Rain lashed the windows of the safehouse, rhythmic like a heartbeat. Inside, Kaydence stood at the edge of the war table, fists clenched, staring at the bloodstained map of the city.
Scarlet leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching him through narrowed eyes.
“You’re planning something,” she said.
He didn’t look at her. “I’m finishing something.”
She moved closer. “Don’t start sounding like Miro.”
That name cracked something in him.
He looked up, eyes full of storm. “You don’t know what he took from me.”
Scarlet blinked. “He took her from me too.”
“But she was mine first.”
Silence.
The kind that felt like a loaded gun.
“You don’t get to decide who loved her more,” Scarlet said. “You just get to decide what you do with what’s left.”
Kaydence turned away. “Then I’m putting an end to the Circle. Every last piece of it.”
Flashback
Kaydence sat in a luxury apartment, ten years earlier. At the head of the table, a man in a suit poured him whiskey.
Drankworth Sr.
Cold eyes. Cruel smile.
“You’ll inherit it all,” he said. “But first, you need to be broken.”
That night, Kaydence was locked in a room with three men and one knife.
He came out bloody.
He came out different.
And he never forgot.
The Monster Crowned
Jasper returned from the lower tunnels. “The Triangle’s  remnants are gathering. East End. Looks like Miro’s heading the charge.”
“Let him,” Kaydence said. “I want him to see me coming.”
Scarlet stepped forward. “You want revenge, fine. But don’t lose yourself in it.”
He looked at her—really looked. Then nodded. “Only if you pull me back.”
She touched his cheek, briefly. “Always.”
The Coronation of Chaos
At midnight, beneath the cracked statue of Justice in the city square, Kaydence met with the remaining Circle members.
He gave them one choice: disband or burn.
They chose wrong.
He lit the fire himself.
And as the flames rose, the city crowned its new monster.
A king made of scars, fury, and betrayal.
And Scarlet, watching from the shadows, whispered:
“The world doesn’t need another king. It needs a reckoning.”
 They burned the body at midnight.
Ash drifted into the wind like whispers.
Scarlet stood with her arms crossed, watching the flames swallow what was left of the woman who’d tried to ruin her. But Annora was more than that. She was the reminder that pain had memory, and memory had teeth.
Kaydence didn’t speak. He’d said all he could at the cathedral.
Jasper covered the perimeter. Miro was gone again. No one knew where.
Scarlet’s jaw tightened. “We didn’t win anything.”
Kaydence gave a small nod. “No. But we made space for what comes next.”
The woman who slipped through the shadows of District Nine didn’t walk. She glided.
She wore silence like armor and secrets like perfume.
The name on her badge said Delora Vale.
But that wasn’t her name.
It was Annora’s fiancé’s real partner. The one who held the strings even Annora hadn’t dared pull. The one whose existence was erased from every Drankworth file.
She watched as Scarlet and Kaydence lit the fire. Watched as ashes curled skyward like a signal.
A declaration of war.
She tapped her comm.
“Execute Reckoner protocol. Begin extraction.”
At the Safehouse
Scarlet stared at the wall, a map of Veil Industries’ remaining assets spread across the table.
“Every ghost we buried is crawling back,” she muttered.
Jasper leaned against the doorframe. “Then maybe it’s time we became ghosts ourselves.”
She looked up. “You mean disappear?”
“I mean hit them where they forgot to look.”
The Hit
The ambush came during a weapons drop.
Six Triangle  loyalists dead. One captured.
That one was Jasper.
Delora smiled when they brought him in.
She didn’t ask questions. Just sat across from him and said, “You’re not who I want.”
He smirked. “Yeah, well. You’re not who I fear.”
But when she showed him the photo—the one of Scarlet, bleeding out in the alley—his breath caught.
Not because of the blood.
Because it was real-time.
A live feed.
Scarlet’s world blurred as the tranquilizer took hold. She hadn’t seen the needle until it was too late.
The doctor’s voice echoed: “Keep her alive. The heir must sign before midnight.”
The heir.
That word again.
She remembered a time when she was just Scarlet. Not Veil. Not Sallow. Not Seina.
Now, her name was currency. Her blood, contract. Her pain, legacy.
He stood at the gates of the last Drankworth vault. Alone.
Delora was there, flanked by men in white suits and expressions carved from stone.
“She’s alive,” she said. “For now.”
He lowered his gun.
“Let her go.”
Delora tilted her head. “You’ll trade your empire?”
He dropped the keys to the vault.
“My empire doesn’t breathe when she doesn’t.”
Scarlet woke in chains.
Across from her: Miro.
“You gave them the vault,” she rasped.
He didn’t answer. Just pressed a finger to his lips.
And then whispered:
“Run when the lights go out.”
They did.
And when they did, everything that came next was fire and reckoning.