2025-08-17 05:00:18
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A PROMISE OF BLOOD
This time, there would be no grave deep enough to hide him.The words burned in Ares’s chest long after the shredded photograph lay scattered on the floor. Kane had crossed a line. He hadn’t just touched the past - he’d reached for Elijah’s future. That alone sealed his fate.When Ares emerged from the room, Mira looked up from where she sat, Elijah nestled against her. Hawk leaned against the wall, sharpening his knife with restless fury. Reyes hunched over the map, pencil scratching new marks.Ares’s voice was steady, but his eyes carried fire. “It’s time.”Hawk grinned, the kind of grin that promised violence. “Finally. I was starting to think you’d forgotten who you are.”Reyes frowned. “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then we’ll need more than knives and grudges. Kane’s already turned half the city against you. If we strike blind, we’ll be walking into a trap.”“We won’t strike blind,” Ares replied. He tapped the map. “We smoke him out. We tear down every den, every
THE ENEMY’S VOICE
And if Kane wanted war, then war was what he would get.The fire at Pier Six had barely died when the whispers began. By dawn, the city was buzzing. Smoke still curled from the blackened ruins, drifting through alleys, taverns, and market stalls. Some called it justice. Others called it madness. But all spoke a single name.Ares Vex.By midday, Reyes returned to the safehouse with a look that silenced even Hawk’s crude jokes. He tossed a folded newspaper onto the table. The headline screamed in bold letters:“THE BUTCHER RETURNS: FALLUJAH’S HERO OR FALLUJAH’S CURSE?”Mira froze, her hands stiff over Elijah’s blanket. Hawk cursed under his breath. Ares stared at the paper without reaching for it. He didn’t need to read it. He already knew.Kane had struck his first blow.Reyes’s voice was grim. “He’s leaking it. Every word, every half-truth twisted into a blade. He’s telling them what happened overseas. Fallujah. Civilians. Fire.”Mira’s lips parted. “Is it true?”The question cut deep
THE BLOOD OATH
But Ares would bury him again - this time so deep that even hell would not give him back.The room was heavy with the weight of his vow. Mira’s hand was still wrapped around his, her warmth grounding him even as the storm inside threatened to break. Hawk leaned back, bruised and bloodied but grinning like a wolf scenting prey. Reyes had already begun pulling a worn map across the table, his soldier’s instincts pushing him forward.It was Reyes who spoke first. “If Kane has the numbers we saw tonight, he’s been moving in the dark for months. That doesn’t happen without supply lines, without safehouses. He’s not alone in this.”“Never was,” Hawk growled. “Back in the desert, he always had a knack for crawling into bed with the worst devils. Mercenaries, warlords, doesn’t matter. If it bled, Kane could bargain with it.”Mira’s face tightened. “Then he won’t stop at guns and men. He’ll strike where it hurts - where you can’t see it coming.” Her voice wavered, but her gaze didn’t. “Ares, h
THE WEIGHT OF ASHES
“It means the war we thought we ended has only just begun.”The words hung in the air like iron chains. Hawk shifted uneasily, blood dripping down his arm, his chest heaving. Reyes lowered his pistol but didn’t holster it, eyes scanning the fog as if Kane’s shadow might still be there, lurking just beyond sight. Mira clutched Elijah close, her knuckles pale, her face caught between fear and fury.The rail yard stank of cordite and blood. Crates were splintered, bodies sprawled where they had fallen, the silence almost louder than the gunfire that had shaken it moments before.Ares finally lowered his blade. His grip was so tight his knuckles gleamed, yet he couldn’t let go - not yet. Kane’s voice still echoed in his ears, that poisonous smirk still burned behind his eyes.Reyes broke the silence first. “We need to move. Cops will come sniffing around once the noise carries.”Hawk spat blood into the dirt and swore. “Let them come. I’ll put another hole in whoever’s dumb enough to try.
THE FACE OF THE PAST
The fog curled around the rail yard as if the night itself wanted to choke on the moment. The figure stood just beyond the broken lamplight, tall, shoulders squared, his shadow cast long against the crates. His slow, mocking clap echoed like a hammer on steel.“Ares Vex,” the voice drawled, smooth as oil and twice as poisonous. “Still breathing, still clinging to broken cities as if you can stitch them whole. After all these years, you haven’t changed.”Ares’s grip tightened around the hilt of his blade. His eyes narrowed, his chest rising with steady, measured breaths. He’d imagined this moment in the dark hours of sleepless nights - Kane’s voice, Kane’s shadow, Kane’s smirk dragging him back to a war that never ended. And now it was here.“Kane,” Ares said, the single word carrying enough venom to strip flesh from bone.The man stepped forward. His face slid into the pale lamplight, half-covered by scars that twisted across his cheek like lightning frozen in skin. But his eyes - tho
A RECKONING AWAITS
The council chamber was still heavy with silence when Ares stepped away from the lantern’s glow. His words lingered like iron in the air - It wasn’t just a return. It was a reckoning. No one argued, no one tried to soften the truth. The fear in their faces had already admitted everything.Hawk broke the stillness first, his voice a low rumble. “If Kane is alive, then we need proof. Whispers aren’t enough. People will follow fear, but soldiers… soldiers follow certainty.”Ares turned his head slightly, regarding his old comrade. Hawk was right. Rumors were fire, but fire without fuel burned out quickly. Kane would make sure the fuel was endless unless someone cut him off at the source.“We’ll find him,” Ares said flatly. “Not his men. Not his shadows. Him.”Mira stepped forward then, her arms crossed, her expression tight. “And when you do? What then? Do you kill him? Drag him into the streets? You think exposing him will end this?”Ares’s eyes narrowed. “If he’s breathing, he ends.”H
