The alley feels alive.

  Not in a human way.

  In the way something hit, shattered, and left bleeding in the open feels alive.

  Barricades everywhere.

  OPOM tape stretched wall to wall.

  Blue lights strobing across gutted facades, shadows and flashes alternating like an artificial heartbeat.

  The asphalt is cracked.

  Blackened.

  And the blood is everywhere.

  It doesn’t drip anymore.

  It’s been cooked.

  Heat-fixed like dark paint.

  Detail: a bone fragment embedded in a brick wall.

  Not resting against it.

  Embedded.

  Like a round fired at point-blank range.

  OPOM forensics advance in white suits. Careful steps. Slow. No one speaks.

  The air is heavy.

  Like even breathing would be disrespectful.

  A forensic tech lifts a tarp.

  Underneath… there’s too little to call it a “body.”

  Flesh. Tissue. Shreds.

  Nothing that could ever be whole again.

  A technician turns away sharply, pulls off his mask, sucks in air—

  fighting nausea with the discipline of someone who can’t afford to break.

  Under his breath, barely moving his lips:

  “…This isn’t a normal homicide scene.”

  A high-ranking OPOM officer steps into the alley.

  Tablet lit. Jaw tight.

  The posture of someone used to command—

  not to sights like this.

  A hologram ignites in the air.

  Three-dimensional reconstruction of the event.

  A central point.

  Then shockwaves.

  Not wide. Not “random.”

  Compressed.

  Like the destruction was packed tight and fired with surgical precision.

  An OPOM scientist speaks without taking his eyes off the data.

  “The pressure isn’t uniform.”

  A graph scrolls. Absurd peaks. Anomalous voids. A signature.

  “It doesn’t match any conventional explosive pattern.”

  Another technician slowly shakes his head.

  “Too concentrated.”

  “Too… precise.”

  The officer clenches his jaw.

  “Theories?”

  An OPOM agent answers carefully, keeping his voice low—

  like the alley might be listening.

  “Experimental tactical device.”

  “Or an advanced clandestine test.”

  Silence.

  Then that silence fills with an unspoken name.

  Heavy as lead.

  A shadow everyone knows.

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  The officer says it.

  “The Immortal Mafia.”

  The word hangs between broken bricks and scorched asphalt.

  Like a signature.

  Like a threat.

  —

  In the days that follow, word of the massacre slips into the Immortal Mafia as well.

  It doesn’t hit the news.

  It doesn’t surface on social media.

  It arrives the way important things always do.

  Under the skin.

  Interior. Hidden location.

  Encrypted screens. Data streaming fast. Reports laid out like verdicts.

  Names crossed out in red.

  Struck through before they can even be read.

  Overlaid text. Dry. Soulless:

  “Deal compromised.”

  “Two buyers eliminated.”

  “High-level boss lost.”

  The room goes quiet.

  Not shock.

  Calculation.

  In the darkness—an outline.

  A figure seated in shadow.

  Still.

  Like time doesn’t touch it.

  A voice off-screen. Cold. Calm. Unhurried.

  “Notify Adam.”

  No “please.” No question.

  An order.

  And that order doesn’t stay in the room.

  It rises.

  Moves.

  Reaches Hector Selma.

  And with it… the Fox moves.

  OPOM PERIMETER (ALLEY) — NIGHT

  In the distance, two identical black sports cars slice through the street.

  Engines low. Feral.

  The night’s silence tears like sheet metal.

  Then—brakes.

  Tires screaming on wet asphalt.

  A spray of smoke and atomized water.

  The cars skid sideways to a stop in front of the perimeter.

  Doors fly open in unison.

  Armed men step out together.

  This isn’t a gang.

  It’s a unit.

  Clean movement. Covered angles. Weapons already up.

  Tactical gear far beyond anything “criminal.”

  The OPOM forensics freeze.

  White suits. Empty hands.

  They raise them slowly—

  people who instantly understand the new rule:

  the yellow tape no longer means authority.

  Two OPOM soldiers on guard react on instinct.

  Rifles up. Safeties off. Sights on the intruders.

  The imbalance is obvious:

  two of them against a full squad.

  Silence.

  Only the intermittent click of blue lights—

  faces, barrels, shadows blinking in and out.

  A senior OPOM officer—the one with the tablet—steps forward.

  Voice low. Razor-edged.

  “Stand down. Black Protocol.”

  The two soldiers glance sideways at him, stunned.

  The officer doesn’t break eye contact.

  “No engagement.”

  “Not here. Not tonight.”

  A beat.

  “If a shot goes off… this scene becomes a front line… or an execution.”

  The men in black advance anyway.

  Centimeter by centimeter.

  Weapons trained. Calm.

  Too calm.

  Then, from the back seat of one car…

  a door opens with obscene ease.

  Adam Vessen steps out.

  Unhurried stride. Relaxed.

  Like he’s entering a lounge, not an OPOM zone.

  Tall. Lean. Effortless charm.

  Sunglasses—at night.

  Tailored vest. Jewelry.

  Tattoos surfacing like promises.

  He whistles.

  One of the OPOM soldiers feels his blood turn to ice.

  His rifle dips a fraction—

  his body deciding before his mind.

  He reaches out and presses down the other’s barrel too.

  SOLDIER 2

  “What the fuck are you doing?!”

  SOLDIER 1

  (voice breaking, almost a whisper)

  “No… no…”

  His eyes stay locked on the elegant figure advancing.

  SOLDIER 1

  “It’s Vessen.”

  SOLDIER 2

  “So what?”

  SOLDIER 1

  “So if we move… we die.”

  The second swallows. Tries to hold firm.

  His gaze trembles.

  SOLDIER 2

  “He’s… Mafia?”

  SOLDIER 1

  “He’s a Regent.”

  The word lands like a nail.

  SOLDIER 2

  “A… Regent…”

  SOLDIER 1

  “This needs a Black Flame. Not us.”

  Adam doesn’t even look at them.

  They don’t exist to him.

  He passes under the OPOM tape like it’s air—

  like the boundary is a child’s trick.

  He reaches the heart of the wreckage.

  Blood. Ruin. Silence.

  Slowly, he removes his sunglasses.

  Pistol Boy.