3:16 AM
The Devil's Hour.
When the night is at its coldest. When shadows stretch longest. When the forgotten crawl out of silence.
A black sedan rolled to a stop beneath a flickering streetlamp on the edge of District 9. The area was long abandoned by anything good—just rusted fences, dead neon signs, and the stench of rot that even rain couldn't wash away.
Adrian Kael sat behind the wheel, his eyes unmoving, fixed on the fifth-floor window of the crumbling apartment across the street. He didn't blink. He hardly breathed. His pulse was a metronome trained by seven years in hell.
On the passenger seat, a dossier rested. Thin, precise, and lethal—like everything in his new life.
Target: Inspector Daniel Verge
Affiliation: Internal Bureau of Security
Status: Retired
Crimes: Perjury, Evidence Tampering, High-Treason
Sentence: Death
Adrian ran a gloved finger across the edge of the file. A habit. He used to trace pictures of his daughter like that, before everything went to ash. But that was a lifetime ago—before the betrayal, the blacksite, the electric needles in his spine.
Before they buried him.
He opened the car door slowly. No rush. Not anymore.
Each footstep crunched glass under boot. The apartment complex loomed like a corpse dressed in bricks—hollow and forgotten. The gate groaned open with a cry that echoed too loud, but Adrian didn't care.
Let the dead hear. He was one of them.
Inside, Apartment 502
Daniel Verge coughed awake in a nicotine-stained room, groggy, shirtless, old. The kind of tired that no sleep could fix. He blinked at the red digits of the bedside clock. 3:17.
A knock.
Then another.
Slow. Rhythmic. Measured like a heartbeat.
He reached for the drawer. Found the pistol he never fired. It was dusty—like the guilt he thought time had buried.
At the door: "Who is it?"
No answer.
Verge opened the door a crack—just enough to see—
A flash of black. A cold hiss. Something sharp in his neck.
His mouth opened to scream, but his body had already betrayed him. His knees buckled, eyes rolled back, and the last thing he saw was a man's face.
A face he once swore was dead.
Somewhere below
Adrian didn't speak until the room was dark, sealed, and soundproofed.
Verge was tied to a rusted chair, sweating, twitching as the paralytic wore off. His mouth worked, but no sound came out—until Adrian finally stepped into the circle of light.
"Kael…" Verge rasped. "You… you're dead."
Adrian tilted his head. No smile. No anger. Just emptiness.
"They forgot about me," he said quietly. "You made sure of that."
Verge's lips trembled. "It wasn't my call. I was—"
"You were the first signature," Adrian interrupted. "The one who said I was guilty. You knew I wasn't."
Verge's eyes filled with something like regret—but Adrian didn't care. Regret was cheap. Regret never bought back a dead daughter. Regret never scrubbed seven years of blood off a man's soul.
Adrian crouched to eye level. "I want you to listen carefully."
Verge nodded, trembling. "Anything… just please…"
"This isn't revenge," Adrian said.
"It's confession."
And then the tape recorder clicked on.
The recorder's red light blinked softly. Waiting. Listening.
Adrian leaned in close, his voice steady, cold as steel left out in winter.
"State your name."
Verge hesitated.
Adrian's gloved hand moved, not violently—just enough to let Verge glimpse the knife on the table beside him. Thin, surgical. Clean.
"Daniel Verge," the inspector croaked, swallowing hard.
"Occupation?"
"Retired… formerly Senior Inspector, Internal Bureau of Security."
"Were you involved in the prosecution of Adrian Kael?"
Verge's eyes widened, like he couldn't believe this was real. Maybe a part of him hoped it wasn't. But that part was already dying.
"Yes."
"Knowingly?"
Silence.
Adrian leaned forward, pressing the recorder closer to Verge's mouth.
"I—I followed orders. I had no choice."
"You always had a choice," Adrian said, voice low.
Verge's breathing quickened. "You don't understand. They were going to shut me down. My pension, my clearance—everything. I was a scapegoat too!"
Adrian stood slowly and walked behind him. The sound of his boots on the concrete was the loudest thing in the room. He stopped at the metal table, opening a small black case.
Verge flinched at the sight: a syringe. Not poison. Worse.
Truth serum. Illegal. Painful.
"I didn't come for a lie," Adrian said. "I came for a confession."
Verge's voice cracked. "What does it matter now?! The agency's gone dark. The files are gone. You're not going to get justice—only blood."
Adrian paused, then set the syringe down with a soft click.
"You're wrong," he said. "Justice is what they promised me. Blood is what I've earned."
He picked up the knife instead.
Verge began to sob—not loudly. Just quietly, brokenly, like an old man who finally realized hell had a waiting list and he was at the top.
"I remember your daughter," Verge whispered. "I saw the footage. I know she was innocent. I—I'm sorry, Adrian. I truly am."
Adrian froze.
In seven years, not one of them had said her name.
He didn't lash out. He didn't even breathe hard. He just stared at the man as if he were looking at a puzzle that had finally clicked into place.
"You're not the only name in that file," Adrian said. "But you were the easiest to find."
Verge's eyes widened. "You're going after all of them?"
Adrian crouched again, bringing his face just inches from the trembling man's.
"They built their legacy on a lie. I'm here to erase it."
He pressed the button to stop the recorder.
Then he whispered, "You get to live, Daniel. For now. But if I find out you lied to me—if one word of that confession was false…"
Adrian stood up, cleaned the blade, and turned away. "You'll wish I'd killed you tonight."
He walked out of the room without looking back. Verge didn't scream. He didn't move. He just sat in the chair, soaked in sweat, staring at the door like it might reopen at any second.
Outside, 3:59 AM
The air was colder now. The streets still empty. Adrian lit a cigarette with hands that didn't shake.
He opened the file again. Ten names left. Some were ghosts. Others had risen in rank, changed identities, buried their sins behind smiles and medals.
It didn't matter.
Dead men don't stay buried.
And Adrian Kael had just begun to dig.