The Return Of the God Of War

ASH AND DAWN

Chapter 23: Ash and Dawn

Ares let Petrov’s corpse slump forward, dead weight dragging papers into a pool of spreading blood. Orchids wilted beneath the red, petals turning from white to stained gray. Mira stepped closer, eyes locked on the man who once signed off on burying Ares alive like old debt.

She nudged Petrov’s shoulder with her boot, half-expecting him to jerk back like a snake refusing death. But the tower was silent except for the hum of vents and the soft patter of rain against glass. Dawn crept higher, pale light bending through mirrored walls, painting them in bruised gold.

“Halfway,” Mira murmured, wiping her pistol on Petrov’s drapes. “Halfway to what, boss?”

Ares didn’t answer right away. He moved behind the desk, yanking drawers open with swift, silent tugs. Cash, hard drives, burner phones — pieces of a rotten kingdom. He pocketed the drives, left the cash bleeding on the carpet.

“Halfway to wiping the slate clean,” he said finally. His voice was low, carved from the same stone as the tower. “Petrov was the lock. Now we break the hinges.”

Mira arched an eyebrow. “And the hinges live where?”

Ares tapped his knife against a small safe behind a framed family photo. Petrov’s grandkids — private schools and fake smiles. He didn’t bother with the code. He wedged the blade between latch and metal, forcing it until the hinges shrieked. Inside, folders wrapped in plastic, stamped with crooked seals and oil company crests.

Mira leaned in, whistling low. “Blackmail? Or insurance?”

“Both,” Ares said. He flicked through pages, eyes scanning signatures that linked Petrov’s quiet empire to bigger sharks offshore. Names whispered only in dark bars and locked rooms. He found what he needed — a ledger thick as a Bible, ink fresh on the last page. Mira peered over his shoulder.

“That Jonas’s handwriting?” she asked.

Ares didn’t respond, but the muscle in his jaw twitched. Jonas’s neat lines told of off-books shipments, bribes funneled through shells, bodies dumped where no map dared to point. Betrayal was easier to swallow when printed on ledger paper.

He tore out the final pages, folded them into his coat. The rest he dumped over Petrov’s corpse, letting ink drink blood until the words blurred into smudged ghosts.

“Light it,” he said.

Mira dug a battered lighter from her pocket. She flicked it once, twice, until a flame danced. The paper caught quick — fire licking ink, crackling through decades of hidden rot. Smoke curled under the glass ceiling, filling the office with the bitter smell of burning lies.

They watched until the folders turned black, then gray, then ash drifting into plush carpet like dirty snow.

Outside the window, the city stirred — neon signs dying out, traffic grumbling through wet streets, lives too busy to wonder who fell from grace while they slept.

Ares turned from the window, eyes sweeping the office one last time. His reflection caught in polished glass — rain-soaked coat, hands bruised from old wars, eyes hollowed by debts unpaid. For a heartbeat, he looked like the ghost Petrov thought he buried.

Mira holstered her pistol. She rubbed the bruise on her cheek, winced when her fingertips pressed too hard. “What now?”

Ares’s voice rasped over stone. “Now we tell them the king is dead.”

He led her out, boots sinking into carpet warm with embers. In the hall, the guards lay where they’d fallen — necks twisted, eyes wide at marble ceilings. Mira stepped over one, humming low. She glanced at Ares, catching the flicker behind his eyes.

“You’re thinking too loud,” she said.

“Thinking keeps us alive.”

They slipped into the stairwell, descending floor by floor in silence except for the creak of steel and the hush of wind rattling cracked windows. At the fifteenth floor, Ares paused, palm pressed to the cold concrete.

He felt the city vibrating through it — engines snarling, horns bleeding impatience, life pushing forward while men like Petrov rotted behind glass.

Mira leaned close, shoulder brushing his. “You good?”

“Never,” he said, and pushed on.

They emerged in a maintenance hall that smelled of bleach and old mop water. Above them, sprinklers stuttered to life — alarms catching up too late. Ares led Mira through a side exit, boots echoing until the back alley swallowed them in steam and drizzle.

The stolen truck waited where they’d left it — half-hidden behind dumpsters and dead neon. Mira tossed her pistol onto the dashboard, climbed in after it. Ares took the driver’s seat. He jammed the key, the engine coughed awake like a drunk after last call.

They pulled out slow, tires slicing through puddles that carried dawn’s first light like broken glass. Mira cracked the window, letting rain sneak in, washing gunpowder and burnt paper off her skin.

“So,” she said, lighting another cigarette. “We drop the files now?”

Ares nodded. The drives burned cold in his coat pocket — insurance against sharks who still thought the water safe.

“We drop them to every eye that believes power sleeps clean,” he said. His tone was flat — no anger, no victory. Just fact carved from old scars.

Mira blew smoke toward the windshield. “Petrov’s kids will come sniffing.”

“Let them,” Ares said. “They’ll find nothing left to buy.”

Traffic thickened as they neared the city’s heart — gray towers yawning awake, windows flickering with half-forgotten dreams. Ares guided the truck down back streets, weaving through veins that learned long ago to look away.

He parked beside a dead payphone. Mira passed him a burner — cheap plastic, prepaid on someone else’s dime. Ares dialed numbers burned into muscle memory from darker nights.

One by one, lines clicked alive — journalists, fixers, ghosts who owed him. He spoke little — addresses, names, keys hidden where only the desperate dug. By the time he snapped the phone in half, the rain turned from drizzle to steady sheets that washed the night clean.

Mira watched him in the mirror, smoke curling from her lip. “They’ll come for us.”

Ares leaned back, head resting on cracked leather. “Let them try.”

The city moved like it always did — blind to what was buried, what had been dragged into dawn kicking and bleeding. Petrov’s tower would stand empty by noon, orchids rotting in stale air, ghosts free to wander marble halls until new money scrubbed the stains away.

But for now, dawn belonged to Ares Lin — the man who refused the grave, who wore old dirt like armor.

He turned the key again, engine rumbling low as thunder. Mira flicked her cigarette out the window, ashes scattered by wind. She looked at him, a half-grin ghosting her split lip.

“Halfway,” she said.

Ares shifted the truck into gear, rain pounding the windshield until the city blurred into shapes and lights and unfinished wars.

“Halfway to ashes,” he said. And drove into dawn.

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