Chapter 2 Five Years Later

It was raining in the city-cold, sharp rain that fell like knives and cut through the neon haze blanketing downtown. The kind of rain that didn't cleanse anything but instead dragged the filth deeper into the gutters, carving rivers of regret through streets that had long forgotten innocence. The pavement glistened under the flickering lights of liquor stores, pawn shops, and shuttered apartments. Sirens wailed in the distance, barely noticed. In a city like this, chaos was just background music. Beneath the rusty awning of a rundown convenience store, a lone figure stood in silence. Matherson. But no one called him that anymore. To the streets, to the fighters, to the people who dealt in stolen lives and whispered threats, he was Mace. The name clung to him like smoke-hard-edged, quiet, dangerous. It was a mask, one that kept him alive in a world that would've eaten "Matherson Jayson" alive in minutes. A cigarette burned between his fingers, its ember glowing like a dying star. His hood was pulled low, shadows dancing across his face. Eyes that once sparkled with youthful arrogance were now carved from stone-cold, calculating, merciless. He hadn't spoken his real name in years. Didn't need to. Mace didn't look back. But tonight... he would make an exception. He'd spent the last five years in the city's underbelly-working odd jobs by day, training by night. Underground cage fights. Surveillance gigs. Quiet hits. Deliveries that came with no return address. The work paid little, but it taught him the skills no school could offer. He learned to disappear. Learned to hurt. Learned to wait. But most of all, he learned the truth. It all started with the phone. The one he pulled from the ashes the night his family was murdered. His father's phone. Scarred by fire, but still holding secrets no one else knew about. It took months to crack the encryption, but once he did, the floodgates opened. Audio logs. Video files. Scans of hand-written notes. Names. So many names. Corrupt politicians. Military officials. Corporate giants. And a project called "The Archive." It was never meant to exist. A hidden system designed to collect and bury truths too dangerous for the public to know. A blackmail machine. Anyone who opposed the system or knew too much disappeared. Those who built it? They got rich, powerful... untouchable. Mr. Jayson had found it. And he'd paid the price. The disc they came for-the one that cost his family their lives-wasn't just evidence. It was a death sentence for anyone connected to it. And now, Matherson-Mace-was the last thread left dangling. They had failed to kill him. Now, he would make sure they remembered that mistake. He flicked the cigarette into the street and watched it sizzle in the rain. His breath curled in the air as he exhaled, slow and steady. Across the street, the target exited a sleek black car, flanked by two bodyguards. Senator Kellan Stroud. Once a rising political star. Now a man with a dark past buried beneath ten layers of PR. Stroud wasn't just dirty. He was deep in it. His name was all over the Archive files-one of the original architects. Tied to black site funding, data suppression, and at least three political assassinations that were written off as "accidents." To the public, he was a hero of reform. To Mace, he was a butcher in a suit. Tonight, he would pay. Mace checked the time-9:57 PM. Everything was in place. He walked to the alley beside the convenience store, where a motorbike waited, blacked out, silent. Hidden under a tarp. He pulled it free and mounted the seat. The target would be at The Haven Club in less than ten minutes. A private party. High security. Underground entry. No press. Just enough isolation for what Mace needed. He pulled the helmet over his head, engine growling to life beneath him. "Tonight," he muttered under his breath, voice like gravel. "We begin." The Haven Club sat on the edge of the city's finance district, disguised as an abandoned theater from the outside, but inside... it was gold. Literally. Chandeliers. Velvet walls. Rich people playing pretend in a world that should've drowned them in guilt. Mace slipped past the perimeter using the ID badge he'd stolen two nights ago. A silent takedown of one of Stroud's security team-no witnesses, no sound. Just one less pawn on the board. He moved like a shadow, blending into staff uniforms, ducking security cameras he'd already disabled with a well-placed EMP device in the electrical grid. Timing was everything. Inside, laughter echoed across marble floors. Crystal glasses clinked. Stroud was at the center of it, holding court like a king. Mace slipped through the crowd, head down, eyes forward. His hand brushed against the inner lining of his jacket where the knife waited-a gift from an old street fighter who taught him to kill in silence. But he wasn't here for a quick kill. No. Stroud needed to know why. The moment came faster than expected. A hallway. Empty. Stroud stepping away from the main room, followed by his two bodyguards. One turned his head to speak into his comms. That was the moment. Mace struck. The first guard didn't even register the movement before the knife slid under his ribs. Silent. Clean. The second reached for his weapon. Too slow. Mace twisted, grabbed the man's wrist, snapped it, and buried his elbow into the man's throat. A soft wheeze. Then silence. Stroud stared. Frozen. Pale. "What... who-?" Mace stepped forward, hood still on, voice low. "Matherson Jayson." The name hit Stroud like a bullet. "You should be dead," he whispered. "You first." Mace slammed him into the wall, blade pressed to his neck. Not enough to bleed. Just enough to make him feel it. "The Archive," Mace growled. "You helped build it. You killed for it. You tried to silence my father. My family." Stroud's eyes darted. He stammered, "Listen, I didn't know they'd go that far-I wasn't in charge-" "You funded it. You protected it." "I didn't give the order!" "But you benefited from it." Stroud was trembling now. His suit soaked in sweat despite the chill of the hallway. "They'll come for you. You have no idea who you're dealing with." "That's where you're wrong," Mace said. "I know exactly who I'm dealing with." He leaned in closer. "And I'm coming for all of you." Then-darkness. A quick injection to the neck. A toxin-non-lethal. Stroud collapsed, paralyzed but alive. Just conscious enough to know. To remember. To fear. Mace left him there, sprawled in the hallway, phone clutched in his limp fingers, a note burned into the screen: "You are the first." Back in the rain, Mace peeled off the gloves, heart pounding steady, not fast. The city hadn't changed. But he had. He knew they'd come for him after tonight. Stroud was high-profile. Important. And his silence would spark panic in the network. That was the point. He wanted them scared. Wanted them scrambling. This wasn't just revenge. It was war. As he mounted his bike and disappeared into the midnight fog, his mind raced. There were more names on the list. More sins to be paid for. More blood to spill. But for the first time in five years, he didn't feel like he was surviving. He felt like he was living. And the fire that had started in his heart the night his family was murdered? It had never gone out. Now, it was an inferno. And it was just getting started.