Rise of the Street King

Chapter 21: Hunters in the Dark

The word spread faster than wildfire. The Iron Fangs had done more than talk they had put money on Jayden’s head. Not whispers, not rumors, but a bounty loud enough that every hustler, cutthroat, and desperate thug in the district could taste blood in the air. Fifty thousand for his body. Double if brought alive.

By nightfall, the streets shifted. Eyes followed him where he walked. The crack of bottles breaking in alleys, the shuffle of feet too close behind, the silence of men who usually shouted greetings everything turned sharp and dangerous. Jayden had stepped from being another slum hustler into prey, hunted in the very streets he had sworn to rule.

“Boss,” Tariq muttered as they moved through the back lane, scanning shadows. “You feel it?”

“I feel it,” Jayden replied, voice low but firm. His hand brushed the grip of the pistol tucked at his waist. “Too many eyes. Too much silence. The city’s breathing different.”

They weren’t wrong. Since the bounty dropped, the air had changed. The same men who once feared him now debated in whispers if betrayal was worth more than loyalty. Even his own crew shifted in their seats when they thought he wasn’t watching. Money made saints rethink faith, and the Fangs had offered more than enough to make demons smile.

Tariq tapped his scarred knuckles against a wall, nerves showing. “Fifty grand, bro. That’s more than most will ever see. Even hungry kids with no shoes will pick up a knife for that.”

“Then they’ll have to learn quick,” Jayden said coldly, his eyes burning. “You hunt me, you better finish the job, because if I stand after, I’ll bury you.”

He meant it. Every word.

They ducked into the basement of an old tailor’s shop neutral ground where Jayden had stashed ammo and food. The crew was waiting. Ten men, eyes restless, faces half in shadow. Malik leaned against the wall, chewing gum like nothing was wrong. Rico kept checking the door. Even young Musa, barely sixteen, sat with his leg bouncing nervously.

Jayden let his gaze sweep them, hard and unblinking. “You all heard the word?”

Murmurs. Nods. Malik finally said it. “They want you dead, Jay. Whole district buzzing. Money that big man, I’d hunt my own mama for it.”

Some chuckled uneasily. Jayden didn’t smile.

“That bounty isn’t just on me,” Jayden said. His voice cut the air like a blade. “Anyone who rolls with me, anyone who wears my name, they’ll gun for you too. This isn’t about me anymore. It’s us against the city.”

Silence. Then Tariq slammed his fist on the table. “So what? We ain’t rats. Let them come—we’ll stack their bodies till the alleys flood red.”

The crew roared with him, but Jayden noticed the hesitation in some eyes. Hype was cheap. Loyalty under fire was the only currency that mattered.

That night, Jayden didn’t sleep. He stayed crouched by the cracked basement window, eyes scanning the street like a wolf on the edge. Shadows moved wrong. A dog barked, then went silent. Somewhere far off, a motorcycle engine revved and cut.

At three in the morning, it began.

The first bullet shattered the window, spraying glass. The crew dove, grabbing weapons. Musa screamed as splinters cut his arm. Jayden rolled across the floor, snatching his pistol, and shouted, “Positions! Don’t freeze!”

Figures poured into the alley, guns flashing. Hired hunters. Not Iron Fangs, but street jackals smelling money.

The room erupted with chaos gunfire cracking, wood splintering, dust choking the air. Rico fired blindly through the door. Malik toppled a shelf to use as cover. Jayden crawled to the window, aimed, and dropped one man in a mask. Another tried climbing through; Jayden smashed his head with the butt of the pistol and kicked him back outside.

“They’re coming from both sides!” Tariq roared, blasting his shotgun. “We’re boxed!”

Jayden’s heart pounded like war drums. They wanted his head on a plate. He could feel death brushing close, teeth at his throat. But fear didn’t own him it sharpened him. Every decision mattered. Every second stretched.

He kicked the basement door open. “With me!” he barked, rushing into the alley with Tariq at his side. The cold night air stank of gunpowder. Masked hunters fired, but Jayden moved like fire itself, ducking behind a dumpster, popping shots, dropping two more.

Tariq covered him, his shotgun booming thunder in the narrow street. Malik and Rico spilled out behind them, screaming war cries, turning the alley into a battlefield.

Bodies dropped. Blood slicked the ground. Still more came, drawn by greed like flies to rotting meat.

The fight stretched into the maze of streets. Jayden’s crew split, some holding alleys, others dragging Musa who was bleeding badly. The hunters pressed hard, relentless. Every corner, every shadow could hold a killer.

Jayden knew they couldn’t win by standing ground. He grabbed Tariq’s arm. “We cut through the market lose them in the maze!”

“Market’s locked up this late,” Tariq warned.

“Not for us.” Jayden shoved forward, firing to cover his advance.

They sprinted through the sleeping district, hunters on their heels. The market gates loomed ahead, chained. Jayden didn’t slow. He raised his pistol, blasted the lock, and they tumbled inside.

Silent stalls lined with tarps and shadows became their battleground. Hunters scattered in pursuit, but the crew used the maze to their advantage—ambushing, striking, vanishing. Tariq tackled one into a fruit stand, smashing his skull against a scale. Jayden caught another trying to flank, slitting his throat with cold precision.

But there were too many. And they weren’t just nameless hunters anymore. Jayden spotted the red fang tattoo on one man’s neck.

The Iron Fangs themselves had joined the hunt.

Exhausted, bloodied, half the crew wounded, Jayden and Tariq finally crashed into the far edge of the market. Their lungs burned, ears ringing from gunfire. Behind them, the hunters regrouped, voices shouting.

“We can’t outrun all of them,” Tariq panted. “Too many.”

Jayden’s eyes narrowed. His voice was low, steady, unshaken. “Then we kill till the rest remember why hunting me is suicide.”

He stepped into the open street, reloaded with hands that didn’t tremble, and raised his gun at the hunters flooding through the stalls.

“Come and take it,” he growled.

The hunters surged. Tariq lifted his shotgun beside him, lips curled in a mad grin.

The night lit with fire again.

By dawn, the streets looked like war. Bodies sprawled in alleys, pools of blood soaking into the dirt. Jayden and what was left of his crew limped away, broken but not defeated. The bounty had turned the whole city against him, and yet he still walked, head high, eyes blazing.

But the cost was already showing. Three of his men were dead. Musa clung to life, his breath shallow. Rico stared hollow-eyed, hands trembling too much to reload. Even Tariq, the unbreakable, had a graze across his ribs.

The city wanted him gone. Yet somehow, against odds, he had survived the first night of the hunt.

Still, he knew this was only the beginning.

Later that day, as he stitched his arm in a candlelit room, Tariq leaned close.

“They won’t stop,” Tariq said, voice grim. “Every night now. Every street. You’re the prize.”

Jayden tied the knot on the wound and met his friend’s eyes.

“Then let them hunt,” Jayden said quietly. “The more they come, the more bodies we’ll leave behind. Till even the rats learn my name means death.”

Outside, the city murmured with hunger and fear. The bounty was still live, and now hunters would be smarter, deadlier, more desperate.

The first wave had only been a test.

The real killers were still coming....

Jayden standing on the rooftop at dusk, watching masked silhouettes gathering below, realizing the hunt had only begun.

Jayden survives the first ambush, but from the rooftop he sees even more hunters gathering. The city is turning into a giant trap, and the bounty is far from over.