Rise of the Street King

Chapter 38: Amara’s Warning

The nightclub still reeked of blood when dawn broke.

Jayden sat alone in the gutted back room, staring at his reflection in a cracked mirror. His shirt was stiff with dried blood, his machete resting across his knees like a silent companion. His chest rose and fell slowly, too calmly, as if the storm of the night before had left him emptied.

But it hadn’t.

It had left him hungry.

Every scream, every face twisted in terror, every drop of blood he replayed it in his head, not with regret but with a twisted sense of satisfaction. Razor had thought him weak. Now the whole city would know the cost of doubting Jayden Cole.

The door creaked. Amara slipped inside. Hood drawn low, her steps were soft, silent, but her presence filled the room. Jayden didn’t look at her at first.

“You’re not afraid of me,” he muttered. His voice was flat, but his eyes cut toward her reflection in the mirror. “Everyone else looks at me different now. But not you.”

Amara tilted her head. “Should I be?”

Jayden smirked faintly, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe.”

She walked closer, folding her arms as she studied him. “That display last night… it was more than retaliation. It was a message. And not just to Razor.”

Jayden finally turned to face her, his stare sharp. “What are you getting at?”

Amara didn’t flinch. “You drew too much attention. The streets are loud right now every whisper carries your name. And whispers don’t just travel through gangs.”

Jayden’s brow furrowed. “Spit it out.”

Her voice dropped low. “The police are watching you, Jayden. Closely.”

For a moment, silence pressed down on the room. Jayden’s hand tightened on the machete without him realizing it. His heartbeat quickened, not with fear, but with the raw thrill of being hunted.

“How do you know that?” he asked slowly.

Amara’s lips curved, not quite a smile, not quite a smirk. “Because I’ve heard their radios. They’ve got eyes in the slums. Undercover. Informants.”

Jayden stood, his chair scraping back. His stare sharpened, suspicious. “Radios? Informants? How the hell would you know that unless

“Unless I’ve been closer to them than you think?” she finished for him, her tone calm, almost playful.

Tariq stormed into the room at that exact moment, jaw tight. “Jay, we need to” He froze, eyes darting between the two of them, sensing the tension.

Jayden stepped closer to Amara, his voice dropping into a growl. “Tell me why I shouldn’t cut your throat right now. If you’ve been feeding the

“I haven’t,” she said firmly, cutting him off. “But they’ve been circling you longer than you realize. You’ve gotten sloppy. Last night’s massacre was the loudest alarm you could’ve rung. You think Razor is your biggest threat? He’s not. The police don’t play the same games. They don’t bleed the same way.”

Jayden’s eyes narrowed. Her words weren’t lies. He could feel it. But the question gnawed at him: how did she know?

Tariq stepped forward, hand on Jayden’s shoulder. “Jay… think before you do anything stupid. If she’s right, we’ve got bigger problems than Razor.”

Jayden jerked away, glaring at Amara. “If the cops are watching, then tell me why you’re warning me. What do you get out of this?”

For the first time, her mask cracked, just slightly. Her voice softened, almost too soft for the bloodstained room. “Because I’ve seen men like you before. Men who rise from nothing, who claw their way out of the dirt with blood on their hands. They either burn too fast… or they learn to outsmart the fire. I don’t want to watch you burn, Jayden.”

Something flickered in him confusion, maybe even curiosity but he buried it quickly. “You’re saying I should lay low? Hide?”

Amara shook her head. “No. I’m saying play smarter. Blood makes noise. Money buys silence. If you want to survive, you need more than rage. You need reach.”

Jayden looked down at his machete, his reflection warped in the blade. She was right. Rage had carried him this far, but rage was a spotlight too. And a spotlight made you an easy target.

He exhaled slowly, then looked at her. “If I find out you’re lying, Amara…” His voice was cold, each word sharp. “I’ll make you wish Razor found you first.”

Her hood shadowed her face, but her eyes glimmered faintly. “Fair enough.”

She turned and walked out, leaving only the scent of smoke and the weight of her warning behind.

Later that night, the crew gathered in the crumbling apartment they now called base. Malikah spread out a crude map of the slums, marking corners and blocks where Razor’s influence still lingered. Tariq leaned over it, frustrated.

“Razor won’t stop until you’re dead. You know that, right? We hit his men last night, but he’s already regrouping. Word is he’s calling in favors from outside crews.”

“Let him,” Jayden said, his tone steady. He leaned back in his chair, spinning the machete idly in his hand. “I’ll cut down anyone he throws at me.”

Malikah shook her head, her voice sharp. “You can’t fight everyone, Jayden. Not if the police are moving in too.”

The room went quiet. Tariq’s eyes snapped to Jayden. “Police?”

Jayden nodded once. “Amara says they’re watching.”

Tariq swore under his breath, slamming his fist on the table. “That changes everything. We can’t be out here making noise, Jay. They’ll lock you in a cell before Razor even gets his shot.”

Jayden’s stare drifted across the map. His voice dropped low, thoughtful. “Then we move quieter. Smarter. We build deeper roots, ones they can’t rip out without tearing the whole slum apart. Razor’s blood will come. But first… we build.”

The words were steady, but inside, his blood still boiled. Rage demanded action, demanded vengeance. But Amara’s warning echoed louder than his hunger. The police weren’t like Razor. Razor bled. The police erased.

Jayden clenched his fists. He wouldn’t let them erase him.

Hours later, long after the crew had drifted into uneasy sleep, Jayden sat awake on the rooftop of the building. The slums stretched below him, a maze of rusted roofs and flickering lights. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed faintly, growing louder, then fading again.

Amara appeared behind him, quiet as always.

“You don’t sleep much,” she said softly.

“Sleep is for people who aren’t hunted,” Jayden muttered.

She sat beside him, pulling her hood back at last. Her dark hair fell free, catching the dim glow of the city lights. For the first time, Jayden saw her face clearly strong, sharp, but with eyes that carried shadows of their own.

“You don’t trust me,” she said simply.

Jayden gave a low chuckle, humorless. “Trust gets you killed in these streets. I learned that the hard way.”

“Maybe,” she said, her gaze fixed on the maze of slums below. “Or maybe the right trust is the only thing that keeps you alive.”

Jayden’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer.

Amara turned to look at him, her voice dropping into something sharper. “Listen to me, Jayden. Razor is dangerous, but predictable. The police are different. They’ll let you climb higher, let you feel untouchable and then they’ll cut your legs out from under you. They’ve done it before. They’ll do it again.”

Jayden finally looked at her, searching her expression. “How do you know all this?”

Her eyes darkened. “Because I’ve seen it. My brother thought he was untouchable once. The streets bowed to him. And then the police came. They didn’t just kill him. They erased him. No record, no grave, nothing. As if he’d never existed.”

Her words hit harder than she realized. Jayden thought of his own vow, the hunger that drove him not just to live, but to be remembered, to carve his name into these streets so deep no one could erase it.

He clenched his jaw. “Then I’ll carve my name so deep, they won’t be able to wipe me out without tearing down the whole city.”

Amara studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “Then you’d better start thinking like a king… not just a killer.”

Jayden’s gaze returned to the city below, his blood humming with equal parts fury and clarity.

The streets weren’t just about blood anymore.

They were about survival.

And survival meant outsmarting even the shadows.

But even as he sat in silence beside Amara, one thought gnawed at him was she truly warning him to survive, or was she the shadow guiding him toward his own downfall?

Either way, the game had changed.

And Jayden wasn’t planning to lose.