Rise of the Street King

Chapter 66 — Policing the Policed

The city’s newspapers spun the story of the slain lieutenant into every corner. Headlines screamed about “street law,” “public executions,” and “the rise of a slum king.” Politicians argued on radio shows, cops muttered in smoke-filled rooms, and ordinary people whispered in fear and admiration.

Jayden had expected noise. What he hadn’t expected was the silence in certain corners of the police.

The ones who didn’t take his bribes. The ones who still clung to duty like a drowning man clutches driftwood.

They weren’t many, but they were dangerous...

Detective Arukwe sat in a dim office long after sunset, the city’s hum bleeding through the cracked window. He wasn’t flashy. No one would’ve picked him out in a crowd a middle-aged man with thinning hair, a limp in his left leg, and eyes that carried too many sleepless nights.

On his desk were stacks of reports, half-finished cigarettes, and photographs. A body sprawled in the street. Faces of slum boys lining alleys with machetes in hand. A single grainy picture of Jayden Cole, hood pulled low, yet unmistakable.

Most of his colleagues had shrugged. Not our problem. Too deep. Too dirty.

But Arukwe had buried enough partners to know that rot left unchecked spread everywhere.

He lit another cigarette, exhaled smoke into the dark, and whispered to himself:

“This boy thinks he’s untouchable. Let’s see...

Meanwhile, Jayden was moving pieces of his own.

Mama Nuru’s guidance had opened doors, but paranoia scratched at him like an itch. Every time his name crossed a police desk, he wanted to be sure it vanished into a void.

That was Malikah’s job now organizing bribes, tracking payments, leaning on clerks. In a candle-lit back room, she handed a brown envelope to a nervous police clerk.

“You’ll alter the file,” Malikah said, voice cold as a blade. “Make the statements contradict. The dates won’t match. If they come looking, they’ll chase shadows.”

The clerk nodded quickly, sweat beading his forehead. “Y-yes. Yes, I’ll do it.”

“Good.” Malikah leaned closer. “Because if you don’t, the shadows you chase won’t be on paper. They’ll be in your own house.”

The man swallowed hard. The Burned Boy, standing silent in the corner, cracked his knuckles with relish.

The papers disappeared into drawers, and truth dissolved into ink and lies...

But Arukwe wasn’t fooled.

Two weeks later, he sat across from another officer, a young constable with guilt written across his face. The kid pushed a folder toward him, whispering, “They changed the reports. I saw the originals. Witnesses said Jayden Cole’s boys were there. But now? It’s gone. Erased.”

Arukwe flipped the folder open. His tired eyes scanned the neat alterations, the mismatched signatures. He felt the anger curl in his chest—not hot, but cold, the kind that carved lines into a man’s face.

“They think this city’s theirs,” he muttered.

The constable shifted nervously. “Sir, you don’t understand. They pay everyone. Even the supervisors. Even some captains. If you keep digging

“I’ll find bodies,” Arukwe finished grimly. He shut the folder. “That’s fine. I’ve been walking among ghosts a long time...

Jayden, on the other side of the chessboard, began to notice pressure tightening. Random stops on the street. Extra patrols circling his neighborhoods. Not every cop was blind.

At a council of his lieutenants in a candle-lit warehouse, he paced like a caged lion.

“They’re sniffing,” Jayden growled. “Too many questions in the streets. Too many uniforms poking around where they didn’t before.”

The Burned Boy frowned. “Want me to torch a station? Make them back off?”

Jayden shook his head. “Too loud. That’s what they want a reason to storm in with trucks and cameras. We keep it quiet. We feed them lies until they choke on them.”

Malikah crossed her arms. “But lies don’t kill cops, Jayden. What if one of them doesn’t care about bribes?”

Jayden met her eyes. His voice was low. “Then he dies. Quietly. Without ripples.”

The room went silent. Even the Burned Boy, always eager for violence, seemed uneasy...

Detective Arukwe didn’t die quietly. Not yet.

He began building his own web gathering scraps from informants, speaking to widows of men caught in Jayden’s rise, piecing together timelines that didn’t fit. Each thread led him deeper into the rot.

And every time Jayden erased a report, Arukwe found the ghost of it in margins and whispers.

One night, in his office, Arukwe laid out his findings. A messy wall of photos, scribbles, and names. At the center: Jayden Cole. Beneath it: Street Council, circled in red.

His cigarette burned low. He stubbed it out, pulled a fresh sheet of paper, and began writing.

Not a report. Not something his superiors could shred.

An anonymous complaint. Addressed not to the local precinct, not even to the city’s police HQ—but to the City Authority itself.

The kind of complaint that reached ears far above corruption’s grasp.

He wrote carefully, methodically, his hand steady despite the weight of what it meant.

The corruption within our ranks is no longer containable. Evidence suppressed. Reports altered. Officers silenced. The Chair himself has ties. Mama Nuru, revered elder of the Street Council, is knowingly sheltering and feeding the rise of Jayden Cole. This is bigger than gangs. This is systemic rot.

He signed it only: A Witness in Uniform.

Folding it, he slipped the letter into a battered envelope, sealed it with trembling fingers, and stared at it for a long time.

“This will get me killed,” he muttered to the empty room.

But then he smiled, a weary, broken smile.

“Better me than the city...

Somewhere in the city’s bureaucratic maze, the envelope makes its way upward, carrying names that were never meant to leave the shadows: The Chair. Mama Nuru.

And Jayden, still thinking he is in control, has no idea the storm about to descend isn’t from Razor’s machetes but from within the badge itself.