The Rise Of The Forgotten King.

Chapter 2

Someone hit my door loudly and I froze mid cleaning. It was almost unnoticeable under the music blasting through the speakers, but I had listened to Noah’s playlists enough times to know every single bump and breath inside those tracks. This sound did not belong there. My body tensed on instinct.

“Ethan. Ethan, open up.” A woman’s voice called again while pounding the door even harder. Mrs Henderson. Of course.

I muttered a curse and straightened. The AR was still leaning behind the open bookshelf, exposed. I grabbed it with one hand, slung it out of sight, and shoved the shelf closed with my shoulder until the click sounded. Wood dust skittered across the floor. I used a throw blanket to cover the broken panels and splinters piled under the shelf. My foot throbbed and I forced myself to walk normally.

I limped down the hallway, flicked on the porch light, and unlocked the door only a few inches. Mrs Henderson stood there in her fluffy pink robe, her tiny brown terrier yapping around her feet with enough enthusiasm to choke someone. She peered at me with a mix of worry and suspicion.

“Ethan, honey, are you alright?” she asked. “I saw you come home earlier and you were bleeding. And you did not hear me when I called. Then this terribly loud music. It frightened me.”

“I am fine, Mrs H.” I forced a calm tone.

“But you are limping. And your foot is bleeding again.”

“I said I am fine.” My patience evaporated. “It was just a stupid accident on the way home. I hit the curb. I am okay.”

She squinted and tried to see past me into the house. “It is ten in the night and some of us have to work in the morning. Could you turn the music down before someone calls the police. You do not want that tonight.”

I nodded once. “Alright. I hear you.”

I left the door open, walked inside, turned the volume down until it was nothing but a soft rumble, and returned to her.

“See. It is off now. Sorry about it. Won’t happen again.”

She nodded, relieved. “Thank you, sweetheart. You really should take care of that foot though.”

I shut the door before she finished the sentence and leaned my forehead against the wood. Her slippers scraped along the pavement as she walked away. I held my breath until I heard the click of her own door closing across the yard.

A tremor of exhaustion shook through my chest, but I pushed the feeling aside and headed straight into my bedroom. I pulled the old black duffel bag from beneath my bed. It was dusty but still sturdy. I unzipped it, took a breath, and started loading it the way muscle memory dictated.

Glock first. Slide cleaned earlier that month. I locked it into the hidden bottom compartment I had sewn into the bag years ago. Two spare magazines followed. Then two boxes of five fifty six rounds and one of nine millimeters. AR magazines went in next. The movements felt too natural for someone who had sworn he would never touch it all again. I kept packing.

Two pairs of jeans, rolled tight. Three T-shirts. A hoodie. Socks. A small first aid pouch. The burner phone from the safe. A thick roll of emergency cash. Lighter. Folding knife. I zipped the bag shut and felt the weight pull on my shoulder. It felt like the past sitting there in canvas form. Heavy and inevitable.

I went out through the back door to avoid triggering the porch light and stepped into the cold evening. The air slapped my face awake. Crickets chirped lazily across the fence. I opened the trunk quietly, tossed the duffel in, and closed it without making a sound. The neighborhood was still, the kind of stillness that only made fear louder. I glanced toward Mrs Henderson’s window. The curtains were drawn. Good. I could not handle any more questions tonight.

I got into the car, turned the ignition, and reversed slowly with no headlights. Paranoia had become instinct. Once I hit the main road I switched them on and headed straight for the only place I knew would still be open.

Twenty minutes later, I turned the engine off two blocks away from Rusty’s. The bar sat at the corner of the street with faded orange neon lights that flickered like they were fighting death. Cars were parked everywhere. Most belonged to people who came here to drown their misery in cheap liquor and even cheaper conversation. I reached for the black mask in my pocket, pulled it over my nose and mouth, added the hood, and stepped out.

Inside, the stench of cheap beer, sweat, weed and too many bodies slapped me like a wave. Music thumped hard enough that I felt it inside my chest. People danced on each other like they needed friction to stay alive. Shouting. Laughter. Glasses clinking. The type of noise that always used to set my teeth on edge.

Crowds like this never made sense to me. A hundred strangers squeezed into a room, pretending it was freedom. Pretending it was safe.

I kept my head low and pushed straight through the main area until I reached the back hallway where the private rooms were. A massive wall of muscle in a leather vest blocked the door.

“This place is closed,” he said.

“I need to see Scar.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No.”

“Well, then you are not seeing him. Nobody sees Scar without an appointment ”

I reached up and tugged my mask down and his eyes widened as if I had just risen from a grave.

“Holy shit.” He scrambled to open the door so fast he almost fell backward.

The air inside was stale and heavy. Weed smoke floated in thin layers and the dim red lights gave everything a hazy glow. A woman was bent over the couch with her dress pulled up, moaning loudly, while Scar stood behind her with his jeans around his thighs. His whole tattooed back rippled with every movement.

I cleared my throat and Scar spun immediately, hand flying toward the pistol on the side table. When he saw my face, his fingers froze halfway.

“Well, well,” he said, grinning widely like Christmas came early. “Look at this, if it isn't Ghost my brother.”

He pulled out of the girl and smacked her backside. “Out.”

She whined. “But I am not finished.”

“Now.” He did not raise his voice, but she understood clearly. She grabbed her dress, shot me a glare full of irritation, and rushed past me struggling to put the dress on properly. Her perfume lingered in the room, mixing with cheap whiskey and cigarette smoke.

Scar zipped up and walked toward me with his arms open like he expected a hug.

I did not move.

“You can bring those hands down man.”

He laughed it off and dropped his arms. “What brings you here, Ghost.”

“You know why.”

“I cannot say I do. Care for a drink?” He reached for a bottle of cheap whiskey on the table.

“No.” My voice was flat. “I need information. Someone came for Noah.”

He froze and his grin faded. “Noah? Your brother? Damn. I did not even know you still talked to family.”

“Cut the crap, you know I left because of him. Hours ago someone took him and they left a card. The same kind of card I used to deliver for them.”

Scar slowly set the bottle down and his expression darkened. “You know I am not with them anymore. Since they dumped me here, I roll with alcohol and pussies now. And I damn well keep to my lane.”

“You still have the ink and I know you still hear things.” I pointed to the tattoo on the side of his neck symbolizing the unit we once belonged to.

He touched the long scar running from his eye to the corner of his mouth. The knife wound from the night our world almost burned down. “Ghost, I swear on my mother, I heard nothing about Noah. I am not high enough to get that kind of intel. I am an outsider now, just like every other person who was not useful there anymore.”

His expression changed as if something had just crossed his mind. “But now that I think about it, what if it is not them?”

“Who else would it be?”

He shook his head. “I really do not know. But if they are moving again, nobody told me. And if they left a card, then they want you back in the light. They want you out and they are pulling you out to exactly where you swore you would never go.”

“Yeah. I figured.”

Scar rubbed his head with both hands like he wanted to rip the skin off. “Ghost, I wish I had something for you. I really do. You know how things changed after everything went down. Half the old heads are gone, the new kids do not even know our names. I am lucky they even let me breathe in this damn place.”

I stared at him in silence until he shifted his weight. He avoided my eyes, looking everywhere but at me. His eyes darted left and right like the shadows were listening. The fear was real, buried under bravado but bleeding through the cracks.

“If you hear anything,” I said, my voice low and final, “you contact the number you still have. Or I come back and we talk in a different way.”

He raised both hands in surrender. “You know I will. I always had your back. Always.”

I pulled the face mask over my mouth again and walked out without looking at him. The hallway swallowed me in stale air and noise from the main bar. I shoved through the crowd ignoring drunks who stumbled into my path. A woman tried to touch my arm but I pulled away without slowing my pace. No one here mattered right now. Every second I wasted here was a second Noah spent in someone else’s hands.