The city never slept — it only grew more dangerous after the sun went down.
Jayden stood on the rooftop of a half-collapsed skyscraper, the token of the Silver Sovereign still burning like a brand against his palm. Below him, the neon veins of the city pulsed with life, but he knew better.
Tonight, they pulsed with blood.
He wasn't naïve.
He had made enemies by stepping forward — enemies that wouldn't fight fair.
And sure enough, they were coming.
---
In the alleyway below, shadows slithered and merged.
A figure broke free from the darkness, gliding across the rooftops with a speed that no ordinary man could muster.
Jayden turned slightly, sensing it — the change in the air, the smell of steel, the quiet intent to kill.
He didn't move.
Didn't need to.
He already knew who it was.
A flash of silver.
A dagger flew straight for his throat.
At the last second, Jayden tilted his head, letting the blade slice a shallow line across his cheek instead of cutting deeper.
"You should have aimed better," he said calmly.
From the shadows, Matilda stepped forward — the girl who once swore loyalty to him, who had once laughed beside him under rain-drenched awnings, who had once stitched his wounds by firelight.
Now, she wore black leather and a mask of stone.
"I did aim better," she said softly, eyes glittering with sorrow.
"I just couldn't bear to kill you instantly."
Jayden's heart twisted — not with fear, but with something sharper.
Betrayal.
He had known betrayal would come. He just hadn't thought it would come with the face of someone he trusted.
---
The fight erupted like a spark to dry tinder.
Matilda moved with deadly grace, her knives singing through the air.
Jayden countered each strike with cold precision, not retaliating — not yet.
"Who sent you?" he asked between blows.
Matilda hesitated, the smallest fraction of a second.
It was enough.
Jayden caught her wrist mid-strike and wrenched the dagger from her grip.
In the moonlight, their faces were inches apart.
"You were my family," he said, voice rough.
Matilda swallowed hard. Tears welled in her eyes but didn't fall.
"And you were my death sentence," she whispered.
Then, with a pained look, she pulled something from her belt — a tiny detonator.
Jayden's eyes widened.
"No—"
Boom.
The rooftop beneath them exploded in a fiery blast.
---
Somewhere across the city, in a dimly lit control room, Gloria watched the explosion through a live feed.
She leaned back in her chair, smiling coldly.
"Stage one: complete."
Beside her, a figure in a hooded cloak chuckled.
"Let the wolf bleed," the figure rasped. "Before you break him."
Gloria clinked her glass softly against theirs.
"And then," she said, "we tear out his heart."
---