Blackout Means Justice

The lights went out at 9:17 p.m.
Not dimmed. Not flickered. Gone.

Jack Mercer was in a bus station in Amarillo, Texas, counting the exits out of habit, when the overhead fluorescents died with a sound like a throat being cut. Conversations snapped off mid-word. The digital departure board blinked once, then turned into a dead black mirror reflecting confusion.

Someone cursed. Someone else laughed nervously.

Mercer didn’t laugh.

He felt it instead. A pressure change in the air. A silence that was too clean.

Worldwide blackouts didn’t start in bus stations. They started somewhere higher.

Outside, the city went dark block by block, like a slow-motion execution. Streetlights. Traffic signals. The gas station across the road. All dead. Cars rolled to stops, horns blaring, then choking off as batteries failed and drivers realized this wasn’t local.

Mercer stepped outside and looked up.

The stars were sharp tonight. Too sharp. No aircraft lights. No blinking satellites cutting lazy arcs across the sky.

“Not weather,” he muttered.

A man in a WindCore Energy jacket ran past him, phone held uselessly to his ear. Mercer noticed the logo immediately. Blue spiral. Corporate optimism printed on cheap fabric.

WindCore. The name stuck.

Mercer followed him.

* * * * * * * * * *

Three hours later, Mercer was hitching a ride in a cattle truck headed north, because WindCore’s biggest satellite control relay in the central U.S. sat on the edge of Kansas, hidden behind wind farms and tax breaks. The driver didn’t ask questions. Nobody was asking questions tonight. They were too busy panicking.

Radios were dead. Cell towers were dead. Backup generators worked for hospitals and military bases, but even those were running blind. No GPS. No time sync. No satellites.

The world had been shoved back fifty years in one push.

And somebody had planned it.

Mercer jumped off the truck two miles from the perimeter fence and walked the rest. The facility was a low concrete sprawl, half buried, pretending to be maintenance offices for turbines. The fence was high. The cameras were dark.

That told him everything.

Inside job.

He climbed the fence anyway. Habit again.

A guard met him on the other side with a flashlight and a trembling voice. “Hey! You can’t...”

Mercer took the flashlight, twisted the guard’s wrist, and put him to sleep with a clean punch. He dragged the man into the shadows and took his keycard.

The door opened.

Backup lights glowed red in the corridor. Emergency power. Internal systems only.

People were running now. Engineers. Executives. Security with guns and no coordination.

Mercer moved against the flow.

He found the control room on the third floor. Glass walls. Big screens. All showing the same thing: telemetry logs frozen mid-stream.

A woman in a tailored suit stood in the center, calm as a statue. Silver hair. No panic. That narrowed the list fast.

She turned when Mercer stepped in.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said.

“No,” Mercer agreed. “I’m supposed to be somewhere quieter.”

She smiled. “Then you should leave. The world is ending outside.”

“No,” he said. “It’s being edited.”

Her smile thinned. “You have no idea what you’re interfering with.”

“Try me.”

She studied him like a spreadsheet. “Dr. Evelyn Krane. WindCore Energy. This facility is private property.”

“Jack Mercer,” he said. “And you killed the lights.”

“We ran an experiment,” Krane said. “A controlled satellite realignment. Temporary orbital shadowing. An accident.”

Mercer walked closer. The screens reflected in the glass behind her. “Worldwide accidents don’t come with pre-written incident reports.”

Her eyes flicked for half a second.

That was enough.

“You blacked out the planet to erase your tracks,” Mercer said. “Data centers fried. Off-world backups blinded. No satellites to see what you dumped in the oceans or buried under deserts.”

Krane folded her arms. “Energy transitions require sacrifice.”

“Funny,” Mercer said. “It’s always other people.”

A gunshot shattered the glass wall.

Mercer dropped, rolled, came up behind a console. Security rushed in. Three men. Automatic weapons. Nervous fingers.

Mercer waited until the first one leaned too far. Then he stood, threw a chair, fired a pistol he’d taken off the guard downstairs. One down. Two more shots. Two more bodies.

Silence again.

Krane hadn’t moved.

“You think this ends here?” she asked. “The blackout is global. Governments will beg us to fix it. We’ll be heroes by morning.”

Mercer walked up to the main console. Typed commands from memory. He’d seen systems like this before. Different logos. Same arrogance.

“What are you doing?” Krane said.

“Rolling back your experiment,” he said. “And broadcasting your real logs.”

“You can’t,” she said. “The satellites are blind.”

Mercer nodded. “To each other.”

He hit Enter.

A secondary screen lit up. A low-orbit military relay WindCore hadn’t accounted for. Old. Cold War era. Shielded. Forgotten.

Krane’s face drained of colour.

“You piggybacked on it,” Mercer said. “Dumped your waste under cover of darkness. Figured no one would ever see.”

The room shook as power surged.

Lights flickered back on, not just here, but everywhere. The world gasped awake.

Krane lunged for him with a knife she’d had taped under her sleeve. Mercer caught her wrist, twisted, disarmed her, and pinned her against the console.

Sirens wailed now. Real ones. Government ones.

“You don’t understand,” she hissed. “Energy runs the world.”

Mercer leaned in. “So does daylight.”

He cuffed her and walked out.

* * * * * * * * * *

By dawn, the blackout was over.

So was WindCore.

The story broke fast. Too fast to bury. Satellite logs. Video. Environmental crimes spanning a decade. Congressional hearings scheduled before lunch.

Mercer watched it all from a diner off Route 66, drinking bad coffee and reading a newspaper printed overnight, like the old days.

The waitress asked, “You passing through?”

“Always,” he said.

Outside, the lights stayed on.

Mercer paid, stood, and walked back into the morning, leaving the world a little brighter and a lot angrier behind him.

The end

Alliances burn tonight

By the time the first bullet shattered the café window, Alex Mercer had already decided to leave the country.

He didn’t flinch. Glass burst inward like frozen rain, tinkling off the steel tabletop. Mercer slid sideways, knocked his chair down, and rolled. The second shot punched into the wall where his head had been. Amateur timing. Professional intent.

Mercer came up low, coat already open, hand on the pistol tucked under his ribs. He didn’t fire. He listened.

Boots. Two sets. Fast, angry. No shouting. That meant trained.

He moved through the kitchen, kicked the back door open, and hit the alley at a run. Rain slicked the pavement. Neon bled into puddles. Somewhere behind him, a man swore in Russian.

So it had started.

Two hours earlier, Mercer had been nobody. Or close enough. A logistics consultant with a talent for showing up where cargo vanished and making it reappear. He worked for whoever paid and lied to everyone equally. Governments liked him because he was deniable. Criminals liked him because he was predictable. No ideology. No flag.

That had changed when he’d opened the file.

The data drop came from a dead courier in Warsaw, burned phone, cracked rib, nothing else left to identify him. Mercer had pulled the microdrive from a seam in the man’s jacket and done what he always did: checked it himself before handing it off.

The files were encrypted twice. Military-grade. Coalition signatures. Too many of them.

Mercer had smiled then. That smile was gone now.

He vaulted a chain-link fence and ducked into a parking structure. The echo of boots followed. He counted breaths, then doubled back, slipping between concrete pillars. The first pursuer came around the corner hard. Mercer stepped in, hooked the man’s arm, and drove an elbow into his throat. The sound was wet and final.

The second man fired blind. Mercer dropped, rolled, came up behind him, and slammed his head into a car door. Once. Twice. Enough.

Mercer took their phones. One was dead. The other buzzed with a single message.

BURN THE LEDGER.

Mercer exhaled slowly. “Not a chance.”

He drove north through the night, headlights off on back roads, memory doing the navigation. At dawn he crossed into a country that pretended not to exist and parked outside a safehouse that smelled like old smoke and cheaper regrets.

Mara Klein opened the door with a shotgun and a look that said she’d expected him yesterday or not at all.

“You’re early,” she said.

“I’m late,” Mercer replied. “And so are we.”

Inside, he dumped the drive on the table. Mara was former intelligence, burned twice, retired once, and allergic to surprises. She slotted the drive into an air-gapped terminal and let the decryption run.

As the files bloomed open, her face tightened.

“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh no.”

It was a ledger. Names, dates, transfers. Bribes laundered through humanitarian fronts. Arms rerouted to enemies who weren’t supposed to exist. False-flag operations blamed on allies to justify sanctions, wars, elections.

Every major alliance on the planet had fingerprints on it. Every “enemy” had been fed by a friend.

“This dismantles everything,” Mara said.

“It detonates it,” Mercer said. “Who else has it?”

Mara checked timestamps. “If the courier was real, at least three agencies. If he was bait, all of them.”

The safehouse lights died.

Mercer was moving before the generator kicked in. He shoved Mara down as rounds chewed the wall. The windows imploded. Smoke grenades clattered across the floor.

“Basement,” Mercer said.

They went through the floor as a door blew inward. Mercer fired controlled pairs into shadows that moved wrong. Someone screamed. Someone else stopped screaming.

In the basement, Mara yanked open a weapons locker. “We can’t run forever.”

“We don’t have to,” Mercer said. “We just have to be loud.”

They broke out through a drainage tunnel and surfaced in a freight yard. Helicopter blades chopped the air. A spotlight pinned them.

A voice boomed. “Alex Mercer! You are in possession of classified material. Surrender and you’ll be protected.”

Mercer squinted into the light. “Protected by who?”

Silence. That was answer enough.

He turned to Mara. “Upload everything.”

“They’ll trace...”

“Let them,” he said. “Make it public. All of it.”

Mara hesitated. Then nodded. Fingers flew.

Mercer stepped into the open, raised his hands, then dropped to one knee and fired at the spotlight. The light died. Chaos followed.

He moved like a machine with a temper. Shots precise. Reloads smooth. He took a hit in the shoulder and ignored it. He disarmed a man twice his size and used the man’s body as cover. The helicopter banked away, damaged, unsure.

A phone buzzed in Mercer’s pocket. Mara’s message flashed.

DONE. EVERYWHERE.

Mercer smiled. It hurt.

By noon, the world was on fire.

Press conferences collapsed mid-sentence. Ambassadors walked out. Markets convulsed. Old allies accused each other with rehearsed outrage that rang hollow under the weight of proof.

Mercer and Mara watched it from a cabin miles from anywhere. The news ran on mute.

“They’ll hunt you forever,” Mara said.

“They already were,” Mercer replied. He cleaned his pistol. “Difference is, now they can’t lie about why.”

A knock came at the door.

Mercer stood, weapon ready. He opened it to find a man alone, hands empty, eyes tired.

“Name’s Reeve,” the man said. “I represent people who don’t want this buried.”

Mercer studied him. Then stepped aside. “You’re late.”

Reeve almost smiled.

That night, Mercer walked out into the trees and didn’t look back. The alliances would fall. New ones would rise. The world would wobble and keep going.

He liked it better that way.

The end

Blood tells truths

The call came at 3:17 a.m. That was how my father would’ve liked it, ugly timing, no warning, no room to soften the blow.

“Mr. Cole?” the voice said. Male. Flat. Professional.
“This is him.”
“Your father’s been killed.”

No I’m sorry. No pause. Just a fact, delivered like a dropped wrench.

By sunrise I was driving north, the interstate empty and gray, the kind of morning that makes you feel like the world hasn’t woken up yet and maybe won’t. My father, Daniel Cole, had been found in a burned-out marina office outside Camden. Official story: accidental fire. Unofficial tone: don’t ask questions.

That was problem number one. My father hated marinas. And he never had accidents.

He’d raised me alone after my mother died, a quiet man who worked logistics for a shipping company, came home on time, drank one beer with dinner, watched old westerns, and went to bed early. No enemies. No secrets.

Or so I thought.

* * * * * * * * * *

The marina smelled like ash and river mud. Yellow tape sagged in the breeze. A sheriff’s deputy leaned against his cruiser, coffee in hand.

“You family?” he asked.

“Son.”

He nodded, pointed with his chin. “Fire inspector says electrical. Old wiring.”

I crouched near the ruins. Burn patterns were wrong, too clean in places, too hot in others. Accelerant. Someone wanted it gone fast.

“Any witnesses?” I asked.

Deputy shrugged. “Drifter said he saw a man run out before the flames. Couldn’t describe him. Guess fires make folks jumpy.”

I stood. “Anything missing?”

“From what?”

“From my father.”

The deputy frowned. “We didn’t know he had anything.”

That made two of us.

* * * * * * * * * *

Dad’s house was ten miles inland. Small. Neat. Familiar. I unlocked the door and felt the quiet hit me like a held breath.

Everything looked the same. Couch. Table. His boots by the door. But the walls felt thinner, like they were hiding something.

I found it in the basement.

Behind a false panel in the utility closet was a steel case. Inside: a Glock, two extra mags, a passport under a different name, and a stack of photos. Men. Meetings. Shipping containers. One photo showed my father shaking hands with a man I recognized instantly.

Victor Harlan.

Former intelligence contractor. Black-ops middleman. Supposedly dead.

So much for quiet logistics.

I sat on the concrete steps and let it settle. My father hadn’t been who he said he was. He’d lived a second life. And that life had gotten him killed.

The passport had a stamp from Bogotá dated three weeks ago.

I booked a flight.

* * * * * * * * * *

Bogotá doesn’t ease you in. It grabs you by the collar and demands attention. I tracked Harlan through an old contact of my father’s, a woman named Ruiz who ran a bar that smelled like oil and regret.

She studied me over the rim of her glass. “You look like him.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Daniel was careful,” she said. “Careful men don’t die in fires.”

“Who wanted him dead?”

“Everyone,” she said. “And no one. Depends which side you ask.”

She slid a napkin across the bar. A name. An address. “Start there. But don’t finish.”

I finished.

The address led to a warehouse by the river. Guards. Armed. Professional. I waited for the shift change, moved when the cameras blinked, and went in through the roof.

Inside, crates were stacked like tombstones. Men talked in low voices. Spanish. Russian. English. A meeting.

I dropped behind one, put him down hard, took his gun. The room erupted.

Shots cracked. Wood splintered. I moved fast, kept low, used cover. Two down. Three. A man rushed me with a knife, I broke his wrist, took his balance, ended it.

Then I saw him.

Victor Harlan, older than the photo, but unmistakable. Calm amid chaos.

“Daniel’s boy,” he said, hands raised. “I wondered when you’d come.”

“Why?” I said. “Why him?”

Harlan sighed. “Because he wanted out.”

The words landed heavy.

“He was a ghost,” Harlan continued. “Best I ever had. Ran operations, cleaned messes. When he decided to disappear, people panicked.”

“So you killed him.”

“No,” Harlan said softly. “I tried to save him.”

Gunfire outside. Sirens. Someone had tipped the cops.

“He staged his death,” Harlan said. “Fire was supposed to erase him. Something went wrong.”

I stared. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” He reached into his jacket slowly, pulled out a phone, slid it across the floor.

A video. My father, alive, tired, eyes sharp.

If you’re watching this, he said, I didn’t make it clean. I’m sorry. I did what I had to do.

The sirens grew louder.

“Where is he?” I demanded.

Harlan met my eyes. “If he’s alive, he doesn’t want to be found.”

I made a choice.

I left.

* * * * * * * * * *

Two weeks later, back home, I stood by the river where the marina had burned. The case from the basement was gone. So was the passport.

In its place, on my kitchen table, was a note.

You did good. Live straight. That’s the only way this ends.

No signature. None needed.

I folded it, pocketed it, and walked outside. The sun was setting, painting the water red and gold.

My father’s double life had died in that fire. Maybe the man had survived. Maybe not.

Either way, the truth was mine now.

And it was enough.

The end

No way out

The plane hit the water like a thrown brick.
Metal screamed. Luggage flew. Someone prayed out loud. Then the cabin filled with water and darkness and the sharp, animal panic of people realizing this was not a drill and not a movie and not survivable unless they moved now.

Jack Hale moved.

He didn’t think about it. He never did. Thinking was slower than action.

Seatbelt off. Brace gone. He grabbed the arm of the woman next to him, a corporate type in heels, eyes wide, frozen solid and yanked her up hard enough to bruise. She gasped, but she moved. That was the important part.

“Breathe later,” he told her. “Swim now.”

They fought the current, kicked through floating debris, and burst into daylight amid fire and smoke. The plane’s tail was already sinking, its engines hissing like angry snakes. Survivors bobbed in the water, coughing, bleeding, clinging to anything that floated.

Hale scanned. Counted. Always counted.

Twenty-seven people. Maybe thirty. Fewer than that would make it.

The island loomed close—jungle-thick, steep rock, no beach to speak of. The kind of place no one visited unless they had to.

They swam. Scraped hands and knees on coral. Dragged the injured up onto wet stone. The wreckage burned offshore, sending a column of black smoke into a blue sky that did not care.

For thirty seconds, there was silence.

Then a gunshot cracked across the island.

Everyone froze.

Another shot. Then shouting. Not panicked. Organized. Command voices.

Hale felt it settle in his gut like a familiar weight.

“This just got worse,” he said.

A man in a bloodstained polo looked at him. “Worse than crashing?”

“Yes.”

They moved inland because staying put was an invitation to die. The jungle swallowed them fast, thick vines, wet earth, insects screaming like broken alarms. Hale took point without asking. No one objected.

They found the bodies ten minutes later.

Two men in black fatigues, faces slack, throats cut clean. Professional work. No struggle. No mercy.

Mercenaries.

“Who would put mercenaries on an island?” someone whispered.

Hale crouched, checked pockets, weapons. AK-pattern rifles. Comms gear. A map case marked with grid coordinates.

“This island’s not empty,” he said. “It’s owned.”

That’s when the shooting started for real.

Bullets tore leaves apart. Bark exploded. People screamed and ran. Hale shoved two survivors into a shallow ravine and dropped flat as rounds stitched the ground where he’d been standing.

He counted shots. Controlled fire. Not amateurs.

“Stay down,” he yelled. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t do anything.”

He crawled. Found a fallen rifle near one of the dead mercs. Checked the magazine. Full. Safety off.

Three mercenaries advanced downhill, moving in bounds, covering each other. One slipped on wet stone. Hale rose, fired twice. The man fell hard and didn’t get back up.

The other two scattered.

Hale moved again. He always did.

By the time it was over, four mercenaries were dead. Two survivors were wounded. One didn’t make it.

They regrouped near a waterfall that thundered loud enough to hide conversation.

A former flight attendant named Mara pressed a bandage onto a man’s leg, hands shaking but steady enough. “They were waiting for us,” she said.

“Yes,” Hale replied.

“Why?”

He looked at the map again. Coordinates circled in red.

“Because we crashed in the wrong place.”

Night fell fast. The jungle came alive in ways that felt hostile and hungry. Hale set watches, placed simple alarms, and rationed what little they had. He slept with one eye open, rifle across his chest.

At dawn, the mercenaries came again.

This time, heavier. Mortars thumped. Trees shattered. The survivors ran as one because Hale told them to, and because he ran first.

They reached the mercenary camp by accident or fate.

Tents. Ammo crates. A satellite uplink. And at the center, a steel hatch embedded in rock.

An underground facility.

Hale understood then.

Private island. Black ops. Something buried that wasn’t supposed to exist.

The mercenary leader stepped out of the main tent, calm as a man ordering coffee. Bald. Scarred. Eyes like broken glass.

“You’re making this difficult,” the man said.

Hale raised the rifle. “You started it.”

The merc smiled thinly. “You don’t know what’s down there.”

“I know it’s worth killing civilians over.”

The merc nodded. “Fair point.”

They attacked.

It was chaos—gunfire, smoke, screams, jungle burning. Hale moved through it like gravity had let go of him. He disarmed one man, broke another’s arm, used the arm to hit a third. Bullets missed him by inches. One clipped his shoulder. He ignored it.

The survivors fought too. Desperate people always did.

In the end, Hale and the mercenary leader stood facing each other near the open hatch.

“You can still walk away,” the merc said. “Take your people. We’ll let you go.”

Hale shook his head. “You won’t.”

The merc reached for his pistol.

Hale was faster.

The body fell backward into darkness, the hatch clanging shut behind it.

Silence followed. The mercenaries were dead or gone. The island exhaled.

They didn’t open the hatch.

Some things were better left buried.

Two days later, a rescue helicopter arrived, drawn by the smoke, the wreckage, the absence of anyone left alive to stop them.

As they lifted off, Mara looked at Hale. “Who are you?”

He shrugged. “Someone who was passing through.”

The island vanished beneath clouds.

The world kept turning.

And whatever had been buried there stayed buried, because sometimes survival wasn’t about uncovering the truth.

Sometimes it was about knowing when to walk away.

The end

Diamond heat rush

Rain hammered the streets like gunfire. Neon signs flickered, half-broken, washing the alleyways in pink and blue. Marcus Hale ducked under a low fire escape, the weight of the diamond sat heavy in his pocket. The heist should have been simple. It wasn’t. Not even close.

“Move faster!” hissed Lena Voss behind him. Her hair plastered to her face, eyes wild. “They’re on our tail!”

Marcus didn’t answer. He never did. He ran. Not because he was scared, well, maybe a little—but because hesitation got people killed. And he hated getting killed.

They rounded a corner. Wet asphalt slick under their boots. Three black SUVs cut the street ahead. Heads turned inside. Guns. Lots of them. Assassins. Professional. Not here for money, they were here to kill.

Lena swore. “Shit. They’ve got...”

A bullet slammed into the wall next to Marcus’ head, spraying concrete dust. He ducked, rolled, and kicked a dumpster across the alley. Metal screamed and sparks flew. One SUV skidded. Tires squealed.

Marcus grabbed Lena’s arm. “Go. Now.”

She followed, clutching the jewel like it was her heartbeat. Every step a gamble. Every breath a countdown.

They darted into the subway. The smell of wet rats and rust filled their noses. Marcus knew the tunnels. Knew the exits. Knew that somewhere beneath the city, death could wait around every corner. And it did.

A figure stepped from the shadows. Tall. Muscular. Masked. A sniper? A killer? Marcus didn’t wait. He swung first, a right hook that cracked ribs. The man staggered, barely audible grunt escaping his lips. Lena kicked him hard. They ran.

The tunnel split. Left or right? Marcus chose instinct. Always instinct. His boots pounded concrete, echoing like war drums. Another gunshot ricocheted off the wall. Too close. He could feel the heat of a bullet whisper across his shoulder.

“Up here!” Lena yelled. She’d spotted the maintenance ladder. Metal clanged under their weight as they climbed.

At street level, rain still fell. The SUVs were gone. Gone, but not far.

Marcus didn’t pause. He led Lena through side streets, into the abandoned warehouse district. Doors hung open. Shadows shifted. Silence reigned, but Marcus knew it was the kind of silence that screamed.

Inside the warehouse, Marcus’s plan, improvised but solid, took shape. They barricaded the entrance with pallets and rusted beams. Heavy breathing, wet clothes, hearts hammering.

Lena looked at him. “We can’t keep running forever.”

Marcus wiped rain from his brow. “No. But we can end it.”

End it meant setting a trap. It meant using brains over bullets. It meant taking the diamond, and their lives, back into their hands.

Minutes later, the assassins came. Four men, shadows moving like predators. Guns raised, eyes cold. Marcus didn’t wait. He threw a canister of flammable liquid into the center of the room. “Now!” he barked.

Flames erupted. Smoke choked the air. The first assassin fired blindly, coughing, staggering. Marcus grabbed a steel pipe. One hit, two hits, bodies went down. Lena swung a chain, catching another across the face.

The last man ran, but Marcus anticipated. A kick to the knee. A punch to the jaw. He hit the ground, but Marcus didn’t. Not until the man stopped moving.

Silence, finally. Smoke curling around rusted beams. Rain dripping through broken windows. Lena dropped to her knees, gasping. Marcus held the diamond out to her.

“You ever wanna do that again?” he asked, tone dry, dripping water.

She stared at him. Then laughed. Short, sharp, adrenaline-laced. “Not unless I’m dead broke.”

Marcus smirked. He always smirked after surviving. Always.

They stepped out into the rain. The city lights reflecting off puddles. The diamond burned cold in Lena’s hand. Safe. For now.

Somewhere far away, sirens screamed. Somewhere else, other assassins prepared. But Marcus Hale didn’t care. Not tonight. He’d survived. They’d survived. And the diamond…well, the diamond could wait for a new heist.

For Marcus, that was enough. For Lena, too.

The rain kept falling. And the city waited.

END

Silent, fast and deadly

The city was drenched in neon, rain bouncing off asphalt like a thousand tiny hammers. Marcus Kane, tall, broad-shouldered, and always a few seconds ahead of trouble, leaned against a lamppost, watching the embassy’s security cameras flicker. His gloves were black leather, fingers worn smooth from years of cracking doors and locks.

“You’re late,” said a voice behind him. Soft, cool, dangerous. A woman stepped out of the shadows, slim, black hair plastered to her skull by rain, a look that could freeze blood.

“I was waiting for the storm,” Kane said, shrugging. “It’s polite.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get cute. You know why you’re here.”

Kane’s jaw tightened. He did. That damned artifact. The Aurelius Diadem. Pure gold, encrusted with sapphires, centuries old, locked behind sensors, guards, and an alarm system that would make most men wet themselves. And he wasn’t most men. Not by a long shot.

“Who sent you?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she handed him a small, black envelope. Kane opened it. A photo fell out. His daughter, smiling. Seven years old. Innocent.

“Move,” she said.

Kane’s teeth ground together. Blackmail was a weak man’s game. But this was personal.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The embassy wasn’t huge, but it was a fortress. Cameras crisscrossed the perimeter, guards walked predictable paths. Kane moved like a shadow, folding himself through the storm, silent, precise.

Inside, he ducked behind a potted plant, scanning the hallway. A security guard passed, flashlight sweeping the walls. Kane’s fingers danced over the wall panel beside him, a soft beep, a lock clicked. The guard moved on, oblivious. Kane exhaled slowly, wetting his lips.

“Too easy,” he muttered.

Then the alarm tripped. A soft, insistent hum. Kane froze. The diadem was close, and that hum meant sensors, pressure-sensitive glass. And it wasn’t going to wait for him.

He slipped the black envelope out of his pocket, glanced at the message inside. Five minutes. Don’t fail.

Five minutes. Kane didn’t have five minutes. He kicked open a maintenance hatch and dropped through the shafts like a cat. Metal scraped against leather, sparks flew. He landed on the floor silently, listening. Guards shouted somewhere above. Footsteps were close, too close.

He ran.

The vault room was a temple of cold steel and blinking lights. There it was. The Aurelius Diadem. Gold glittering in the dim light, sapphires catching the occasional reflection of the storm outside. Kane’s gloves slid over the glass panel. Sensors hummed.

“You’re wasting your life,” a voice said. Kane spun. A man in a black suit, no-nonsense, pistol in hand, stood there. Not security. Someone else. Someone professional.

“Maybe. But not tonight,” Kane said. He lunged, knocking the gun aside, elbowing the man in the chest. Metal clanged. Sparks flew. Kane rolled, kicked, grabbed the diadem.

Glass cut his fingers, but Kane didn’t care. He slipped it into a velvet-lined case and bolted.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The chase was immediate. Guards swarmed, alarms screaming. Kane sprinted through corridors, up stairwells, into the rain. He could hear the woman laughing somewhere behind him, her heels slapping the wet asphalt. He didn’t have time to process it.

Cars screeched, headlights cutting through sheets of rain. Kane vaulted over a fence, rolling into an alley. And there she was, waiting.

“You’re good,” she said. “I’ll give you that. But rules are rules.”

“What rules?” Kane demanded, chest heaving.

“You know.”

And then the car door slammed. Kane barely dodged as a bullet grazed his shoulder, hot pain blossoming down his side. He rolled, elbowing the nearest guard, snapping his neck in one smooth motion.

Kane’s mind worked faster than thought. One man left, flanking him with a gun. Kane grabbed a pipe from the ground, swung. Metal met skull with a sickening crack. The man dropped. Kane didn’t stop. He vaulted into the car she held open for him.

The engine roared. Tires screamed. Rain lashed the windshield. Kane slumped into the passenger seat. “Why?” he asked, finally allowing himself to breathe.

She glanced at him, her eyes cold. “You weren’t going to fail, were you? I just needed to make sure you remembered who was in charge.”

Kane smirked. Blood mixed with rain on his temple. “You’re lucky. I almost forgot to care.”

The car vanished into the storm, lights blurring into neon streaks. Kane opened the case. The diadem gleamed, perfect. He ran his fingers over the gold.

“Done,” he said.

“You did well,” she said. “Your daughter… she’s safe. For now.”

“Safe? For now?” Kane’s voice was low, lethal. “Next time, no more games.”

She smiled faintly. “There won’t be a next time. You’re free. And fast. And deadly. Just like the name says.”

Kane didn’t reply. He just looked out the window as the rain soaked him, the city blurring into a cascade of light and shadow. He didn’t need to talk. He didn’t need to explain. He survived. The artifact was secure. His daughter was alive. That was enough.

And for Marcus Kane, that was always enough.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The car disappeared into the night. But somewhere, the whisper of footsteps suggested the game wasn’t over. It never was. Not for men like Kane.

And somewhere, in a small apartment across town, a little girl laughed, unaware of the danger that had nearly taken her.

Kane clenched the steering wheel. Cold rain dripped down his face. He’d won today. Tomorrow? That was another fight.

He was ready. Always ready.

The End