Valebrook City – 4:13 a.m.
Juliana was twenty-one years old, and she'd already buried the girl she used to be.
Whatever softness she'd once held at sixteen — gone. Replaced by scar tissue & steel. A girl who once believed in heroes, in forgiveness, in happy endings… had been executed in the same room her parents died. What remained now was a woman forged by loss, trained in silence, and kept alive by one thing:
Revenge.
Knock knock.
The voice behind the door echoed again, smooth and deliberate:
~ "Juliana Black. If you open this door, your life will never be the same."
She stepped to the side, away from direct line of fire. Gun in hand. Thumb on the hammer. No breathing. No movement. Just the whir of her heartbeat in her ears like a distant war drum.
~ "Last warning," she said aloud, low and cold. "Come through that door, and you leave in pieces."
A pause. Then, soft laughter. Not loud. Not mocking. Controlled. Confident.
~ "I'm not here to kill you, Juliana. I'm here because they want to. And if you don't let me in, they will." The lock turned from the outside.
What?!
She spun. Gun up. Finger tight.
The door cracked open....
And a man stepped through the frame like he owned the night.
Tailored black suit. Gloves. No weapon in sight. But the kind of stillness you only ever see in killers or wolves. His face was lean. Jaw tight. Storm-grey eyes locked on her as if measuring her soul — and how many bodies she'd stepped over to get here.
~ "Don't shoot," he said.
She shot.
The bullet shattered a vase beside his head. He didn't flinch.
~ "Good aim," he said. "Poor choice."
~ "Who the hell are you?" she asks.
~ "Agent Damian Voss. Formerly of Division Six. Currently freelance. Here on contract to keep you alive."
~ "I didn't ask for a bodyguard."
~ "Good. I'm not one. I'm your problem now." He tossed something onto the table.
A silver USB drive.
~ "That has footage of the next three names on your list. Including the one behind Victor Mendez. I'm guessing he didn't tell you everything before you decorated the penthouse with his frontal lobe."
Juliana didn't answer. She stared at the USB. Then back at him.
~ "Why help me?"
~ "Because what's coming will make Mendez look like a warm-up act. And because if I don't help you…" He stepped closer. "They'll make sure no one remembers you ever existed."
Her pulse spiked.
~ "And what do you want in return?"
~ "Simple." He leaned in, close enough for her to smell gun oil and winter cologne. "You trust me. For thirty-six hours. Then you can kill me."
Thirty Minutes Later – Abandoned Loft, District 8
The hideout was gone. Juliana's safehouse had been torched. Her escape routes marked with red tape. Cameras were installed at every subway station within a mile radius. Someone had exposed her. She was being hunted.
~ "I don't like being followed," she snapped, climbing through a side alley window two floors above the street.
~ "You've been watched since the day you killed Victor," Damian replied, right behind her. "You made it public. That put you on their board."
~ "Their board?"
~ "The Five Syndicates. Blade was one of them. Mendez too. But the others… they're worse. Smarter. Dirtier. You thought this was personal. It isn't. It's political."
~ "Good," Juliana said, landing inside the dusty loft. "I'm just the kind of problem politics can't solve."
______
She paced to a rusted sink and twisted the handle. No water. Just the screech of ancient pipes. "This was a fallback," she explained. "I haven't used it in years."
Damian moved to the broken couch, pulled a cigarette from his inner pocket. Lit it. Took a drag.
~ "You really think they'll stop with just your death?"
Juliana didn't reply.
~ "They'll erase everything. Burn your parents from the record. Collapse your family's assets. Kill anyone who's ever known your name."
~ "Let them try."
~ "They already did." He held up his phone and pressed play. Video feed. Nicholas. Alive. Laughing with one of the Syndicate bosses.
Juliana's knees almost gave out. She caught herself against the sink edge, jaw slack.
Nicholas had raised her like an uncle. Sworn loyalty to her father. He'd been the first to call after the murders. The one who'd sent her the footage.
~ "He was supposed to be dead."
~ "He faked it," Damian said. "Classic misdirection. While you were sharpening knives, he was moving money, selling intel, and climbing the underworld ladder."
~ "Why now?" she asked.
~ "Because you made a mistake." He tossed her the USB again.
~ "You made it personal. Now he's going to make it business."
Later – Underground Market Tunnel, Valebrook...
They moved fast.
Juliana disguised in a construction uniform. Damian posing as a security contractor. Together, they slipped into the forbidden network beneath the city—black market auction sites, chemical labs, and illegal weapons bazaars. The USB had revealed a location: Tunnel Nine.
~ "We're being watched," she murmured.
~ "Always," Damian replied. "But they won't act yet. They want to see what you know."
~ "Then let's give them something to panic about."
They turned a corner. And found two dozen bodies. Slaughtered. Hanging from meat hooks. Fresh blood painting the cement. Damian pulled his gun. Juliana moved first, sweeping the room.
~ "Execution-style," she murmured. "Single shot to the spine. Carved symbols on their foreheads. That's Raven's signature."
~ "Who's Raven?"
~ "She's what the Syndicates whisper about when they think no one's listening. Black Rose Subject #8."
~ "Another one like you?"
~ "Worse."
_____
Suddenly, movement.
A figure darted through the darkness. Hooded. Small. Fast. Juliana bolted. Through broken corridors, past abandoned generators, chasing shadows like they owed her blood. Then she stopped.
The figure was standing dead-center in the next tunnel — lit by a single hanging bulb. Face masked. Hands behind back. Then something dropped at their feet. A chess piece.
Black bishop. Damian aimed his gun.
~ "Who are you?"
The figure stepped backward into the shadows, disappearing like smoke. Juliana knelt.
Carved into the bishop's base was a single phrase:
"You're next."