Episode 90
Blood dripped from the hallway walls of Blackridge Prison.
The silence that followed was louder than the chaos.
Raian stood in the corridor, his fists bruised, his breathing slow but steady. Around him lay unconscious guards—those who hadn't run in terror. The few who had dared raise their weapons now groaned on the floor, their arms twisted, their pride shattered.
He didn't need guns.
He was the weapon.
Raian moved without hesitation, like he had rehearsed this escape in his mind a hundred times—each scenario, each variable. But what truly guided him wasn't calculation.
It was rage.
Not the raw, uncontrollable kind—but the steady, cold fury of a man whose woman was being hunted.
He would tear Malik apart.
---
Outside, deep in the woods
The safehouse Ishaan mentioned stood abandoned, layered in dust and moss. Metal reinforcements beneath the surface made it invisible to thermal scans. Once used by rogue agents from the East Division, it was now their only haven.
Aria stared out through the broken blinds, her fingers trembling over the table as she traced the crude city map. Her eyes were dry, but her mind was a storm.
Lina brought her a cup of water and sat beside her.
"You need sleep," Lina said softly.
Aria didn't answer.
"You haven't blinked in an hour."
Still, silence.
Lina leaned closer. "He's alive."
That broke the silence. Aria looked at her.
"You're sure?"
"I just know," Lina said, a gentle smile pulling at her lips. "And if he's alive, he's already fighting his way back."
Aria nodded slowly, but her voice was hollow. "Malik's turning the public against us. The bounty's rising. Half the street kids who used to chant Raian's name are now scared of mine."
"Then remind them who you are," Lina whispered. "Remind them you're the storm he trained."
---
Elsewhere, Malik's private estate
Malik watched the live feeds—every screen tuned to public opinion graphs, police updates, and media manipulation patterns.
"She hasn't made a move since the second leak," one advisor said.
Malik sipped his drink. "She's calculating her next attack."
Another screen popped up—a blurry footage from Blackridge.
Malik's eyes narrowed.
A guard, barely alive, whispering into the emergency cam.
One word escaped his mouth before the feed died:
> "Raian…"
Malik crushed the glass in his hand, blood slipping through his fingers.
"Impossible."
---
Back at the safehouse
Noah patched into an abandoned satellite relay and connected to a confidential military grid. The result: a low-quality emergency ping.
Location: Blackridge Prison.
Time: 03:17 AM.
Status: Security compromised. Multiple guard casualties. One inmate unaccounted for. Name classified.
Aria's breath caught.
"It's him."
Ayan's eyes widened. "He did it?"
"He's moving," Aria said, standing. "He's coming back."
Noah grinned. "Time for the next phase?"
Aria's voice was steady. "We finish what we started."
---
Later that night
Aria stood before the hidden camera setup, wearing a black hoodie, her face partly shadowed, but her eyes burning.
They streamed her video across the darkest corners of the net.
> "You called me a traitor. A puppet. A broken woman chasing ghosts.
I am none of those things.
I am a doctor who saw what you did to the innocent.
A sister to those you silenced.
A flame you failed to extinguish.
This war is no longer about revenge.
It's about truth.
And I will not stop until every monster behind that curtain is pulled into the light."
She paused, then stared directly into the camera.
> "Malik… this is your reckoning."
---
Inside the prison courtyard
The final gate fell.
Guards scrambled to contain the breach, but it was useless. Raian had no need to escape through the main roads. His plan wasn't to run.
It was to destroy.
One by one, he released the prisoners Malik had buried illegally—political opponents, whistleblowers, witnesses who had vanished without trial.
He found a man named Lieutenant Dae—once a government scientist, silenced for exposing biochemical experiments.
Now freed.
"You're alive?" the man asked Raian, trembling.
Raian didn't answer. He only handed him a knife and nodded.
The war had many faces. It was time they remembered them all.
---
By dawn
News broke again.
Not from Aria.
Not from her team.
But from a prison guard, anonymous, confessing in a livestream:
> "Blackridge isn't a prison. It's a slaughterhouse.
We were told to torture him. The man they said was a traitor.
But he didn't beg.
He didn't scream.
He only said one thing—'Tell her I'll come back burning.'"
Public sentiment flipped overnight.
Malik tried to shut it down.
But the fire had started.
And Raian's name rose like a phoenix from ash.