The stench of blood, smoke, and fear clung to the walls of the abandoned slaughterhouse Daniel once used as a drop point. Leon stepped over a cracked concrete threshold, boots slick with the remains of a fight that hadn't yet begun. Victor flanked him, gun drawn, eyes sharp.
They were too late.
The boy was gone.
Chains clinked softly in the far corner, still warm. A discarded hoodie. A blood-streaked shoe. Signs of a struggle—but no body.
Daniel had moved him.
Again.
Leon's face was blank, but Victor saw the shift. A tightening in the jaw. The slight tilt of the head. Leon was slipping. Past fury. Into something colder. Quieter. Deadlier.
"They were here. Less than an hour ago," Victor said. "They cleaned up fast."
Leon said nothing. He moved deeper into the building, past rusted meat hooks and broken crates. A man groaned in the shadows—one of Daniel's, left behind like garbage.
Leon didn't pause.
He dragged the man up by his shirt. "Where is he?"
The man wheezed. "I–I don't know. We were told to hold the place until Daniel gave the signal. Then we heard gunfire and…"
Leon didn't wait for the rest. His gun fired once, clean through the man's head. The body dropped like a puppet cut from its strings.
Victor didn't flinch.
Leon turned to the rest—three men tied and gagged by his men earlier, now trembling where they knelt. "He's taken something I care about," Leon said, voice low, calm. "Which means you're not walking out of here."
"Boss—" Victor started.
"No survivors."
It wasn't an order. It was a sentence.
Gunfire echoed through the walls. One shot, then another. Until only silence remained.
Leon stood in the middle of it all, blood on his hands, chest heaving with quiet fury.
He had been a monster before. But now, it was personal.
And the man who took Ayla's brother was going to learn what hell tasted like.
Daniel's breath was ragged as he dialed Ayla's number in the dead of night. Every second he delayed was a second closer to Leon's wrath. The boy was safe, for now—but only barely.
When Ayla's voice crackled through the phone, cold and wary, Daniel didn't waste time.
"I know you think Leon will protect you," he said, voice low and venomous. "But he doesn't know everything. Your brother's alive because of me—and if you want to keep him that way, you'll come with me."
Ayla's breath hitched. "What do you want?"
"Simple. You. No tricks. No calling Leon. Just you. And your brother stays alive. Cross me, and you'll never see him again."
As the line went dead, Ayla sat frozen, the weight of the choice crushing her chest.