2025-09-27 21:59:45
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Chapter Nine – Ashes of Betrayal
The night still burned, Smoke hung heavy over the shattered docks, mingling with the stench of salt and blood. Flames licked broken crates, their glow painting twisted shadows across the wreckage.Marcus stumbled through the chaos, coughing, his shirt torn and soaked with blood that wasn’t all his own. His ears rang, drowning the screams and gunfire into a dull roar, but one sound cut sharper than all the rest, Sophia’s scream as she was dragged into the fog.It haunted every step. He fell to his knees, slamming his fists against the wet concrete. “No! Not again!” His voice cracked, raw, echoing through the smoke.Hands gripped his shoulders. He jerked, reaching for his pistol, only to see Elias towering over him, face streaked with soot, eyes like steel under firelight.Elias’s voice was thunder. “You reckless bastard! You cost us everything!”Marcus shoved him back, rage blazing. “I saved her! I had her! And you let them take her again!”Elias seized his collar, hauling him up until
Chapter Eight – Fire in the Veins (Part Two)
The feed cut, Marcus’s hands shook, his voice a low growl. “I’m going now.”Elias turned on him, storm-grey eyes like iron against fire. “You’ll do nothing. Not yet.”Marcus snapped. “Every second we wait, they cut her apart!”Elias’s voice thundered back. “Every second we prepare, we increase the chance she walks out alive!The room froze in the weight of their clashing wills.Finally, Elias spoke lower, but every word carried steel. “You want her alive? Then you’ll follow the plan. One mistake, and her blood’s on your hands.”Marcus said nothing. His silence was answer enough.Far across the city, in the Syndicate’s black site, Sophia tested the ropes biting into her wrists. Her breath came hard, her vision swimming from pain, but her mind refused to break.She remembered Marcus’s eyes, the way he had looked at her the day before his world collapsed. She clung to that look now, drawing strength from it.The masked commander entered again, carrying a phone. He crouched beside her, hi
Chapter Eight – Fire in the Veins
The warehouse felt colder after the message ended. The shadows seemed to press closer, suffocating Marcus as Sophia’s image burned into his mind, bound, beaten, a knife at her throat.He could still hear her scream echoing inside him, Marcus slammed his fists against the steel table. “We go now. I don’t care if it’s a trap, I won’t let her die because you want to play games!”Elias didn’t flinch. He stood with arms folded, every inch the soldier he’d become. “If we move now, you’ll be dead before you reach the Syndicate gates. And so will she.”Marcus spun on him, fury tearing through his chest. “And doing nothing? That saves her?”Elias’s storm-grey eyes were steady, but there was steel behind them. “I didn’t say we’d do nothing. I said we’d do it my way.”Marcus laughed bitterly, a broken sound. “Your way? Your way got Charles buried in fire and Sophia chained in some rat hole. Forgive me if I don’t bow to your genius.”Elias’s squad tensed, hands drifting to their weapons. The air
Chapter Seven – Brothers in Shadow (Part Two)
Marcus met his gaze, fists clenched. “Maybe Hilton is nothing but blood and lies. Maybe Father was right, maybe the ledger is all we are. Death in ink. Names in red.” His voice cracked. “And if that’s true, then I don’t want it.”For the first time, Elias’s mask faltered. Pain flickered across his eyes. Regret. But he crushed it quickly, his jaw tightening.“You don’t get to want,” Elias said coldly. “You get to be. Whether you like it or not, the world sees Hilton when it sees you. And the world will come. Tonight proves it.”Marcus turned away, chest heaving, the machete still dripping in his grip. He hated the truth in Elias’s words. He hated the blood on his own hands even more.The convoy roared through the last line of fire, breaking free of the Syndicate trap. Behind them, flames devoured the street, painting the night in red, but Marcus couldn’t shake the image of Evelyn’s smile as she vanished with the ledger.Nor the echo of Charles’s final cry. Nor Sophia’s scream swallowed
Chapter Seven – Brothers in Shadow
The night swallowed them as Elias’s team dragged Marcus out of the collapsing vault. Smoke billowed into the sky, flames licking upward as alarms wailed across the ruined Hilton facility.Marcus stumbled, coughing blood, his body raw from fire and shrapnel. Yet he fought against the hands gripping him, his voice hoarse with rage.“Let me go! Charles is still inside!”Elias wrenched him back, face cold, eyes hard as steel. “Charles is gone.”The words ripped through Marcus like a blade. He twisted violently, but Elias’s grip was immovable, forged by years of war.“You don’t get to decide that!” Marcus spat. “He’s alive, he has to be”Elias slammed him against the armored vehicle waiting in the shadows, pinning him with brutal force. “Listen to me. If you run back there, you’ll burn with him. Do you want his death to mean nothing?”Marcus’s chest heaved, tears burning his eyes. “You left him, just like you left me!”For the first time, a flicker cracked Elias’s mask of iron. Pain. Regre
Chapter Six – Ashes and Chains (Part Two)
Charles struggled to rise, fury etched into his battered face. “Over my dead body.”Evelyn’s smile widened as mercenaries hauled her upright. “That can be arranged.”Marcus’s veins burned with helpless rage as he was dragged across the vault floor, the ledger now out of reach, his future slipping into shadows, but then, just as they reached the doorwayA new sound split the chaos. Gunfire, Rapid. Precise, Not from the mercenaries.The front line of soldiers crumpled, bullets tearing through their armor with surgical accuracy. Smoke grenades rolled across the floor, filling the air with a choking white haze.From the shadows beyond the vault, a second squad stormed in, black uniforms, visors gleaming, their movements sharper, cleaner, Not mercenaries. Professionals.The mercenary leader cursed, rallying his men. “Engage! Hold them off!”Bullets screamed. Steel sparked. Men fell.In the confusion, Marcus was dragged backward, his cuffs biting deeper into his wrists. He twisted, searchin
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