Location: Ashwick Corridors — Muchachos Restaurant — Night
The restaurant was empty.
Not the emptiness of closing time—the emptiness of a held breath. The tables were still set, the chairs still tucked, the menus still wedged between salt shakers and small plastic containers of salsa. A single pot simmered on the stove in the kitchen, forgotten. The back room, where bricks of Haze had been weighed and wrapped, was dark.
Elijah stood at the center of the dining room.
Diego's face. Diego's posture. Diego's soft, forgettable presence. But his eyes—his eyes were not Diego's.
They swept across the gathered crowd.
Andreas, hunched in a chair near the window, his hands pressed flat against his thighs, his eyes darting from face to face to door to window to Elijah's face and back again. His chest rose and fell too fast. His lips moved without sound.
Roman stood near the kitchen door, his scarred face pale, his arms crossed, his fingers tapping against his biceps. Tap. Tap. Tap. A nervous rhythm that had been going for hours.
Mei-Lin sat at a table near the back, her crimson dress rumpled, her hair loose, her hands clasped in her lap. Her eyes were fixed on the tablecloth. She hadn't looked up since Elijah began to speak.
Ba stood near the entrance, his massive frame blocking the door. His face was unreadable, but his hands—his hands were trembling.
Alma and Arturo stood together near the wall, their arms brushing, their faces masks of forced calm. Behind them, the other Muchachos—the cooks, the waiters, the men who had never asked questions—huddled in groups, their eyes wide, their whispers sharp.
"He's mad," someone whispered.
"Completely mad."
"Did you hear what he said? Mass exodus. He wants us to leave everything."
"Everything we built—"
"Everything we bled for—"
"Shh. He'll hear you."
Elijah heard them.
His expression didn't change.
---
"I know this is confusing," he said.
His voice was soft. High. Sweet.
"I know it's upsetting. You've all made something for yourselves here. You've ground through teeth and muscle to find footing. The thought of leaving—of starting over somewhere else—feels like failure."
He paused.
"But trust me when I say this. You will understand my decision someday."
His eyes moved across the crowd.
"And I will give anyone who wants to air their grievance the opportunity to speak now."
Silence.
The whispers stopped. The breathing stopped. Even the pot on the stove seemed to hold its heat.
"Anyone?"
A figure stepped forward.
Mateo.
His face was flushed. His hands were clenched. His eyes—dark, furious, afraid—locked onto Elijah's.
"Why," he said, "should we trust you?"
His voice was loud. Too loud.
"You forced—you forced something into us. Worms. Centipedes. Whatever the hell they are. Probably eating our brains right now."
The crowd stirred.
"And now you want us to leave everything? Our homes? Our businesses? The only lives we've ever known?"
His voice cracked.
"You're not a leader. You're a—a—"
"A what?" Elijah's voice was calm.
Mateo's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"A fiend," he spat. "An evil fiend."
The word hung in the air.
Elijah's expression didn't change.
"Anyone else?"
No one spoke.
Roman shook his head. His eyes were distant, unfocused—not on Elijah, not on the crowd, not on anything in the room.
"Complete idiot," someone near him whispered. "Offending not just a warlock freak but also not blinking an eye doing it."
"If he keeps this up," another whispered, "that fellow might bring some of us down. We don't know what this D9 guy is capable of."
"Right, boss?"
Roman didn't answer.
His eyes were still distant.
---
The memory came without warning.
A hotel. Not the kind of hotel that Roman had grown up in—the kind with clean sheets and fresh towels and a man at the front desk who called him "sir." A woman had given him a key. A suite on the top floor. The kind of suite where the windows touched the sky.
"You're my personal guard now," she had said.
Her name was Cory. Her hair was silver, her eyes were pale, her smile was the smile of someone who had never been told no. She paid him well. Better than well. More than he had ever dreamed.
For a year, everything was fine.
Then he saw the men in the courtyard.
Three of them. Tall. Thin. Their faces hidden behind surgical masks. They wore white coats—not doctors' coats, something else. Something that made the fabric look like it was breathing.
They carried a woman between them.
Her feet dragged. Her head lolled. Her arms were bound behind her back.
Roman watched from the window.
The men brought the woman to a table in the center of the courtyard. They laid her down. They stepped back.
Cory appeared.
She was wearing gloves. Black. Latex. She held a jar in her hands—glass, thick, etched with symbols that seemed to move when Roman looked at them.
She touched the woman's forehead.
The woman screamed.
Not a loud scream. A silent one. Her mouth opened. Her body arched. Her eyes—her eyes glowed.
And something came out of her.
Not blood. Not breath. Something else. Something that looked like smoke, like mist, like the color of a bruise. It rose from her chest, her throat, her open mouth. It drifted toward the jar.
Cory caught it.
The jar glowed.
The woman's body—
Roman looked away.
When he looked back, the woman was gone. The table was empty. The men in white coats were folding the sheet.
And Cory was staring at the window.
At him.
At the place where he had been standing.
He never knew if she saw him. He never asked. He never mentioned it. He played safe. He became her toy. Her dog. Her thing.
And then he left.
But she did him one favor. A recommendation. A name. A man in Guvira state—a real godfather. The kind who dressed in white suits and had a hundred men who would die for him.
Roman became his right hand. Made decent cash. Migrated to the United States. Found Kuvitich. Climbed silently—not like the others, the loud ones, the ones who got deleted immediately.
And when the time was ripe, he took it.
But he never forgot Cory's courtyard.
He never forgot the woman.
He never forgot that the world was deeper in dark shit than a wannabe crook boss like himself could ever understand.
And now—
Now he was here. In a restaurant. Listening to a dishwasher tell him to pack his things and leave.
"I always knew," he thought, "that my success was just wishful thinking. Delusional imagination."
"And now the bill has come due."
---
Elijah's eyes found Mateo.
His lips curved.
Not a smile. The memory of one.
"Of course," he said, "why should you put your devotion in me? I don't need your faith. I don't need your loyalty. I just need your bodies. Your cooperation."
He spread his arms.
"Those who have a problem with that—"
He paused.
"—don't matter. Replacements can be found. Immediately."
Mateo's face went pale.
The crowd went still.
"Relax," Elijah said. "Right now, I don't need any of you to believe in me. But later—"
His arms dropped.
"—you will have to give in to it. Eventually."
No one spoke.
No one moved.
The pot on the stove simmered.
---
The bar was called The Broken Spoke.
It was not a place that Caleb would have chosen for himself. The floor was sticky. The air smelled of spilled beer and desperation. A jukebox in the corner played something slow and sad that no one was listening to.
Caleb sat at the bar.
His jacket was off. His tie was loose. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows. A glass of amber liquid sat in front of him—half-empty, the ice melting.
"Finding Lucian Freeman," he thought, "is like finding a needle in a haystack. Every lead is a dead end. Every witness is a ghost. Every door I knock on is answered by someone who saw nothing, heard nothing, knows nothing."
He had interviewed them all.
The servants who had worked for Otis Freeman. The ones who remembered Lucian as a boy, as a teenager, as a man. The ones who knew his friends, his habits, his favorite places.
"Dead," one of them had said. "Overdose. Too much Haze. Too much Drift. Too much of everything."
"Incarcerated," another had said. "Armed robbery. He'll be out in ten years, if he behaves."
"Don't know nothing," a third had said. "I was just a bootlicker. I wanted connections. I wanted to be close to the Freemans. I never knew Lucian. Not really."
The cigar in Caleb's hand had gone out.
He didn't notice.
"The Investigating and Capture taskforce has been all over my ass," he thought. "Turning my department into their backyard. Asking questions I can't answer. Demanding results I can't deliver."
He took a drink.
The whiskey burned.
"And now—"
He set the glass down.
"—now I'm here. In a bar. Drinking alone. Chasing ghosts."
---
A man sat two stools down.
Young. Maybe thirty. His face was pale, his eyes red, his hands wrapped around a glass that had been empty for a while. His clothes were expensive but rumpled—designer hoodie, ripped jeans, sneakers that cost more than Caleb's rent.
He was talking to himself.
"Five years," he said. "Five years of showing joy to others. Five years of making them laugh, making them smile, making them forget their shitty lives."
He shook his head.
"And what do they do? They stab me in the back. One mistake. One."
The bartender—a woman with tired eyes and a stained apron—leaned toward him.
"What's the problem, pal?"
"The problem?"
The man's voice rose.
"The problem is Nathan Drayke. The Vault Breaker. The guy who ruined my life."
He pulled out his phone. His thumb swiped across the screen. He turned it toward the bartender.
"Look at this."
The image was grainy—a freeze-frame from a Vidflash livestream. A man in a mask—sharp jaw, smug expression, punchable face—standing next to a man in a dress. Lipstick. Eyeliner. A caption in bold letters: "Fake influencer finally exposed by the Vault Breaker."
"He made me look like a fool," the man said. "My sponsors dropped me. My fans turned on me. My earnings—"
His voice cracked.
"My earnings are gone. I'm broke. I'm nobody."
The bartender's eyes widened.
"That's rough, buddy."
"Rough?"
The man laughed—a wet, bitter sound.
"Rough is losing your job. Rough is getting evicted. This—this is—"
He gestured at himself.
"—this is annihilation."
The bartender picked up his own phone. His thumb swiped across the screen. He turned it toward the man.
"The fellow also had a pretty girly with him. You see her?"
The image showed a woman—dark hair, dark eyes, a suit that seemed to shift in the light. Armored. Dangerous. Beautiful.
"Her?"
"Yeah. Her."
The man's eyes narrowed.
"Who is she?"
"Don't know. But she's hot."
They laughed.
Caleb didn't.
His eyes were fixed on the screen.
That woman, he thought. I've seen her before. In the Mysterium clan's files. She was one of the perpetrators. The ones who kidnapped Lucian Freeman.
And Nathan Drayke—
Nathan Drayke was with her.
Nathan Drayke—
Why does that name feel familiar?
Why does that face—that mask, that smug expression—remind me of someone?
Someone I've been hunting?
Someone I've been chasing?
Someone I've been—
His eyes widened.
Elijah, he thought. Elijah Marcus Isley.
The brat who killed my son.
The brat who—
He stood.
The stool scraped against the floor.
The bartender looked up. The man—Len, his name was Len—looked up.
"You alright, pal?"
Caleb didn't answer.
His hand reached into his pocket. His fingers closed around his phone.
"I need to make a call," he said.
He walked toward the door.
The night air was cold.
The city was dark.
And somewhere, in the back of his mind, a connection was forming.
---