Chapter 1: The Throne Was Always Yours
The smell of fresh blood has a heavy, metallic bite to it, especially when it spills over cold concrete in an abandoned industrial warehouse at three in the morning.
Rain battered the rusted corrugated roof high above, creating a deafening, relentless roar that masked the distant hum of the city. Inside, the only illumination came from the amber glow of a solitary hanging incandescent bulb, swaying gently on its frayed wire, casting erratic, violent shadows across the oil-stained floor.
The plan was supposed to be surgical. Clean. A covert handover of compromised ledgers that would sever an old tyrant’s grip on the city’s docks without firing a single stray round. They had spent three weeks timing the perimeter guards, charting every blind spot in the docklands, moving like ghosts through a system that thought it was untouchable. They had operated with the silent, unspoken synchronicity of two men whose thoughts moved as one—brothers not by blood, but forged together in the crucible of survival until their instincts were indistinguishable.
It was supposed to be their final step out of the shadows.
Instead, it was an ambush.
A single leak. One compromised channel within their own trusted ranks had sold their coordinates to the old guard. The moment they stepped past the rusted steel doors, the heavy iron chains slammed shut behind them, locking them inside a slaughterhouse.
Now, spent shell casings littered the cracked pavement, still warm and smoking. Three bodies lay motionless near the shattered wooden crates, silenced permanently by ruthless counter-fire. But the victory, if it could even be called that, tasted like ash and copper.
Near the center of the warehouse floor, the Veer knelt in the dark puddle spreading beneath them.
His tactical jacket was torn, his knuckles split and raw, his skin coated in soot and cordite. His unyielding hands were pressed fiercely against the chest of the other young man sprawled beneath him, fingers frantically attempting to plug a jagged, fatal tear where a high-caliber round had torn through bone and muscle.
"Stay with me," the Veer commanded. His voice was not panicked; it was a rough, gravelly rasp that refused to acknowledge mortality. "Keep your eyes open. Do you hear me? Keep them open."
The boy lying on the concrete let out a wet, rattling breath. His lips parted, stained crimson, but there was no terror in his gaze—only a strange, tragic peace that made the Veer’s chest contract with agonizing pressure.
It was never meant to be him.
When the hidden marksman on the catwalk had taken aim from the shadows, the crosshairs had been locked squarely onto the back of the Veer's head. The Veer had been mid-reload, blind to the rifle glinting in the rafters. But his partner had seen it. Without a fraction of a second’s hesitation, without calculating the cost of his own future, the boy had lunged forward. He had tackled the Veer to the dirt, taking the brutal impact of the bullet straight through his own chest.
He had traded his entire existence to buy one more breath for the other.
"You i***t," the Veer ground out through clenched teeth, his arms trembling under the sheer physical strain of holding back the inevitable. His palms were soaked in warm, slick crimson, the vital heat of the only person he had ever trusted slipping right through his fingers like sand. "You weren't supposed to take that. It was my target. It was my debt."
A faint, trembling smile touched the dying boy's blood-flecked lips. His hand, pale and losing its grip, reached up with agonizing slowness. His fingers, weak and trembling, brushed against the collar of the Veer's jacket before falling limp against the cold floor.
"Better... you..." the boy whispered, the words barely a thread against the roar of the rain. "The throne... was always yours..."
