2026-06-05 20:25:38Varen’s voice shook harder. “Please. Name your price. I’ll pay double for your stall… just let me live.”
Simon stared down at him, but all he could see were Toma and Elik. Their small bodies lay in his mind, blackened by smoke, their hands still, their mouths no longer able to call him Boss. They had been boys with no parents, no protection, no safe place in the world until he gave them work. They had trusted him. They had waited for him to return after he had given them instructions to look after his stall. And Varen had burned them. Simon’s breathing grew heavier. “Why?” Varen blinked through sweat and blood. “What?” “Why did those boys have to die?” Varen’s lips trembled. “I didn’t mean for—” Simon stepped closer. “Do not lie to me.” Varen swallowed hard. “It was business. A message. You touched my men in public. You embarrassed the Iron Fangs. I had to answer.” “You had to answer by burning children?” “They were not children,” Varen said quickly. “They were workers. Your workers. It was not personal.” Simon’s hand shot out and grabbed his throat. Varen choked. “If you wanted to punish me,” Simon said, his voice low and shaking with rage, “why didn’t you come for me? Why didn’t you wait in the road? Why didn’t you face me, the man who stopped your useless dogs from robbing an old couple?” Varen clawed at Simon’s wrist. “Please… please forgive me…” “You locked innocent boys inside a burning stall because you were too much of a coward to face me.” “I can fix it,” Varen gasped. “At least I can pay.” Simon released him. Varen fell forward, coughing. Then, as if money could build a bridge over death, he crawled toward his fallen jacket beside the VIP table. His hands shook as he pulled out a checkbook. “Look,” he said quickly. “Look at me. I am serious.” Simon watched without moving. Varen opened the checkbook and wrote with trembling fingers. Sweat dropped onto the paper. His breathing came fast, broken, desperate. “Six million dollars,” Varen said, tearing out the cheque. “This is most of what I have. Take it. Rebuild your stall. Pay the families of those boys. Do anything you want.” Simon looked at the cheque. Varen stretched it toward him with both hands. “Please. This will compensate you. It will compensate them. Nobody has to die again.” Simon’s eyes went colder. “Compensate them?” Varen mentioned families, those boys had no family to compensate. Simon was their only family. Varen nodded too fast. “Yes. Yes, exactly.” “You think six million dollars can buy two human lives?” “No, no, that is not what I mean.” Simon kicked his hand. The cheque flew across the floor. Varen cried out and clutched his fingers. “Please! Please! I don’t want to die!” Simon grabbed him by the front of his shirt and punched him. Once. Varen’s head snapped back. Twice. Blood sprayed from his mouth. Three times. His body sagged, but Simon held him up. Four times. Varen’s face swelled and split. Five times. The gang leader who had ruled the streets of Betford with fear could no longer form words. He only made wet, broken sounds. Simon grabbed him by the neck. “You should have thought about death,” Simon said, “before you gave it to children.” He lifted Varen and hurled him toward the locked entrance. Varen crashed into the heavy door. Wood and metal burst apart. The frame shattered into splinters, and Varen rolled through the wreckage, groaning outside the hall. Simon stood breathing hard. His old nature wanted more. It wanted the room cleaned of every last breath. It wanted screams. It wanted punishment so complete that Betford would whisper about it for generations. The Red Butcher inside him had woken up, and it was not satisfied. Then Simon saw the cheque on the floor. He walked toward it slowly and picked it up. Six million dollars. The number stared back at him. It was a huge sum of money. Enough to rebuild the stall. Enough to bury Toma and Elik properly. Enough to help the other hungry children who still waited around the market, hoping someone would care. But it was Varen’s money. Dirty money. Blood money. Simon’s hand tightened around the cheque as Varen groaned beyond the broken door. Was he going to make use of the money or not?
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Three days after the fire, Simon buried Toma and Elik.He did not make it small. He bought proper coffins, paid for clean clothes, flowers, prayers, and a quiet place in the cemetery where the grass was soft. There were no parents to cry for them. No siblings came forward. Simon stood alone beside the graves, his face was hard, his hands folded, carrying the weight of being the only family they had left.By afternoon, Simon walked into the University of Betford. The campus was bright and full of life. Students sat under trees, laughed near food stands, shared drinks, and talked loudly about exams, relationships, and football. The noise felt strange to him after the silence of the cemetery.He had come to see the owner of the university cafeteria. Before the fire, Simon used to supplied fish there every week. Now there was no stall, no freezers, no boys, and no business left to supply anymore fish.As he crossed the relaxation spot, he stopped.A young woman sat alone on a bench near t
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Varen’s voice shook harder. “Please. Name your price. I’ll pay double for your stall… just let me live.”Simon stared down at him, but all he could see were Toma and Elik.Their small bodies lay in his mind, blackened by smoke, their hands still, their mouths no longer able to call him Boss. They had been boys with no parents, no protection, no safe place in the world until he gave them work. They had trusted him. They had waited for him to return after he had given them instructions to look after his stall.And Varen had burned them.Simon’s breathing grew heavier. “Why?”Varen blinked through sweat and blood. “What?”“Why did those boys have to die?”Varen’s lips trembled. “I didn’t mean for—”Simon stepped closer. “Do not lie to me.”Varen swallowed hard. “It was business. A message. You touched my men in public. You embarrassed the Iron Fangs. I had to answer.”“You had to answer by burning children?”“They were not children,” Varen said quickly. “They were workers. Your workers.
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The laughter died as Simon pulled the first two men inward and slammed their skulls together.The sound cracked through the hall.Both men dropped at his feet, their bodies folding badly against the dirty floor. For a moment, even the music seemed weaker. The men who had been laughing now stared with open mouths.Varen’s face tightened. “Why are you standing there? Break him!”The remaining attackers rushed at once.One man swung a chair. Simon caught it, tore it from his hands, and drove it into his chest. The man flew backward into a table, sending bottles and cards across the floor.Another came with a knife.Simon stepped inside his reach, seized his wrist, and twisted until the weapon dropped. The man screamed. Simon struck him in the throat with the edge of his palm, and he went down choking.“What the hell is he?” someone shouted.“Get him from behind!” another yelled.A bottle smashed against Simon’s head.Glass burst across his hair and shoulders. Blood ran down the side of h
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“Oh, oh…” Malo said, his voice dropping. “Sir, that is the fish seller.”The words did not stay at Varen’s table. They moved quickly through the hall like bad smoke. One man repeated it to the next. Another turned from the gambling corner and pointed. A woman near the bar stopped dancing and stared. The music was still playing, but the laughter began to shift into something sharper.“The fish seller?”“That burnt fool?”“He came here alone?”“He must have lost his mind after what we did to his stall.”Simon stood at the entrance without moving. His clothes were half-burned and stained with ash. His hair hung loose around his face. Smoke still clung to him, mixed with the smell of fish and blood. He looked like a man who had walked out of hell and had not decided yet who to drag back with him.One Iron Fang member lifted his bottle. “Hey, fish man! Did you come to sell roasted fish?”The hall erupted in laughter.Another man clapped loudly. “No, no. He came to ask if we can rebuild his
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By midnight, the Iron Fangs were drowning themselves in noise, liquor, and smoke.Their hideout was an old private party hall behind a closed warehouse in East Betford. The windows were blacked out. The music was loud enough to shake the metal roof. Men laughed with bottles in their hands, powder stained some tables, and smoke hung in the air like dirty fog. Some gang members gambled near the wall. Others danced badly, shouted over one another, and threw money at women who moved between them with tired smiles.Broken bottles rolled across the floor. A man vomited near the back door while his friends laughed at him. Two others argued over a dice game until one slapped the other across the face. No one cared. This was their kingdom, rough, filthy, and full of men who thought fear was the same as respect.At the center of it all sat Varen their leader.He was broad, bald, and heavy-faced, with a thick gold chain around his neck. A half-smoked cigar rested between his fingers. His eyes we
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Simon’s blood went cold.Bako’s voice broke through the phone again, shaking and full of panic. “Simon, did you hear me? Your stall is burning, and your boys are trapped inside!”Simon did not answer. His legs were already moving.He ran into the road and waved down the first taxi he saw. The driver almost cursed at him, but one look at Simon’s face made him unlock the door without argument.“Betford market,” Simon said. “Fast.”The driver stepped on the accelerator. “What happened?”“Drive.”The man swallowed and faced the road. Simon gripped the edge of the seat, his knuckles tight. Isabella’s cold words were still fresh inside him, but now another fear was cutting through it. The boys were inside the stall. Toma and Elik. Two orphans who had started as hungry children asking for leftovers and ended up becoming the closest thing he had to family in Betford.“Faster,” Simon said.“I am trying,” the driver replied. “Traffic is ahead.”“Then break through it.”The driver looked at him
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