I Am the Devil of This Hell

Chapter 064

At the exact moment Rex Dalton’s fingers crushed the vertebrae of Ray Quinn in the blood-soaked hall of the Central Hub, a phantom shockwave rippled through the air, unseen and unheard, traveling miles across the city to the quiet, fortified bedroom in the East Wing.

Hector Quinn, who had been drifting in a haze of grief and semi-consciousness, suddenly convulsed. His body jerked violently on the silk sheets as if struck by an invisible hammer. His eyes, previously clouded and half-closed, snapped open. They were wide, terrifyingly lucid, and fixed on the intricate plaster molding of the ceiling with a look of absolute, dawning horror.

The sudden movement startled the three men keeping vigil by his bedside. Andrew Wilson, Christopher Davis, and William Anderson—the last of the old guard—rushed to his side, their faces etched with concern.

"Boss?" Andrew leaned in, his voice trembling. "What is it? Are you in pain?"

Hector didn't blink. He stared into the void, his breathing ragged and shallow. It took a long, agonizing minute for him to find his voice. When he spoke, it sounded like grinding stones—dry, raspy, and filled with a terrifying certainty.

" Andrew..." he whispered, his hand clawing weakly at the bedsheet. "Where is Ray? Where is my son?"

The question hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.

A cold chill ran down Andrew’s spine. He exchanged a panicked glance with Christopher and William. They hadn't received confirmation yet, but the silence from the Central Hub was deafening. They knew, deep down, that the battle was going poorly, but they couldn't bring themselves to shatter the old man's fragile hold on life.

Andrew forced a smile onto his face, though it looked more like a grimace of pain. He gripped Hector’s cold, clammy hand in both of his. "Boss, Ray is... he’s fighting. He’s leading the counter-attack. You know how strong he is. He’s driving them back. Once Kevin Murphy’s reinforcements arrive, the Shadow Eagle Clan will break. Ray will be back soon to tell you all about it. You have to believe in him. You have to hold on."

Christopher Davis, sweating profusely, chimed in, his voice overly loud in the quiet room. "Exactly, Boss! This is just a feint. Kane Adler is trying to panic us. But Ray has the home-field advantage. We just need to weather the storm. I... I’ll go get the doctor. Just to check your vitals."

Christopher signaled wildly to William to go fetch the medical staff, desperately trying to create a diversion.

But Hector wasn't listening. The reassurance bounced off him like rain off a stone. He continued to stare at the ceiling, his lips moving in a silent, frantic rhythm.

" Ray... Ray... I need to hear him. I need to hear his voice. My boy..."

Andrew felt tears pricking his eyes. He squeezed Hector’s hand tighter. "Boss, he’s in the middle of a firefight. He can't answer the phone right now."

"Call Wayne," Hector interrupted, his voice gaining a sudden, manic strength. "Get Wayne on the line. The caretaker. He’s with Ray. Call him."

"Call him!" Hector shouted, a burst of adrenaline surging through his failing heart.

Christopher gritted his teeth. He couldn't deny the order. He snatched the secure satellite phone from the bedside table and dialed Wayne’s number, his fingers shaking.

Ring... Ring... Ring...

The sound of the ringtone echoed in the silent room, each second stretching into an eternity.

Click.

"We’re sorry. The subscriber you have dialed is not available..."

Christopher snapped the phone shut before the automated message could finish. He looked at Hector, whose eyes were now locked onto him with a desperate, pleading intensity.

"Boss," Christopher stammered. "The lines... the lines must be jammed. The fighting is intense. They probably can't hear the phone."

Hector’s face flushed a deep, unnatural crimson. It was the last flare of a dying star. With a strength that shouldn't have been possible for a man in his condition, he threw off the covers and swung his legs out of bed. He shoved Andrew aside and snatched the phone from Christopher’s hand.

His fingers, gnarled and trembling, danced over the keypad.

He dialed Wayne again. Nothing.

He dialed Ray’s personal cell. Nothing.

He dialed the emergency line for the Central Hub. Nothing.

Three calls. Three silences. Three nails in the coffin of his dynasty.

Clatter.

The phone slipped from his nerveless fingers and hit the hardwood floor, the battery popping out and skittering under the bed.

Hector Quinn stood there, swaying like a tree in a hurricane. He pushed away Andrew’s outstretched arms, taking a stumbling step toward the door, as if he could physically walk across the city and find his son.

But he only made it two steps.

A massive hemorrhage erupted in his chest. Hector threw his head back, his back arching in a spasm of agony. A fountain of dark blood sprayed from his mouth, painting the pristine white walls in a gruesome abstract art.

"Boss!" Andrew screamed, lunging forward to catch the falling giant.

Hector collapsed into Andrew’s arms, his weight dragging them both to the floor. The legendary Godfather of New Bergen, the man who had ruled the underworld for thirty years, was reduced to a weeping, broken father.

Tears mixed with blood on his face. He stared up at the ceiling, his vision darkening, seeing not the plaster, but the face of his dead son. He clawed at the air, his fingers hooking into invisible enemies.

" Kane..." he rasped, the name tearing his throat apart. " Kane Adler... You give me back my son! You give him back!"

His voice rose to a final, blood-curdling shriek that seemed to shake the foundations of the house.

" KANE!!!"

Thud.

The tension left his body all at once. His arms dropped heavily to the floor. His eyes, wide and glassy, remained fixed on the ceiling, freezing in an expression of eternal hatred and boundless grief.

Hector Quinn was dead.

The room fell into a suffocating silence, broken only by the ragged breathing of the living.

"Boss..." Andrew Wilson whispered, rocking the body back and forth. "Boss..."

Christopher Davis and William Anderson fell to their knees beside him. They didn't speak. They didn't scream. They simply wept, their cries muffled by the heavy velvet curtains, mourning not just a man, but the end of an era.

Thirty minutes later.

The heavy oak door of the master bedroom was kicked open. Jax Lewis, flanked by his elite guards, strode into the room, his broadsword resting on his shoulder, ready for a final confrontation.

But he stopped dead in his tracks.

The room didn't smell of battle. It smelled of death, antiseptic, and something sweeter—the faint, almond scent of bitter poison.

On the bed lay Hector Quinn, dressed in his finest suit. His hair had been combed, his face wiped clean of blood, and his hands folded peacefully over his chest. He looked like a king sleeping in state.

Slumped over the edge of the bed, kneeling on the floor as if in prayer, were Andrew Wilson, Christopher Davis, and William Anderson. They were motionless.

On the nightstand, an empty bottle of high-potency barbiturates lay on its side, next to a crystal glass of water.

Jax walked forward slowly, the bloodlust fading from his eyes. He reached out and checked for a pulse on Andrew’s neck. Nothing. The skin was already cooling.

He saw a piece of heavy cardstock resting on Hector’s chest. He picked it up. The handwriting was shaky but legible.

"To Jax Lewis:

We have fought for decades. The blood between us is deep. But death settles all debts. We, the last brothers of the Quinn family, beg you for one final mercy. Do what you will with our bodies—feed us to the dogs, burn us, throw us in the river. But please, leave our Boss, Hector Quinn, with his dignity. Do not desecrate his corpse. Let him rest. Thank you."

Jax read the note twice. He looked at the four dead men—enemies he had hated, plotted against, and tried to kill for years.

He expected to feel triumph. He expected to feel the rush of victory. Instead, he felt a strange, heavy hollowness in his chest. It was the melancholy of a warrior who realizes the game is over, and the players he respected are gone.

He sighed, a long, deep exhalation that seemed to deflate his massive frame.

"Respect," Jax muttered softly. "You old bastards actually had some honor left."

He turned to his lieutenant, who was waiting in the doorway. "Wrap them up. All four of them. Get the best undertakers in the city. Give them a proper burial. No unmarked graves. They earned their stones."

The lieutenant blinked, surprised, but nodded. "Yes, Boss."

Jax turned and walked out of the room, leaving the dead to their silence.

As he stepped out onto the veranda, inhaling the cool night air to clear the scent of death from his nose, his bodyguard approached with a phone.

"Boss, John Rivers just called in. The cleanup on the highway is done. Thanks to Thomas Walker’s surrender, our casualties were minimal. We have twenty-seven minor injuries, zero fatalities. On the Brotherhood side... nineteen dead in the initial fire, over a hundred fled into the woods, and we have two hundred and fifteen prisoners. John and Manny are marching the captives this way. They’ll be here in ten minutes."

Jax nodded absently. "Good. Tell them to keep it tight."

He pulled out his own phone and dialed a number.

"Hey, Tiger."

On the other end of the line, the background noise was a cacophony of shouting men, dragging heavy objects, and the roar of engines.

Rex Dalton’s voice came through, sounding breathless but exhilarated. " Jax! Is the old man dead?"

"Yeah," Jax said, leaning against the stone railing. "Suicide. Him and his top three. It’s over here. We’re securing the estate. How’s the Central Hub?"

Rex laughed, a dark, jagged sound. "Cleaned out. We’re loading the prisoners onto the trucks now. Thirty transports, packed tight. We’re taking everything—the living, the dead, the weapons. Nothing stays behind."

Rex paused, and Jax could hear the sound of liquid being splashed onto hard surfaces.

"And Jax," Rex continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial growl. "I’m tossing sixty of the Brotherhood bodies into the main office complex. We’ve soaked the place in gasoline. In about ten minutes, this whole building is going to be a bonfire. I’m going to cremate the evidence and the legacy of the Brotherhood all at once. Someone should probably call the fire department... eventually."

Jax chuckled darkly. "Ruthless. I like it. Alright, I’ll see you at the celebration."

"Wait," Rex said. "I’m not done yet. I’m heading over to the Hades Crew sector. I want to see Ethan Skyler’s handy work. I hear he’s putting on a show."

Jax frowned slightly. "Right. The diversion attacks."

According to the grand strategy devised by Kane Adler, Ethan Skyler (Huang Quan) and his Hades Crew—over a thousand men—were supposed to be launching synchronized attacks on the Brotherhood’s nightclubs and casinos across the city to split their forces.

However, the reality on the ground was different.

The units currently smashing up the Brotherhood’s nightclubs weren't the Hades Crew. They were a detachment of four hundred men from the Direwolf Syndicate, led by Reno Keyes. They were making a lot of noise, breaking windows and setting fires, effectively drawing attention, but they were a skeleton crew.

So, where was Ethan Skyler?

Where was the deadliest assassin of the Shadow Eagle Clan, along with his thousand-strong army of silent killers?

The answer lay in the northern district of Larkspur, shrouded in the gloom of the Abandoned Paper Mill.

This area was a graveyard of industry, a sprawling complex of rusting silos, collapsed warehouses, and overgrown train tracks. It was silent, desolate, and utterly devoid of life—or so it seemed.

Under the cover of the rusted corrugated roofs, a thousand shadows stood motionless. They blended perfectly with the darkness, their breathing regulated, their presence masked. They were the Hades Crew, the executioners of the Shadow Eagle Clan.

At the front of the formation stood Ethan Skyler. He was leaning against a rusted pillar, his arms crossed, his face a mask of cold indifference. He was cleaning his signature weapon—a pair of curved, serrated daggers—with a piece of velvet cloth.

Next to him stood Brandon Stone, a giant of a man known as "The Titan," and two other sinister figures: Venom, a master of poisons whose skin seemed to have a sickly pallor, and Nathan Black, a man whose smile was said to curdle milk.

They weren't attacking nightclubs. They weren't chasing low-level thugs. They were waiting.

Ethan checked his watch. The luminous dial glowed green in the dark.

"It’s time," he whispered, his voice soft but carrying clearly to his lieutenants.

Nathan Black grinned, exposing yellowed teeth. "Finally. I was getting bored. Do you think they’ll come?"

Ethan looked up, his eyes piercing through the broken skylights toward the south. " Kane predicted it. If the Brotherhood falls, the vultures will circle. We aren't here for the Brotherhood. We’re here for the guests."

Just as he spoke, the sound of heavy engines drifted on the wind. It wasn't the police. It was the deep, throaty rumble of military-grade transport trucks.

A convoy was approaching the city limits, moving fast, running dark.

Ethan sheathed his daggers. "The Five Kings remnants. The scavengers from the neighboring province. They think Larkspur is chaos. They think they can march in and pick the bones while we’re distracted."

He pushed himself off the pillar, a deadly aura flaring up around him like a dark flame.

"Let’s show them," Ethan said, his voice dropping to a hiss. "Let’s show them that Hell isn't a metaphor. It’s a place. And they just walked through the front door."

Brandon Stone cracked his knuckles, the sound like gunshots. "No survivors?"

"No survivors," Ethan confirmed. "Tonight, the Hades Crew feeds."