2025-07-11 05:42:50The city didn’t sleep - not really. Even at three in the morning, lights leaked through curtains, a siren wailed three blocks over, and rain kept drumming on broken rooftops like it was trying to wash the filth away. Ares sat in the passenger seat, one boot propped on the dash, eyes half-closed but nowhere near sleep.
Mira killed the radio. Static faded, leaving just the hum of the heater fighting the cold creeping through the cracked window. She drummed her fingers on the wheel, glanced at him. Didn’t say anything - didn’t have to.
They both knew what tonight was.
“Same place?” Ares asked without looking up.
“Yeah. Back booth, right corner. He’s a creature of habit.” Mira snorted. “Makes him stupid.”
Ares’s mouth twitched, maybe a smile, maybe not. “Makes him predictable.”
She pulled the old sedan into a narrow alley behind a row of half-shuttered shops. Neon signs buzzed overhead - cheap noodles, pawn shops, a place promising “VIP Massages” that probably never delivered on the VIP part.
Rain hit the windshield harder now. Mira shoved the gear into park and leaned back, blowing out a breath that fogged up the glass. “You sure you’re up for this?” she asked. “After Rourke... some men would disappear. Cut their losses.”
Ares cracked his knuckles one by one, slow. “Some men would. I’m not some men.”
Mira barked a laugh - sharp, short. “No, you’re not.”
She popped the door open, and cold air flooded the cab. Ares followed her out, boots splashing through oil-slick puddles that reflected neon in ugly, broken colors. The rain hit his face but he didn’t flinch. If anything, he seemed more alive in the wet.
They crossed the street. A bouncer with a neck thicker than his skull gave them the once-over. Mira flashed the fake pass, slipped him a folded bill - his eyes glazed right over. Money made a lot of sins invisible.
Inside, the club smelled like spilled whiskey and old sweat under the sweet perfume of too much cover-up. A DJ spun lazy loops nobody danced to. Girls in too-tight dresses drifted between tables, selling smiles that cost more than the cheap vodka on the menu.
Ares found a spot at the bar - back to the wall, eyes on the whole room. Mira leaned beside him, elbows propped, pretending to be bored. She wasn’t. Her eyes were everywhere at once.
“There,” she murmured, chin tilting toward the far end. A velvet curtain half-hid a booth. A man sat there, big grin, cheap suit cut to look expensive. Cole Danner. One of Hale’s fixers - the kind who made problems vanish.
Danner poured himself a glass of something amber and neat. The girl next to him laughed too loud at something he whispered in her ear. He didn’t look at her when he laughed back. His eyes stayed on the door - waiting for someone.
“Courier?” Ares asked.
“Yeah. Money drop,” Mira said. She drummed her nail on the bar. “Hale doesn’t like banks for dirt like this. Paper trail. This guy moves the cash and the hush files.”
Ares sipped water from the glass the bartender set in front of him - didn’t touch the bourbon they pushed on him. Just water. Just something for his hands to do.
A girl brushed his arm on her way by. He ignored her. Mira flicked her a look that said try again and lose a finger.
Minutes dragged. Ares liked the waiting. Most people got jittery - showed their teeth too soon. Not him. He watched the club breathe. Watched Danner check his watch twice.
Then the courier arrived - thin kid, bad haircut, jacket too big for his shoulders. He slipped through the back door, courier bag slung crosswise like he didn’t want to look important.
Danner’s grin turned wolfish. He waved the kid over. The girl beside him vanished like smoke when the bag hit the table.
Mira leaned close. Her breath smelled like stale coffee. “Give it a sec. Let ‘em trade.”
Ares’s fingers tapped the glass once. “Then?”
“Then we follow the bag.”
The courier cracked the bag open under the table. Danner peeked inside - neat stacks wrapped with rubber bands. He nodded, slid a slim envelope the other way. Paper for secrets.
Ares stood. Mira followed, tugging her jacket closer around her ribs. The club’s door dumped them back into the night - same rain, same neon, but colder now.
They waited at the mouth of the alley. The courier ducked out, head down, trying to melt into the dark. He didn’t know the dark already had teeth.
Ares shadowed him down the alley. Mira flanked wide, circling him off from the main road. The courier stopped to light a cheap cigarette, flicking the match out too fast when he heard boots behind him.
“Hey - hey, man, you lost?” The kid’s voice cracked halfway through brave.
Ares didn’t answer. He stepped into the halo of the flickering streetlight. The courier’s eyes went wide when he saw the look - calm, dead calm, not a cop, not a thief. Something worse.
“Bag,” Ares said.
The courier backed up till his shoulders hit the brick wall. “You got the wrong -”
Mira’s hand shot out, grabbed the bag strap, yanked. The courier stumbled. Ares caught him by the collar, pinned him flat with one hand, frisked him with the other. The kid smelled like stale fries and fear.
Flash drive, taped under the bag’s lining. Just like Mira said. Ares pocketed it.
He let the kid drop. The courier gasped, wheezing like he’d run ten miles. “You’re dead, man,” he spat. “You don’t know who you’re -”
Ares’s face didn’t change. “Tell Hale the ghost’s digging up his grave.”
The courier bolted. Mira didn’t bother watching him run - she just rubbed her knuckles where they’d scraped the brick.
“You think it’s enough?” she asked.
Ares weighed the flash drive in his palm. Small thing, but it felt heavy. “It’s a crack.”
She grinned. Rain dripped off her lashes. “You love cracks.”
Ares’s mouth twitched again - almost a smile. “Cracks break kingdoms.”
He tucked the drive deep in his jacket, next to his sister’s photo - warm against his ribs, a promise that tonight wasn’t the end. Just the first hammer swing.
Mira slapped his shoulder. “Let’s get dry. I’m freezing my ass off.”
They vanished back into the night - two ghosts with mud on their boots and ruin in their pockets.
Above them, the city shivered. Somewhere, Derrick Hale slept easy in his high-rise bed, dreaming his money could buy him out of hell.
Ares Kane was coming to teach him - some storms don’t stay buried.
Not when they’ve got a score to settle.
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WHERE DUST SETTLES
“No,” he said. “But it’s beginning.”Elijah didn’t say anything. He just looked out across the river, toward the jagged skyline of Lin City - blackened, bent, but still standing. His small hand clutched Ares’ fingers tighter, not out of fear, but to make sure his father was real.The city was quiet.Not peaceful - just... quiet. The kind of silence that came after screaming. After bullets stopped flying. After people stopped dying. The kind that wasn’t earned but left behind, like a breath held too long.Ares crouched down beside Elijah and looked him in the eye.“You’ll hear people say it’s over,” he murmured. “But truth is, son... endings are easy. What comes next, that’s the hard part.”Elijah nodded slowly, as if he understood more than a child should.Ares ruffled his hair gently, then stood. “Come on. Let’s head back before the soup gets cold.”...The walk back was slow. Not because of Elijah’s pace, but because people stopped Ares every few steps.Not to thank him.Just to loo
FIRE IN THE BLOOD
The rain returned just before dawn.Ares stood alone at the old training field behind the Eastern Barracks. Not the sleek combat simulators they used now - this was dirt and grit, sandbags and rusted goalposts, where men once learned to bleed before they learned to lead. He held a wooden training sword in one hand, the other flexing and clenching like he could still feel the weight of Wu’s final blow in his wrist.Across from him stood Hawk, stripped to the waist, scarred and silent, watching.The silence between them wasn’t hostile. It was history.“You sure about this?” Hawk finally asked, voice rough.Ares nodded once. “I need to feel it. Not just the win. The weight of it. Otherwise... I carry it like a ghost.”Hawk didn’t question that. He simply stepped forward, raising his own dull-edged blade.The first clash was clean - a simple strike-and-parry. Then another. Then Ares stepped into the second blow, letting it scrape past his ribs as he turned and drove his shoulder into Hawk
FATHERS AND FLAMES
Ares didn’t sleep that night.While Mira and Elijah rested in the med-bunker, wrapped in peace they had long been denied, he sat outside beneath the concrete awning, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on the city slowly rebirthing itself. Lin City, for the first time in years, was quiet -not because it was dead, but because it had finally exhaled.His hands were still bloodstained, knuckles split. The fight with Victor Wu had been short, brutal - and necessary. But the victory hadn’t cleansed him. Not really.“You look like a man still waiting for the war to start,” said a voice behind him.Ares didn’t turn. “I’m waiting for the part where it’s actually over.”Reyes stepped into the light, carrying two cups of bitter soldier’s coffee. He handed one over. “You’ve done enough, brother.”“No,” Ares said. “Not yet.”Reyes sat beside him, grimacing as he lowered himself to the cold step. “You’re still thinking about Fallujah.”“Always,” Ares said softly. “Wu showed the footage for a reason. He th
PEACE ISN’T QUIET
“We’re going home.”Ares whispered it like a vow, pressing his lips to Elijah’s hair. The boy clung to him tighter, as if some part of him knew those words weren’t just comfort - they were a promise built on blood.Mira stood at his side, silent, her hand finding Ares’ without needing to search. The candles flickered across the plaza as families mourned, survivors whispered names onto the memorial wall, and city dust settled like ash after a storm.But beneath it all, Ares felt it.The quiet wasn’t peace.It was a warning....Back in the apartment - what was left of it - the old living room still smelled like soot and rust. Elijah was asleep on a makeshift mattress near the heater. Mira moved through the space like someone reclaiming old territory, her hands brushing across cracked walls, broken frames, and bullet-pocked memories.Ares stood near the window, staring out at the city that still looked half-drowned in smoke.“Everything feels... paused,” Mira said behind him.“It’s beca
AFTER THE FALL
Elijah's arms were thin but strong around his father’s neck, as though in the days of sleep his boy had found new purpose - not just survival, but belonging. Ares held him close, his forehead resting gently against the boy’s temple, inhaling the scent of clean linen and warmth.“I missed you,” Elijah whispered.Ares’ voice caught before it could form. He didn’t trust it - too much gravel, too much memory, too much grief packed into syllables. So he simply nodded, hand brushing through his son’s hair.Mira stood nearby, unmoving - arms folded, but not in coldness. She was holding herself together. Her eyes shimmered, not with sadness, but with the fragile tension of a woman who had waited too long to hope.The silence lingered like a sacred thing.Then Elijah spoke again, smaller this time. “Is it really over?”Ares pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes. “The war is.”“But the world...?”Ares smiled faintly, brushing a hand along Elijah’s cheek. “The world’s broken, son. But
THE TOWER OF TRUTH
Ares walked through the bleeding edge of the city, where frost kissed shattered glass and the bones of rebellion had not yet been buried. The Oracle Tower loomed ahead - not shining, not proud. Just tall. Empty of soul, but filled with power.The wind howled as if warning him away.He didn’t stop.Every memory pressed in as he neared the gates: the nights in Fallujah when he’d dragged broken brothers through fire, the betrayal that had carved a hole in his chest when Mira married another, the moment he held his son for the first time and realized what kind of man he had to become.Now it all came here - not to win a war, but to end one.Reyes’s voice came through the earpiece. “You’re approaching blind. No active jammers. He wants you seen.”“I know,” Ares muttered. “He’s baiting me.”“Careful. There’s pride... and then there’s suicide.”Ares looked up at the Tower’s blinking apex. “This isn’t pride.”A silent pause. Then Reyes replied, “I believe you. Make it count.”The main doors w
