Agust's factory sat on the edge of the industrial belt like a carcass of a beast no one wanted to touch — corrugated metal walls pitted with rust, ventilation stacks coughing smoke into a sickly sky. The place smelled of oil, disinfectant, and something older: the sweet, clinical tang of meat on a lab table.
They moved through the service entrance. Men flanked them, faces blank with the sort of obedience that came from contracts and fear. Agust didn't bother with pleasantries. He led Dylan down into the belly of the plant — corridors lit with harsh fluorescents, the soft thump of refrigeration units, the distant hiss of broken machines.
At the center of the complex was the lab. Rows of tanks, welded cages, and operating tables filled the room. Computers, now dark and splintered, sat smashed like broken skulls. The smell hit Dylan full — antiseptic with a rotten undernote. Pools of congealing blood darkened grates in the floor. Half-assembled bodies lay where the raiders had left them: some clearly hybrid, some human with graft scars, some neither.
Agust walked slowly through the wreckage, boots stirring the detritus. He tapped a steel table with a gloved finger as if testing a reputation. "Hussain and his boys came in like saints," he said, voice flat. "Only they weren't here to free anyone. They were here because someone with a badge paid them off. They wanted the files. They wanted proof. They wanted bodies."
Dylan's jaw tightened. He stared at the broken tanks — glass shards stained red. "Who gave the order to clean them?" he asked. His voice was small in the huge room.
Agust's face didn't change. "I called Carlo on the Intercom. Told him: the shipment is compromised. Tell Central it's a hazard." He let the words lie heavy in the air. "Carlo said—'neutralize on sight.' He gave the code. The forces moved like clockwork."
Dylan looked up, horrified. "You called their killer in."
Agust shrugged. "Carlo didn't 'kill' as a favor to me. He killed because that's how the city is kept stable. Cleanup. No witnesses. No leaks. You of all people should know how the badge trades in absolutes. We made a problem go away."
The cadence of the explanation was bone-dry. Dylan walked to a shattered incubator and crouched, fingers hovering over a smear of fur that still stuck to the glass. The hybrids weren't theoretical anymore; they were bodies with names and screams. He remembered Ariel's eyes, Marie's small chest, Mario's hands. Naming them made the cost personal — it always had.
"Why tell me this?" Dylan demanded. "Why show me the corpses?"
Agust watched him meaningfully. "Because you're not a child who can pretend ignorance. You told me you wanted structure. To control the rot. You wanted to rebuild from the inside. But power doesn't come without knowing how the machine runs. Carlo is the line. He owns the channels. He gave the order that night. He controls what goes through Central. If you can control him, you control the purge."
Dylan's fists clenched. "Where is Carlo now?" His voice had steel in it.
"Protected in the Intercom's nerve center. Untouchable, because the city's bureaucracy chooses silence over scandal." Agust smiled thinly. "We can change that."
Dylan rose slowly, taking in each ruined face, each pool of dried blood. The man who had once taken an oath to protect the city felt the oath corrode in his hand like acid. He had come to Agust to build a machine for justice—now the machine's gears were soaked in the blood of innocents.
He thought of Hussain. The man's face, the tremor in his hands the night he unshackled Ariel. Had Hussain really raided with malice, or had he been given an impossibly cruel choice? The line between coercion and betrayal blurred, and Dylan's anger folded into something darker: a calculus of retribution.
He turned to Agust. "You brought me here to watch the consequences." He spat the words out like an oath. "Good. Now we know the scale."
Agust nodded. "Scale, then tools. Carlo's channels will be our first strike. We remove the hand that commands the purge, and then we destabilize the networks that let men like Marco and their bought chiefs hide behind badges."
Dylan moved methodically through the lab, touching no mirrors, seeing everything. In the silence, the dead told their lesson: the line between cop and criminal was a ledger paid in flesh. If he wanted to redeem the names he loved, he would not look away again.
Outside, rain began to hammer the roof. Inside, Dylan folded his hands and, for the first time since Ariel's last breath, smiled without warmth.
"We begin," he said. "We finish what was started."
Dylan's finger tightened on the trigger until the metal bit into his palm, the barrel steady and cold under the warehouse light. For a second the world narrow to the sound of his own breath and Marco's corpse at his feet. Agust stood too close—too casual, too smooth—as if the knife and the cigar were props in a show for which he'd written the script.
"Finish it," Agust said softly, as if reading the thought on Dylan's face. "Kill me and the city will lick its wounds and move on. Or use me."
Dylan let the pistol fall a hair's breadth. "I kill only those who fight back," he said. He had never been a senseless killer. Even now, the rule had teeth—he would not become Marco's mirror.
But he still wanted to send a message.
The gun hand moved with a speed born of the last months' fury. He struck Agust's wrist, wrenching it so the cuffed blade and cigar clattered free. Agust howled—half surprise, half pain—and tried to step back. Dylan stepped in, hands a brutal exactness, and with the same practiced force that once hit doors open on raids, he locked Agust in place and twisted. Bones popped; a shout split the air. He took the same motion and drove it into the man's ankle, forcing him down onto the crate-strewn floor. Agust's face went white where it had been amused.
Dylan didn't watch the man's face while he did it. He watched the rest of the room. The men who had backed Marco were watching him now for a new sign of order. He needed compliance, not theatrics. He needed to be something other than grief incarnate. The simplest method—pain to command—was ugly but effective.
When he finished he stood over Agust, who lay panting, one arm hanging at a wrong angle and a leg flexed where it should not. Blood darkened the cuff of his sleeve where the knife had been pried loose. He'd been hurt, but not broken.
Agust's eyes, when they met Dylan's again, held something more than pain—something like love softened by shame. "You remember me?" he whispered.
Dylan's voice was flat. "I remember when I brought you in. You were a kid with too much rage and no guidance. You spat at the badge and called me a liar. I put you in a cell because that's what the law demanded." He paused, and the memory of the precinct's fluorescent light struck him like a small, bright thing. "You tried to kill a man then. I didn't want him killed. I locked you up."
Agust's lips trembled. "You put me away. You saved me from myself. I—" he swallowed. "I loved you then. Foolishly. I still—"
Dylan's jaw tightened. He had been younger, angrier, full of a faith that bled easily into black-and-white decisions. He had brought Agust's case in front of the court, watched him convicted, then used whatever pull he had—quiet conversations, sealed reports—to steer his sentence into something that could be useful: a structured release under supervision, a job that might have saved a man who would otherwise rot.
"You called me back into the world," Agust said. "You taught me how to turn rage into… design. I built my men on the lesson you taught me: orders, structure, loyalty. I came to you because I knew you would understand a hand that needs shaping."
The ugliness of the truth settled in the room. Agust had loved him—maybe for years, maybe for a single time stitched into memory—and that had not been clean. Dylan felt anger at the confession, an ache at the indebtedness, and an odd, cold gratitude that the man had come to him and not to some rival.
Dylan crouched so that the two of them were eye level. He didn't touch Agust; he only spoke like a judge issuing terms.
"You loved me," he said. "That doesn't excuse what you are. It doesn't excuse what you've done. But it explains why you let your hand do this tonight." He gestured at Marco's body and the men moving to clean. "You wanted control. You wanted me to use your hand. We will use it—on our terms."
Agust swallowed, pain and something else twisting his face. "I'll give you everything. My men. My routes. The lab. The Intercom contacts. I'll give you the Deck."
Dylan's eyes held a long, slow burn. "You will obey my rules. No one dies for the sake of your private vengeance. We take targets, precise. We do not massacre. We don't become what we hate."
A laugh came out of Agust then—half-sob, half-amused, broken. "You make rules like a cop." He choked on the sound. "And you put a cop's weight back on me."
Dylan stood, the balance of power clicking into place. He ordered two men to bind Agust's limbs properly and carry him to a cell the Deck kept for its own—a place where traitors and assets were kept until they had been reshaped. It was a jail, yes, but it had a single difference: Dylan's oversight.
"You'll be watched," Dylan said. "You'll be healed. You'll work. And you'll pay for every life you've ever forgotten." He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small, worn photo—a younger Agust, raw and furious, on the steps of a police station the day Dylan had booked him. He handed it to the man now.
Agust's fingers closed on the paper like a prayer. "You betrayed me," he whispered. "And then you kept me."
Dylan looked at him without answering. He had used the law once in desperation; he would use crime now as a tool. Agust was not only his instrument. He was also a debt. A wound. A warning.
When they lifted Agust to carry him away, the wounded man smiled faintly, pain making the curve of his mouth real. "We'll make this world mine to love and yours to break," he said.
Dylan watched him go, the warehouse doors closing like a judge's gavel. He did not forgive Agust. He did not accept him. He accepted the reality: power had to be built from broken things as well as willing ones. Agust would be reshaped into a lieutenant—and in return, Dylan would be given a deck of cards and a map to the rot.
Outside, rain began again. Dylan cocked a look toward the city. There was no comfort left in vengeance, only work. And now he had hands to shape it with.
After Agust was secured, Dylan traced the chain back to the man whose voice had ordered the slaughter of every hybrid in that factory—Carlo Demir, the same Carlo who had spoken through the intercom the night Ariel died.
Carlo was a strategist, Turkish-born, a quiet man who ran a small armory and was married to Hayat, a woman who looked like winter made human—white hair, ice-blue eyes, and a calm that could still a room. She was everything the underworld wasn't: composed, intelligent, and oddly kind.
Dylan approached Carlo with the same precision he once used to build a case file. He didn't threaten or charm—he observed, mirrored, and offered partnership. Within weeks, Carlo began to trust him. They became allies, trading information, sharing drinks, dissecting their enemies' psychology late into the night.
But somewhere between alliance and manipulation, a fracture formed. Hayat began to talk to Dylan when Carlo was away—first about her loneliness, then about her fear of what her husband had become. Dylan didn't plan to cross that line, but the more he learned about Carlo's cold efficiency, the more he wanted to wound him where it hurt most: his pride.
He didn't realize when the game turned into something dangerous. Hayat wasn't like the others—she wasn't corrupted by power, only starved for warmth. She saw through Dylan's anger, his haunted silences, and yet still reached for him.
By the time Carlo began to suspect, it was too late.
Hayat had changed—her calm replaced by quiet rebellion. When she told Dylan she was carrying his child, the air around him seemed to freeze.
For the first time since Ariel's death, Dylan felt fear—real fear. Not of being caught, but of creating life in a world he'd turned into a battlefield.
Dylan didn't look back when Hayat told him about the child.
He simply said, "It's Carlo's. You tell him that, and never speak my name again."
He convinced himself it was mercy — to cut clean, to let her and the baby live.
For once, Dylan wanted to believe something good could come from silence.
When the boy was born, Carlo named him Deniz.
A soft name for a cruel world. Carlo changed — he smiled more, laughed even.
The child gave him a reason to pretend he was human again.
But years later, the illusion broke.
One quiet evening, Carlo received a medical report after a routine checkup —
a simple blood test that revealed a truth sharper than any bullet.
Deniz's DNA did not match his own.
The papers trembled in his hand. His world cracked like glass.
Hayat tried to speak, to explain, but Carlo's love turned to poison.
He pulled a gun on the child — his trembling hand unable to steady the sight.
Hayat shielded Deniz, screaming for him to run.
Two shots echoed through the house.
When Dylan arrived hours later — warned by a call from one of Carlo's men —
he found Deniz alive, crying beside his mother's lifeless body.
Carlo was gone. No trace left but a blood trail and shattered glass.
Dylan froze. For a long time, he didn't move.
He just stared at the boy — the reflection of everything he'd lost and everything he'd ruined.
He buried Hayat beside Ariel, where no one would find her.
Then, silently, he took Deniz's hand and whispered,
"From now on… you're my son. No one will ever hurt you again."
That night, the revenge that had kept Dylan alive… changed shape.
It wasn't about blood anymore.
It was about legacy — about protecting the last fragile piece of his humanity,
born from both love and guilt.
Years passed.
The streets quieted, but Dylan never stopped walking them — one ghost among many.
Deniz was growing fast — sharp eyes, sharper words.
Every time he smiled, Dylan saw Hayat's spirit and Ariel's fire tangled together.
But one afternoon, Dylan drove beyond the city.
To an open stadium where cheers roared like thunder.
There he saw him — Hussain.
No badge now.
No gun.
Just strength, grace, and lightning in motion.
The crowds called his name with pride —
"Flash! Flash! Flash!"
When the match ended, Dylan met him behind the stands.
The two stood silent for a moment, memories heavy between them —
smoke, blood, and promises that didn't age well.
Hussain smiled first.
"Never thought I'd see you watching a sports event, old friend."
"Didn't think you'd trade bullets for a stopwatch," Dylan replied.
Then Hussain gestured behind him — a young boy, around twelve, with alert eyes and an unshakable calmness.
"That's Rodey," Hussain said softly.
"Ariel saved me once. I couldn't save her… but I saved him.
Gave him her name. Her hope. I adopted him — to keep him away from the rot we lived in."
Dylan's breath caught. The boy's face carried traces of both worlds — human innocence and something untamed beneath.
He knelt down, looking Rodey in the eyes.
"You've got her courage," Dylan whispered.
"And your father's stubbornness."
Hussain put a hand on Dylan's shoulder.
"He's the only one who can fix what we broke, brother."
Dylan nodded slowly, voice cracking under the weight of gratitude.
"Thank you, Flash… for saving what I couldn't."
The crowd roared again outside, chanting "Flash! Flash! Flash!"
And for the first time in years, Dylan smiled — not as a killer, not as a monster —
but as a man who'd found one last piece of light in a world that refused to stay dark.
Years later.
The world had moved on.
Dylan's sins were buried deep — hidden behind power, smoke, and blood.
Rodey Flash, now twenty, walked under hospital lights that never slept. His stethoscope hung loose, a reminder of his calm life — the one Hussain had built for him. He carried Hussain's laughter, his discipline, and his words:
"If you can't protect people with fists, protect them with knowledge."
He had no idea that his blood carried another man's story.
The hybrid's blood.
The Dicosta name.
The war that began before he was born.
Across the city, in a mirrored office within the Diamond Ward,
Deniz Loadargo swirled a glass of champagne. Fifteen, yet sharper than most men twice his age.
His mind was ruthless — not because he enjoyed control, but because he was born in it.
Dylan's voice still echoed in him:
"Control chaos before chaos controls you."
Deniz never met Rodey. He only knew a name whispered once by Dylan — a name that made his foster father's face darken. Rodey.
But Deniz didn't ask. He wasn't foolish. He had learned that every secret has a body behind it.
In the distance, Dylan watched both their worlds — one bright, one dark —
the son he never told the truth to,
and the boy he'd raised like his own.
He whispered to himself,
"Two kings… raised for two thrones.
But one of them will have to fall."