leveled at Carlo’s skull. Elena lay limp behind him, her blood smearing the cracked altar. Victor’s jaw clenched. His voice was gravel wrapped in silk. “Explain. Now.”Jackson’s heart hammered. One wrong word, one wrong twitch, and his cover shattered. He forced his breathing slow, steadied his tone.“Navarro’s men. They ambushed us. They almost had me, almost had her.” He tilted his chin toward Elena, her fragile body trembling with shallow breaths.Victor’s sharp gaze flicked to her, then to Carlo, whose grin hadn’t wavered. Carlo spread his arms mockingly. “And I saved him. Again. You’re welcome.”Victor’s eyes narrowed, moving back to Jackson. “And why was your gun to his head?”The room went silent. Even the dead see
Chapter 21 – Baptism of Lead
Bullets chewed through stained glass, spraying shards like rainbows across the dark. The church shook with Navarro’s fury, his stragglers screaming like jackals as they poured lead into the sanctuary.Jackson dove behind a shattered pew, Elena clutched tight against his chest. The ledger dug into his ribs with every desperate breath.Across the aisle, Carlo crouched behind a stone pillar, returning fire with a predator’s precision. Each shot dropped a Navarro soldier, his laughter ringing between the cracks of gunfire.“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Carlo shouted over the chaos. “Blood on holy ground. A perfect family tradition!”Jackson’s rage boiled. “You think this is tradition? This is the end!”He leaned out, squeezed the trigger. A Navarro gunman spun, dropped. The others howled, firing back, bullets sparking stone inches from Jackson’s face.Elena whimpered, clutching his arm, her skin clammy with fever. She couldn’t survive long in this hell. Carlo slid across the aisle, slamming down
Chapter 20 – Wolves in the Sanctuary
Carlo’s footsteps echoed like drumbeats across the ruined church. The smile he wore wasn’t amusement, it was ownership.He paused halfway down the aisle, where dust motes spun in the candlelight, and tilted his head. “Fitting, isn’t it? A sanctuary. Confession booth without the priest.”Jackson’s pulse hammered, but he kept his stance wide, his hand steady near the pistol at his belt. Elena’s faint breaths behind him rasped like sandpaper.Carlo’s gaze lingered on her body laid across the altar. “And here I thought Victor kept his saints on pedestals. Instead, I find you kneeling to your own little martyr.”Jackson’s jaw flexed. “Why are you here?”Carlo’s grin sharpened. “Because I smell lies, boy. And lies, when left to rot, fester. You disappear during Navarro’s fall. You slink through alleys like a thief. You hide things. Secrets. And secrets…” He spread his hands, elegant, theatrical. “…secrets are my favorite game.”Jackson’s chest burned with the ledger’s weight against his rib
Chapter 19 – Ledger of Ghosts
The brittle pages trembled in Jackson’s hands as though they carried their own pulse. Candlelight guttered across the faded ink, throwing long shadows over Elena’s pale face where she lay on the altar.Every name scratched in his father’s neat, deliberate hand was a chain pulling him deeper into a past he had never asked for.Navarro. Victor. Rocco. Dozens of others, lieutenants and foot soldiers, all recorded like pawns in a game older than Jackson’s scars.But it was the last name that froze the blood in his veins. Carlo.Circled once. Then circled again. And beneath it, in his father’s scrawl, a single word: “Debt.”Jackson pressed his palm against the page, forcing air into his lungs. Debt? To whom? To his father? To Victor? Or to something else that had no face and no name?He flipped back, searching frantically through older pages. His father’s script flowed like water, every stroke steady, precise.Transactions. Locations. Meetings. Codes that only someone inside the empire’s m
Chapter 18 – The Map of Blood
The cellar was silent but for Elena’s shallow breaths and the distant thunder of men readying for war. Above, boots stomped, rifles clattered, and Victor’s voice bellowed orders like a king preparing his crusade.But Jackson’s eyes weren’t on the door. They were on the parchment in his hands.It smelled of age, of dust and iron. Its edges were frayed, the ink faded but still legible. A map, but not of Navarro’s territories, nor Victor’s empire.This was older. Its lines were jagged, marked with strange sigils scrawled along streets and riverbanks. Some had been circled, others crossed out in red.At the bottom, in a bold, black stroke, one word stabbed his eyes like a blade: Anderson.Jackson’s grip tightened. His name. His blood. Here, in Victor’s fortress, beneath Victor’s shed, as if waiting for him all along.Elena stirred weakly, her lips pale. “What… is it?”Jackson crouched beside her, his voice low. “A map. Not Navarro’s. Not Victor’s. Something else. And it has my name on it.
Chapter 17 – The Search
Boots thudded against the boards above the cellar. Dust rained down from the ceiling, filling Jackson’s nostrils with the stench of rot and gun oil.“Spread out,” Carlo barked. His voice was sharp, commanding, his tone dripping suspicion. “The wolf hides secrets. I want every shadow uncovered.”Jackson crouched beside Elena, his hand pressing her shoulder gently but firmly. Her eyelids fluttered, breath ragged.“They’re coming,” he whispered. “Stay quiet. No matter what.”Her blood-slick fingers brushed his wrist, faint as the breath of a dying flame. Her eyes spoke volumes she couldn’t say: don’t risk yourself for me. But it was too late. He already had.The cellar door creaked, torchlight bleeding into the darkness. Shadows stretched long, soldiers descending the narrow steps with rifles raised.Jackson moved quickly, rising to his full height in the cellar’s cramped space, body positioned squarely in front of Elena’s makeshift cot. His pistol hung loose at his side, casual, but his
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