Rain drummed a grim beat on the corrugated roof of Sanchez & Sons, drowning the thud of fish carcasses hitting stainless steel. Maya Sanchez wiped mackerel scales from her knife, her knuckles white. Sebastian Frost stood between her and the exit, his Italian loafers planted in a puddle of fish guts and ice melt. Jinx, his tech shadow, blocked the back door, tablet glowing.
"$500,000 cash," Frost repeated, slapping a thick, waterproof envelope onto the blood-slicked gutting table. It landed beside a pile of silver-scaled heads. "Enough to pay off your father's medical debt and stall the city's bulldozers for a year. All I want is a name. Who uses the office upstairs?"
Maya didn't flinch. Her dark eyes, hardened by years of predawn catches and predatory developers, scanned Frost's face – the sharp cut of his jaw, the expensive fabric of his rain-spotted coat, the cold calculation in his gaze. A vulture in a Savile Row suit. "Office is condemned, señor. Only thing up there's rats and rot. Want their names? Try Rattus or Aspergillus."
Frost's smile was a blade. He nodded to Jinx. A hologram flickered above the gutting table – grainy, rain-streaked footage from the alley the night before. A hooded figure vaulted the dumpster after flooring Frost with a brutal punch. The figure moved with lethal grace, vanishing into shadow. **"Him."**
Maya's throat tightened. She recognized the build, the speed – the man who'd appeared like a ghost weeks ago, offering anonymous cash to fight the developers. Her protector. But she kept her voice flat. "Never seen him."
"Liar." Frost's hand shot out, fingers clamping like steel bands around her wrist. Her boning knife clattered to the wet floor. His other hand shoved the envelope closer, the stench of brine mixing with the heady smell of new money. "Was it Leo Vance? Is he Phoenix Holdings?"
CRACK!
Maya drove her forehead into his nose.
Frost staggered back with a choked gasp, blood streaming over his lips, shock warring with fury in his eyes. Jinx lunged forward, taser prongs humming—
"ENOUGH."
The command cracked like a harpoon gun. Silas Thorne filled the doorway, rain sheeting off his black trench coat. Two Obsidian security drones hovered behind him, stun-beams casting an eerie blue glow on the fish-gut-strewn floor.
"Miss Sanchez operates under Vance protection," Silas stated, his voice glacial. His flint-chip eyes fixed on Frost. "Harm her, and you explain your shattered kneecaps to Claudia Vance. Personally."
Frost pressed a monogrammed handkerchief to his bleeding nose, eyes burning over the linen. "Claudia sent me," he spat, the lie thick with venom. "She wants Phoenix found. Stand down, Thorne."
Silas didn't move. "Claudia Vance," he said, icily precise, "lacks the authority to command Obsidian security. Or me. Leave. Now. The only thing rotting here is your judgment."
A flicker of uncertainty crossed Frost's face, quickly masked by rage. He glared at Maya, then Silas, weighing the drones' lethal potential. With a final, blood-flecked snarl, he jerked his head at Jinx. "We're done."
They vanished into the rain-lashed alley, Frost's hunched figure radiating humiliation. The envelope of cash lay forgotten on the fish guts.
Maya sagged against the table, trembling. "Th-thank you, Mr. Thorne."
Silas retrieved the envelope, offering it to her with surprising gentleness. "He won't stop. Claudia has marked you as leverage." He glanced towards the rusted staircase leading upstairs. "Tell your… tenant… Frost's net is tightening."
He turned and strode into the rain, drones flanking him like mechanical ghosts. Maya clutched the envelope, the weight of the money dwarfed by the weight of Frost's threat. Claudia Vance. The name was a curse whispered on the docks.
---
Obsidian Tower | Penthouse | 10:45 AM
Leo watched the confrontation replay on a wall-sized screen – Frost's aggression, Maya's fierce headbutt, Silas's timely intervention. A flicker of grim satisfaction touched his lips at Frost's bloody nose.
"Claudia's move," Leo murmured, swirling bourbon in a heavy crystal glass. He stood before the storm-lashed windows, Cresthaven a gray tapestry below. "Predictable. Using Frost as her attack dog."
Silas's voice came through the speaker, calm despite the rain drumming on his car roof. "Frost believes her lie. He's angry. Dangerous."
"He's also smart," Leo conceded, watching Frost's retreat on another feed, Jinx dabbing at his nose with a tissue. "He won't drop Maya as a lead. Not now." He turned, his gaze falling on a secondary monitor showing Evelyn. She sat in the sterile quiet of Cresthaven General's private ward, staring blankly at her father's heavily bandaged hand. Richard slept, his face ashen, haunted even in sedation. Beatrice wept silently in a corner chair.
The cold fury that had driven Leo since the alley flared, hot and insistent. They deserved this. Every scream. Every tear. Yet seeing Evelyn's hollow eyes, the emerald earrings stark against her pallor… an unwanted sliver of the old pain pierced his armor.
He crushed it. Mercy was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not yet.
"Time to redirect the hound," Leo said, his voice hardening. "Release the footage. Let Frost hunt bigger prey."
"Executing now," Silas confirmed.
On the central screen, Silas initiated a command. Across Cresthaven, phones buzzed. News alerts blared. Social media feeds exploded.
BREAKING: OBSIDIAN HEIRESS CLAUDIA VANCE CAUGHT BRIBEING MAYOR FOR DOCKS LAND RIGHTS!
Grainy but damning video played: Claudia Vance, elegant in a Chanel suit, sliding a thick envelope across a restaurant table to the sweaty, familiar face of Mayor Hendricks. Audio crackled: "...ensure the Sanchez parcel is condemned... Phoenix Holdings must be buried…"
Frost's phone, visible on the alley feed, lit up like a strobe. He stared at the screen, the blood draining from his face beneath the streaks from his nose. The caller ID flashed: CLAUDIA VANCE.
Leo watched Frost's hand tremble as he answered. Even without audio, the VP's rigid posture, the frantic shake of his head – denial, fear – spoke volumes. Claudia wasn't calling to thank him.
"The hound's leash just snapped," Leo observed, a cold triumph in his eyes. Frost was Claudia's problem now.
---
Hart Family Private Ward | Cresthaven General | 11:15 AM
The antiseptic smell couldn't mask the lingering scent of fear and blood. Evelyn sat frozen in the hard plastic chair, the image of her father's bandaged stump seared onto her retinas. The surgeons had saved most of his hand, but the pinkie finger was gone. Volkov's "interest." Paid in flesh. Because of Leo. Because of her silence.
Beatrice's quiet sobs were a broken rhythm in the corner. Richard mumbled incoherently under sedation, trapped in nightmares of dumpsters and cleavers.
"You called me trash... Look where you kneel now, Richard."
Leo's distorted voice, dripping with icy contempt, echoed in Evelyn's mind. The monster her family had forged. The monster she had helped create by never standing beside him, never silencing her father's cruelty.
Her gaze drifted to the landline phone on the bedside table. An old, corded relic. A number, unused for years, surfaced from memory. Leo's old prepaid phone. The one he'd used for job hunts. A desperate, foolish hope.
Ring…
The sound was unnaturally loud in the sterile quiet.
Ring…
Beatrice looked up, bleary-eyed. Richard stirred.
Ring…
Evelyn's finger hovered over the cradle. Hang up. It's dead. He's gone.
Click.
The line connected. Silence. Then, a digitally altered, genderless voice:
"Phoenix Holdings."
Evelyn's breath hitched. Phoenix. Leo's weapon. "L-Leo?" Her voice cracked, barely a whisper. "Please… I know it's you. Please… stop this."
A beat of silence stretched, filled only by the hum of hospital machinery and Richard's pained whimper. When the voice came again, the distortion couldn't hide the glacial fury beneath:
"You had three years to speak, Evelyn. Three years to stop them. You chose silence."
Tears blurred Evelyn's vision. "I was wrong! Terribly wrong! But this… what you did to Father…"
"What they earned! The digital voice sharpened, becoming a lash. "What your silence allowed! You watched them break me. Piece by piece. Day by day. You watched them throw me out like garbage."
"I was afraid!" Evelyn choked out, shame burning her cheeks. "Afraid of Father! Afraid of losing everything!"
"You lost me!" The distortion crackled with raw, unprocessed pain. "And now, you want mercy? Because he bleeds?" A bitter, mechanical laugh. "Listen, Evelyn. Truly listen. For once."
A click. Then, horrifyingly clear through the phone's speaker, came the sounds from the alley:
- Richard's choked sob: "P-Please…"
- The wet thud of a fist hitting flesh.
- Ivan Petrovich's gravelly snarl: *"Beg properly."
- And then, rising in pitch until it shattered into an inhuman shriek of pure, unadulterated agony:
"AAAAAAAAAGH! MY HAND! MY HAAAAAAND!"
Beatrice screamed, clapping her hands over her ears. Richard bolted upright in bed, eyes wide with primal terror, howling wordlessly at the ceiling.
Evelyn dropped the phone. It clattered to the floor, Richard's recorded screams still spilling from the receiver, filling the sterile room with echoes of his mutilation. She slid off the chair, curling into a ball on the cold linoleum, her own screams trapped in her throat, the emerald earrings digging into her scalp as she pressed her face into her knees. Leo's final words, before the line went dead, echoed in the space where her heart used to be:
"Silence has consequences, Evelyn. Welcome to yours."
---
Volkov Syndicate Safehouse | Industrial District | 1:00 PM
Ivan Petrovich admired the gleaming cleaver laid out on red velvet. A trophy. Richard Hart's pinkie finger rested in a small glass jar of formaldehyde beside it. Business concluded. Mostly.
His phone buzzed. A blocked number. Text only:
> DOCK 17. MIDNIGHT. PHOENIX HAS YOUR NEXT TARGET. PAYMENT: $5M.
Petrovich grunted. Phoenix paid well. And their targets deserved what they got. He texted back:
> WHO?
The reply was instantaneous:
> SEBASTIAN FROST. OBSIDIAN VP. HE INTERFERED. HE KNOWS TOO MUCH.
A slow, brutal smile spread across Petrovich's scarred face. Frost. The suit who'd threatened him in the alley. Who'd tried to play hero. Interfering carried a price. And $5 million bought a lot of pain.
> ACCEPTED. ANY SPECIAL REQUESTS?
The final message blinked onto his screen:
> MAKE HIM BEG LIKE HART. THEN TAKE HIS TONGUE.
Petrovich chuckled, a low rumble like distant thunder. Phoenix had style.
> DA. MIDNIGHT.
He picked up the cleaver, testing its edge. Frost wouldn't be giving any more orders. Or asking any more questions.
---
Abandoned Loft Above Sanchez & Sons | 1:30 PM
The hooded figure watched Frost's black sedan speed away from the fish market through rain-streaked binoculars. Frost's face, glimpsed through the windshield, was a mask of fury and frustration beneath the bandage on his nose.
The figure lowered the binoculars, pulling back the hood. Not Leo. A woman, her dark hair pulled into a severe bun, her eyes sharp and assessing. She tapped a comm unit.
"Frost left the docks. Nose broken, ego shattered. Silas intervened. Maya Sanchez is secure."
Leo's voice, filtered through encryption, replied from Obsidian Tower: **"Good. Claudia's scandal is live. Frost is her problem now. Maintain watch. Volkov is being… redirected."
"Understood." The woman – an Obsidian shadow operative codenamed **WRAITH** – scanned the empty street below. "Frost won't drop Maya. He's obsessed. And Claudia will crucify him for the leak."
"Let them tear each other apart," Leo's voice was ice. "Just keep Maya safe. She's innocent in this."
"Innocent?" Wraith murmured, watching Maya below, fiercely hosing down the blood-stained gutting floor. "Or a weapon waiting to be aimed?"
She didn't expect an answer. Leo had already severed the connection. Wraith pulled her hood back up, blending into the loft's shadows. The storm wasn't over. It had just found new targets. Frost. Claudia. The vultures were circling each other now. And Phoenix watched from the eye of the hurricane.