The Return Of the God Of War

AFTER THE STORM

The sun rose behind drifting clouds, smearing the city in shades of bruised gold. The Lancaster estate sat quiet behind Ares and Mira, its grand gates left ajar as if it knew it had lost the right to keep them out - or in.

They walked together to the waiting car parked by the curb. The street was slick from the lingering mist, reflecting the world upside down. Mira’s hand never left Ares’s as they moved. The night had carved new lines around his eyes, but she saw the same man she’d found all those years ago - standing alone on cracked pavement with nothing but his promise to make her safe.

Kane leaned against the hood, arms folded. The grin he gave them was tired but true. He nodded at Mira first, a silent respect that needed no words.

“Police are on their way,” Kane said, pushing off the car. “Armstrong’s people will turn on him by noon. The old man’s offshore accounts are ashes. The press will rip their bones apart for breakfast.”

Ares slipped his free hand into his jacket pocket, fingers brushing the battered watch that had survived a dozen wars, the last gift from a brother who’d died believing loyalty still meant something.

“Good,” Ares said. He looked at Mira. “No more ghosts.”

Kane barked a soft laugh. “Ghosts never really leave, boss. We just make ‘em wish they had.”

They drove back into the city as dawn bled into full day. The hum of tires on wet asphalt filled the silence between them. Mira watched the city roll past her window - the same streets that once whispered she wasn’t enough, that he wasn’t enough.

Now they felt different. Or maybe she did.

At a red light, Ares glanced at her. She caught his look in the reflection - the corners of his mouth softened just enough for her to see the boy he’d buried under a hundred scars.

“You don’t have to stay if you want out,” he said. His voice was low, almost afraid she’d take the door he’d never opened for anyone else.

She turned fully, took his hand off the wheel and laced her fingers through his. “Don’t insult me.”

His laugh was soft - so soft she felt it more than heard it. The light changed. He drove on, her hand anchored to his.

They didn’t go back to the safe house or Kane’s warehouse. Instead, they parked at the edge of the old train yard - the place that had tried to kill him but failed. The rusted cars sat half-buried in weeds, rails gleaming under the shy morning sun.

Ares stepped out first. Mira followed, boots crunching on gravel. She shivered when a gust of wind tugged at her hair, but she didn’t pull away when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

He pointed at a stretch of broken track near the fence. “I crawled out there. Thought I’d never stand up again.”

She studied the spot. Saw nothing but mud, grass, and memory stitched into the dirt.

“And you did,” she said.

He shrugged. “Didn’t have a choice. They left me no grave to stay in.”

Mira rested her head on his shoulder, breathing in the faint smell of rain and rust clinging to him. “So what do we build now?”

Ares didn’t answer at first. He tilted his head back, eyes tracing the cracked sky overhead. The train yard was quiet, broken fences holding in ghosts no one else cared to see.

“Peace,” he said finally. “We build peace.”

She almost laughed - not because it was funny, but because it sounded so impossible on his tongue. This man who’d waded through blood for her, who’d burned his past to salt the earth behind him, now talked about peace like it was the last war he had left to fight.

“Then that’s what we build,” she whispered.

Back at the car, Kane waited with his boot up on the bumper, flicking ashes from a half-finished cigarette. He raised an eyebrow at them like a father watching kids sneak back past curfew.

“You done haunting old ghosts?” he asked.

Ares cracked a grin. “For now.”

Kane’s phone buzzed. He answered, listened, then held it out to Ares. “It’s done. The city knows. Armstrong’s men flipped. Your father-in-law is probably on a plane to nowhere by now.”

Ares didn’t take the phone. He just nodded. The fight was over, but the clean-up would drag on. Kane would see to that - he always did.

Mira stepped forward, brushing Kane’s arm as she passed. “Thank you,” she said.

Kane dipped his chin, almost embarrassed. “Always, ma’am.”

They didn’t stay at the yard long. The city needed time to chew on its fallen kings. Ares and Mira needed something else - silence, maybe, or a place where they could sleep without knives under the pillow.

They drove to a small house on the edge of town - old brick, ivy climbing the walls like a secret. Mira had found it once in a magazine years ago, tracing her finger over the faded photo while he slept beside her, too tired to dream of better.

Now he unlocked the door with keys Kane had handed him the week before. Mira stepped inside first, breathing in the scent of old wood and forgotten warmth. The rooms were empty but didn’t feel cold.

She turned in the front hall, looking at him like she was trying to memorize every line of his face before the world demanded more blood.

“We’re really free?” she asked.

Ares didn’t pretend he had an answer. He stepped in close, cupped her cheek in his palm. “For now.”

“Good enough,” she whispered.

They found a bedroom with faded curtains and a mattress still wrapped in old plastic. Mira laughed when he tugged her down onto it, the squeak of cheap springs mixing with the first true sunlight they’d shared in weeks.

He kissed her - slow, unhurried, no ghosts pressing at the door. When he pulled back, she rested her forehead against his, their breaths a promise too quiet to break.

“You know,” she said, her voice a drowsy hush, “they’ll come looking for another king to bow to.”

Ares’s smile was all teeth and softness at once. “Then let them look. We’re done bowing.”

Outside the cracked window, the wind rustled the ivy like a secret kept just for them. The city beyond it hummed, restless as ever - but here, in this old house on the edge of forgotten rails, the storm had finally passed.

For now, that was enough.