Rise of the Street King

Chapter 70 — The Unknown Hand

The file sat on the table like a live bomb.

Jayden hadn’t moved it since the night before, but its weight filled the safehouse, bending every conversation back to the same question: Who was pulling strings above the Council?

Malikah broke the silence first. “We’ve always known someone out there feeds the chaos. Guns don’t walk in themselves. Politicians don’t just ignore us out of kindness. But seeing his name She tapped the folder, her jaw tight. “that makes it real.”

Burned Boy shifted, arms crossed over his thin chest. “Maybe it’s planted, boss. Misdirection. Maybe they want us to think he’s involved.”

“No,” Jayden said, voice low. “This isn’t random. You don’t put a man like him in a case file unless there’s a thread.”

He thought of the billboards uptown the smiling face beside schools, food drives, charity foundations. A man who sponsored festivals while the slums rotted. Respectable. Untouchable. A mask so perfect, no one would think to tug it off.

Amara leaned in the corner, eyes glinting in the lanternlight. “You want to tug it, don’t you?”

Jayden looked at her. “If he’s behind the detective, then every move I make is being watched. If he’s funding Razor, if he’s shaping the Council, if he wants me boxed then yes. I need to know why.”

Malikah’s frown deepened. “Probing upwards is suicide. You’ve barely stabilized the streets under you, Jay. You cut too deep, and we’ll have more than Razor at our throats.”

Jayden nodded slowly, but his decision was already made. “We can’t fight shadows forever. If someone wants us as pawns, I need to know the board...

The probe began in whispers, not bullets.

Jayden sent Burned Boy to trail supply routes where weapons and drugs entered the city, who signed the shipping papers. He bribed clerks in City Hall to leak building contracts and zoning permits. Malikah met with merchants whose businesses mysteriously survived every crackdown, coaxing loose names from lips with drinks and veiled threats.

Patterns emerged.

Every lane pointed back to companies owned by shell groups. And those shells all orbited the same sun the businessman’s conglomerate. Not directly, never directly. But his hands were there: financing slum redevelopments that never broke ground, backing security firms that looked the other way, investing in “community initiatives” that funneled money back into chaos.

The revelation burned. Jayden had thought he was clawing power from Razor, from the Council, from corrupt cops. Now he saw the truth: he’d been allowed to grow, because it served someone else...

Amara found him one night on a rooftop, the city spread below like broken glass. “You’re restless,” she said softly.

“I thought the Council was the ceiling,” Jayden replied. “I thought once I broke them, I’d own this city. But they’re just guards at the door. Someone else built the house.”

Amara studied him. “So what now?”

Jayden’s jaw clenched. “I knock...

He arranged a meeting the only way possible: indirect, through layers. He leaned on a politician’s aide who owed him a favor. The aide, pale and sweating, whispered names of donors, private dinners, golf courses outside the city. Jayden pressed harder. He wanted an opening.

Within a week, he had it. An “invitation” arrived unsigned, but clear. A charity gala uptown. Tickets left anonymously at a safehouse, with his alias neatly written.

Malikah nearly tore the paper in half when she saw it. “It’s bait.”

“Of course it’s bait,” Jayden said. “That’s why I’m going.”

“Jay

He raised a hand. “If they want to show me the edge of the cliff, I’ll look. Better than walking blind..

The gala was another world. Chandeliers like fallen suns. Waiters in white gloves. Dresses that cost more than a year’s food in the slums. Jayden wore a suit Amara had pulled together through one of her contacts, but he still felt like a wolf in a glass cage.

Eyes followed him as he moved through the hall. Politicians laughed too loudly, businessmen shook hands with the easy confidence of men who never worried about police raids. And at the center, the name from the file surrounded by smiles, cameras, and glasses of champagne.

Jayden didn’t approach. Not yet. He circled, listening. Words floated contracts, elections, “stability,” “development.” Always vague, always polished. But beneath it, he heard the code. They spoke of chaos as opportunity. Disorder as leverage.

Amara appeared at his elbow, her dress plain compared to the glittering crowd but sharp enough to pass. “You see it now?” she murmured.

“Yes.” His gaze locked on the man across the room. “He thrives on the fire. We bleed, and he builds castles from the ashes...

Jayden didn’t make contact that night. He slipped away before cameras turned too sharp, before conversations closed in. But the probe had done its work. He knew the scale now. The battlefield wasn’t streets it was contracts, elections, the narrative of the entire city.

And someone had noticed him looking...

Three nights later, he returned to the safehouse after a tense meeting with Malikah’s crews. On the table lay an envelope. No stamp, no markings. Just his name, scrawled in sharp black ink.

Jayden froze. None of his lieutenants had touched it. Burned Boy swore it hadn’t been there an hour ago.

He opened it carefully. Inside: a single sheet of paper.

Two words, typed.

Stop looking up.

No threats, no names. Just a command.

The room felt colder.

Malikah swore under her breath. Burned Boy’s face went pale. Amara only watched, unreadable.

Jayden folded the note, slid it back into the envelope, and set it down. His voice was calm, but his eyes were storm.

“They see me,” he said. “Good. Now I’ll make sure they can’t unsee me....

In a darkened penthouse, the businessman set down his own glass of wine as a messenger whispered, “He took the bait.”

The man smiled. “Then the game begins.”