Prologue/ Chapter 1

Prologue 

Avon took frantic steps out of the house, in horror of what just unfolded in his eyes. Back at where he ran from, were harmed men with matching outfits of black clearing out his family. 

He would have been killed, but he managed to escape after having taken notice of just one thing: the small skull tattoo drawn on the neck of those men. He made sure that was asserted deep in his memory as he scurried away, running with all of his might. 

He took numerous glances at the back and hoped those men weren’t following him. Heavy breaths and sighs slipped out his mouth as he finally took a stop to rest after getting to a dark corner. 

His thin body rested on the wall while gigantic balls of sweat rolled down his face. He peeked back for about two times before slowly sitting down and rethinking everything that just happened. 

Just this morning, Avon woke up happily with his family, everyone not expecting a situation like this to unfold close to the end of the day. 

Dinner was in preparation as usual when these men trooped in. Avon was at the toilet releasing the stored up undigested particles in his stomach. The slurred sound coming from his stomach, finalized the stomach cramps he had been dealing with all day long. 

His mother, father, two sisters, and a brother were brought out of their various rooms, his mother out of the kitchen, his father away from his office and we're made to kneel down in front of them in the living room. 

Avon’s room was checked and found empty because he was in the toilet. Then the sound of the first gunshot came, snapping Avon out of his thoughts and everything in his stomach shuttered to a stop. 

With a danger instinct, he cleaned himself up, walked out of the toilet and headed straight to where he heard the sound coming from. 

As he approached the living room, he listened to the pleas of people that sounded exactly like the voice of his own family. Avon was quick to take a shade and watched everything unfold before his eyes from a corner.

Avon witnessed the bullet  pierce the head of his mother, then to his sister, to his other sister, and finally his brother. 

Tears stung at the corner of his eyes as he was desperate to let them out, but that would attract attention to his safety. 

“One of them is still missing! I want him to be found and killed!” The one that seemed to be heading the crew yelled in his vicious tone. Glaring at the men surrounding him.

At the sound of this, Avon backed away, taking a very long last look at the man who made the order for him to be killed, taking notice of the small tattoo drawn on his neck. Glancing at others, he saw it available also. It's a gang mark, one that’ll help him in future. 

Just close to the back door, he stamped his feet, attracting the attention he never wanted. 

“Who’s there? Check it out.” Hearing that, Avon sprinted to a run. 

Ignoring the constant shutter from his stomach, ran and ran and never took a stop until he’s sure that he was saved. 

~

  

Three days are gone and Avon is laid on the floor of where he had stopped the other day, looking frail and tattered. His breaths were haggard and sluggish, his body paler than normal, his bones sticking out of their region. 

Then she appeared, awed at the man. 

“Are you okay?” She questioned, squatting below and lifting the almost dead man up to rest on the wall, his face lifted up. 

“I….” Avon’s voice trailed off, unable to construct a sentence as he stared lifelessly at the world with his vision slowly blurring out. 

“Here, have this to have a little strength,” she propped forward a bread and a bottle of water. 

“I will come back for you.” Then she stood up disappearing into the night. 

<<<Three years Later>>>

Avon Barksdale stepped down from the black colored SUV, dressed corporately in a black suit and an army cap laid on his head. 

It has been three years, three years since he last stepped his foot in EastHill, three years since he lost everything, his family, his home, his all. 

Three years ago, The Barksdale was no more, falling victim to a scheme against them. 

Without knowing who he was, the young girl had presented him with food and water, rejuvenating his dying organs. 

Everyone thought Barksdale was no more. And after that night, he had squeezed himself on a train headed to an army camp. 

He ended up in the East where he became a soldier. He spent three years rising through ranks. From an ineffable grunt, he became the General. 

He had single-handedly defeated an elite army of about thirty thousand. He had gone on different solo missions, doing the impossible by capturing a general of an enemy camp alive. 

However, he’s now back to his hometown, not as a normal man who survived being killed, but as the famous Dragon General, the head official army to the whole in his distinct area. 

He became the legendary Dragon General of the EastHill. He became the Vicious Dragon that struck fear to his enemies. 

He was the youngest ever seen. And once he was made the general, he retired and returned back to EastHill. He had come to do just two things. 

One to find the men that placed an end to his family happiness and existence, and give to them Justice in his own way. 

Two to find the girl, the girl that saved his life the other night from not dying. To repay her for her good deed.

Chapter 1 

Seated on a chair placed in front of the desk, matching the appearance of his in an office, with his elbow resting on the desk and hands clamped together meters away from his face. A knock landed on his door. 

“Come in.” The deep rough voice authorized, composing himself and becoming well seated. 

A man clad in a corporate black suit and a knotted tie around his neck trotted inside. “Boss.” His head bowed to the man in front of him. 

“Have you gotten the information?”

“Yes, General. The girl who saved you that night three years ago is Lorraine Hales. She’s well after that, but recently she was lamed from a motor accident.”

Avon’s fist tightened together with his expression darkening. 

“I want all the information you have about her.” 

“I have sent it all to your emails sir. Please take a look.” 

Avon’s gaze went to the computer in front of him, clicking it and checking his email. There was an uncheck message waiting for him. Clicking the read button, 

Lorraine Hales, twenty six years old. 

The last born and daughter to the Hales’s household. A family that has a bit of a class in the society of EastHill. 

“What’s the cause of her recent accident?” He queried, his gaze still focused on the display information about Lorraine. 

“I found out the accident wasn’t unintentionally, rather it was done on purpose.” 

Days ago a rich car had parked beside Lorraine who was coming back from a grocery store and heading back home. 

She halted, taking a stop to acknowledge whoever could be in the car. Inside stepped out a man, he approached Lorraine removing his dark shades. 

“How much to have you for a night?” He asked with his gaze on her dripping in lust. 

“Excuse me?” 

He moved closer touching her bosom as he licked his lips in lust. “Excuse me?” She pushed him away landing a hard slap across his face. 

“How dare you touch me like that? I’m not a slut or anything you can have.” She stomped away after leaving a raged filled man glaring at her as she walked away. 

Richard, who had just been disgraced, stepped back into the car, “Hit her and make her pay.” He said to the man seated behind the wheel. 

“Huh?” 

“Did I stutter? Now do it!” 

And the car came colliding with Lorraine as she sorted to cross, knocking her down to the ground, thus ineffectually her leg. 

Lorraine was therefore confined to a wheelchair. 

Now Avon has heard about the party that was held at the Hales’s Empire. The party was to find Lorraine a husband, all are invited; including homeless and beggars. Invitation to the beggars and homes less is just an insult to the girl. After the incident, there was nothing her family could do, because Richard came from the Wilson’s family. One of the Great Five Families in the city. 

The Barksdale used to be one of them, until they were cleared out and now the top of them. 

They had blamed her for what she did to Richard, slapping Richard hard across the face. The audacity she possessed. 

“How unique can the leg get now when it’s still?” His older brother, who had brought the idea of marrying her off to his father, mocked, his tone filled with disdain.  

“Leave her be, we have better things to do than taunt a mistake being gifted out. I pity the beggar who’s gonna take you in.” Each of us departed to various corners of the room to get things done. 

There she sat on the couch as her very own family just finished hurling different shades of insult on her. Mocking her for defending her dignity, marrying her off to decrease the shame she bought on the family by being confined to a wheelchair. 

Then Richard walked in, he smirked when he saw her seated on the couch dressed in a white gown and a veil shielding her face. 

“Stand up and slap me again.” He snorted standing in front of her as he shamed her condition. 

“No one will ever marry you in this state, and none of this would have happened if you had agreed to sleep with me. It’s even a blessing for you, a whole me offering to sleep with a cursed duckling like you, and you dare give me a slap. This is what you deserve, and I’m pretty sure you’re ending up with either a beggar or a homeless man.” He spat horribly in her face. 

Lorraine’s face under the veil glistened with tears as they threatened to spill. 

“Yes.” 

Lorraine glanced at the voice of who just agreed with Richard to see her mother who was just passing by and happened to hear what Richard said. 

Then the tears in her eyes flowed freely. How could she? And at this time she doesn’t care if she’s marrying a beggar or a homeless man. She’s desperate and wants to be out of her pathetic family. 

“And worst is that the beggar would be broke and wretched just like you, ugly and gross just like you….” He kept tormenting her with words as more tears streamed freely down her eyes. 

“Let her go!” Avon walked into the lobby.