2025-08-06 09:59:27The London rain had turned to sleet by midnight, whispering against rooftops and alley bricks like a confession from the sky. In the dim-lit backroom of a Turkish barbershop in Kilburn—long since closed for the night—Jamil crouched beneath a floorboard, his breath measured, hands moving carefully through dust and old nails.
This place had once belonged to Farouk, a retired gunrunner who owed Fred favors that no one ever detailed aloud. Fred used it now as a rotating dropbox—a safehouse for codes, stolen IDs, and data drives too dangerous to keep in central caches. Kabri had never liked it. The smell of burnt shaving cream and mold made him twitch.
But tonight, Kabri wasn’t here.
And Jamil needed that.
He had told Kabri he was heading out to secure the next meet location. It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the only thing he planned to do.
Jamil lifted a steel box wrapped in thick duct tape from the hollow beneath the floor. Dust clung to its sides like dead skin. He laid it on the cracked linoleum tile, pried it open with a switchblade, and exhaled slowly.
Inside: a burner phone with three saved contacts, two memory cards labeled “OBELISK,” and a small folded envelope—aged, creased, but still sealed with wax.
He didn’t touch the letter. Not tonight.
Instead, he pulled the phone apart, took out the SIM, and slotted it into his current burner. After a few seconds of buffering, a series of encrypted messages lit up the screen.
Sender: GHOST_8
Subject: 2019 JOB – Sarajevo
1/3 – “Jamil. They never knew you flipped. But Fred found out. RUN.”
2/3 – “You kept the disk. You should’ve burned it.”
3/3 – “You won’t survive this war. Neither will he.”
Jamil’s jaw tightened.
The Sarajevo job was supposed to be buried. Deep. Four years ago, when he and Kabri were still climbing Fred’s ranks, they’d been sent to intercept a warlord in Bosnia with ties to rogue NATO operatives. Fred’s instructions were simple: eliminate the target, secure the ledger, leave no witnesses.
They had done just that.
At least, Kabri thought they had.
What Kabri never knew was that Jamil had made a second copy of the ledger—a digital backup—and sent it to an anonymous source tied to Interpol.
It was the only time Jamil had ever lied to Kabri.
And it was the only reason Fred hadn’t killed them both.
He remembered Sarajevo in flashes. The snow. The hill where they set the ambush. The flame grenade Kabri tossed into the warlord’s van. The moment the laptop inside burst into sparks and Jamil thought, for a second, that maybe the evidence had been destroyed.
But it hadn’t.
Because Jamil had already cloned the drive a day earlier—back when he had doubts. Back when Fred started referring to people like “cargo” and “currency,” not humans.
He hadn’t planned to betray Fred. Not originally.
But he had planned for an escape.
And now, the messages proved Fred had finally found out.
Back at the safehouse, Kabri leaned against the windowsill, scanning the dark street below. He’d noticed Jamil had taken the longer route back from their last job. It wasn’t like him. Jamil didn’t detour. He didn’t waste fuel or time.
He worked with precision.
But something had shifted since Manchester.
And Kabri could feel it.
He moved back to the map of England pinned to the wall. It was covered in red threads, black dots, and yellow circles. Their targets. Drop zones. Exits.
And Fred’s empire.
Every string led back to him.
Kabri had been slowly charting it for months. Fred didn’t know. Yusuf didn’t know. Not even Jamil.
It wasn’t betrayal—not yet. It was insurance.
Insurance for the day someone decided that Kabri, too, had become expendable.
His phone buzzed.
A message from Fred.
“Need you and Jamil in Soho tomorrow. Warehouse 47B. Time-sensitive.”
Kabri stared at the screen a long time.
Then typed:
“We’ll be there.”
Three hours later, Jamil entered the apartment silently, soaked in sleet. Kabri didn’t turn from the window.
“You look like hell,” Kabri said flatly.
“Storm hit harder than expected.”
“Storms don’t make people late.”
Jamil walked to the kitchenette, poured a glass of water, and leaned against the counter. “You checking my clock now?”
Kabri finally looked at him. “When I don’t hear from my brother for four hours, yeah. I start checking.”
Jamil didn’t answer. Just drank.
Kabri crossed the room and stood in front of him.
“You still keeping things from me?”
Jamil met his gaze. “What kind of question is that?”
“The kind that keeps people alive.”
Jamil laughed once, dry and short. “No secrets. Just ghosts.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
Kabri nodded. But something in Jamil’s eyes was wrong. A flash of regret, maybe. Or fear. Maybe both.
Kabri turned away.
“Fred wants us in Soho. Warehouse 47B. Something urgent.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Early. Be sharp.”
Jamil exhaled. “He ever feel like a leash to you?”
“Every day.”
“Why do we still wear it?”
Kabri didn’t respond.
That night, as Kabri slept with his pistol under the pillow, Jamil took the steel box from his backpack, stared at the “OBELISK” drives, and considered throwing them into the Thames.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he rewrote the message logs and set a delay trigger—five days. If he didn’t cancel it in time, the contents of the Sarajevo ledger would be sent to every major law enforcement channel across Europe.
Insurance for Kabri.
Just in case the ghost of Sarajevo rose again.
In Sarajevo, 2019 – FLASHBACK
It was snowing sideways when the van exploded, and Kabri’s scream still echoed in Jamil’s ears. The flames reached the third floor of the nearby building, lighting up the evening like a cursed sunrise. Blood stained Kabri’s shoulder—cut from shrapnel—and Jamil pulled him behind a stone wall, breathless, stunned.
The warlord had died instantly. But the laptop inside—that ledger—was reduced to ash.
Or so Kabri believed.
Jamil had already cloned it the day before during recon. Because he’d overheard Fred speaking on a secure call. Speaking not about the warlord, but about the families being trafficked. Children being traded as assets. And Fred’s laughter when he said, “Their tears are just receipts.”
That night, Jamil made his decision.
He told Kabri they had done their job.
And that lie would follow them for the rest of their lives.
Back in London, the wind howled through the alley outside their flat. Kabri’s eyes fluttered open in the dark, instincts sharper than dreams.
For a second, he thought he heard Jamil talking in the other room.
But when he checked, Jamil was asleep on the couch, face turned toward the window, fingers twitching as if grasping for something in his sleep.
Kabri stood there, silent, watching his brother.
He didn’t know yet.
But something was unraveling.
And blood had memory.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 241
The grave was modest.No ornate stone, no flowers, no names.Just two mounds of earth beneath an acacia tree, a flat rock marking the space between them. And beside it, a small wooden box — weathered by sand, protected by silence.Amir brought his daughter here for the first time on her twelfth birthday.She had never met them — the men buried here. She knew of them only as shadows from her father’s stories. But even at twelve, she felt the weight in the air. The silence. The ache.She knelt between the graves and whispered a greeting, as if sensing they were listening.Amir stood a few paces back, arms crossed, heart heavy. He wasn’t sure he could explain everything — not all at once. Not the betrayals. Not the lies. Not the love. But something told him it was time.Not to forget.But to pass it on.“Tell me,” she said quietly, looking at the mound on the right. “Was he the one who hurt people?”Amir nodded slowly.“Yes. But he also tried to save someone.”She turned to the other gra
Chapter 240
The desert swallowed sound.No sirens. No engines. No voices. Only the wind, scraping against forgotten stones like a memory refusing to be buried.Kabri was gone. Jamil too. The last gunshot had echoed across the cliffs like thunder splitting the sky — and then... silence.Weeks passed.Then months.And in time, all the great fires died. The burned-out mansion crumbled under vines in the hills of Portugal. The hideouts turned to dust. The names “Kabri” and “Jamil” passed through intelligence circles as rumors, then as ghost stories, then not at all.What remained?Sand.Wind.And one man standing alone — Amir.Amir had returned to the desert not for closure but because he had nowhere else to go.The grave of two brothers lay under a crooked tree near the ruins of their childhood camp. Unmarked, save for a flat stone and a weathered necklace buried beneath the sand. One bullet had ended a war. The second, a legacy.But the story hadn’t really ended.Amir knew that now.He stood at the
Chapter 239
The memory returned uninvited.A patch of afternoon sun spilled through the tall reeds beside the Wadi River, golden and warm, catching the faces of two boys too young to know what blood meant.Kabri was twelve. Jamil, nine.And for the first time in months, their laughter wasn’t stolen — it was real.No shadows yet.No oaths.No guns.Just two brothers in cut-off shorts, muddy knees, and palms sticky with date syrup, daring each other to jump across a deep ditch carved by the rain.“Last one across is a chicken!” Jamil yelled, already sprinting.Kabri snorted. “You say that every time.”“Because you’re always the chicken!”Kabri launched forward.The air split around them as they leapt.Jamil landed first, barely sticking it, wobbling with arms flailing. Kabri came after — feet thudding hard — then fell flat on his back, breath gone.Jamil doubled over laughing. “You landed like a pregnant goat!”Kabri groaned. “I hope the goat kicks you.”They rolled into the grass, wrestling half-h
Chapter 238
The box sat on the shelf, wrapped in a torn military scarf, untouched for years. Amir had not opened it since the last night he had needed to be a weapon.Inside: a Glock 17, two extra magazines, a suppressor wrapped in cloth, and a folded note in Kabri’s handwriting:“This is not for you. This is for the man you swore never to become.”Amir stared at it now, not as a warrior or a fugitive, but as a man inching toward the edge of something more sacred — peace. A peace he had not earned. But one he might finally allow himself to keep.The years since Kabri and Jamil’s deaths had been spent in cautious rebuilding. No wars. No shadows. Just Noor’s laughter and the scent of bread rising in a sunlit kitchen. A wife who loved without questions. A home without locked rooms.Still, the ghosts remained. Not with knives or voices — but as temptations.Every week he passed a locked drawer.Every month he checked security footage of the perimeter, “just in case.”But today, something in him shift
Chapter 237
The wind whispered through the olive trees behind their home in southern Spain. Amir had built the cottage with his own hands — not as a fortress, not as a hideout, but as a place where nothing needed to be watched. A place where knives weren’t hidden in books, and smiles didn’t have layers.The girl was just five, a shadow of her mother’s jawline and Amir’s wide eyes. She played alone in the sunlit garden, a mess of curls falling over her forehead, fingers stained with juice and dirt and youth. Her name was Noor.And she was humming.The melody was faint, broken, innocent.But Amir froze the moment he heard it.The air left his lungs.It wasn’t a song Noor had ever been taught.It was Evelyn’s lullaby.He stepped outside quietly, watching his daughter draw circles in the dirt with a twig. Her hums rose and fell like a breeze through reeds, her head tilting as if listening to music only she could hear.It was impossible.Amir hadn’t heard the tune since that night in the cabin. Since
Chapter 236
It was the third night after the wedding when Amir finally dreamed again.Not a nightmare. Not the kind with fire, blood, or the endless sound of gunfire. This dream was colder. Quieter. Too still.And the table was long.A grand oak table, polished to a shine, set in the middle of a candlelit hall he didn't recognize—something between a monastery and a memory. Shadows danced on stone walls. Frost crept at the edges of the stained-glass windows. And thirteen chairs lined each side, untouched.Until they came.The first to appear was Kabri.He took the seat at the far end of the table, dressed in black like he always was in Amir’s memories—but not the militant version. Not the fighter. Just a man. A man with tired eyes and fingers still stained with ash. He didn’t speak. Just looked at Amir with a gentle sorrow, and that ever-present weight behind his gaze.Then Evelyn entered.Wearing red.The real Evelyn, or the illusion? He didn’t know anymore. Her face was as he remembered it the
You may also like
