Chapter 1 - THE KING’S IRON VAULTThe black Maybach glided through the neon-lit veins of the district like a silent predator. Inside, the cabin smelled of aged leather, rain, and the faint, bitter scent of the espresso Alfred had abandoned an hour ago.
The little girl—her name, she had whispered in the quiet hum of the engine, was Mila—was fast asleep against his ribs. The exhaustion had finally won. Her head rested heavily on his tailored wool coat, every breath shallow and uneven. Across their feet, Bruno lay vigilant. The terrier’s eyes gleamed in the dim dashboard light, reflecting a stubborn, unyielding loyalty that Alfred found strangely familiar.
In the front seat, Viktor, Alfred’s most lethal enforcer and shadow, kept his eyes fixed on the rearview mirror. He hadn't asked a single question. In Alfred’s world, questions were liabilities. Execution was an art.
— Where to, Boss? Viktor’s voice rumbled low.
— The Citadel, Alfred said.
Viktor’s eyebrows flickered in the glass. The Citadel wasn't just a home; it was a fortress carved into the limestone cliffs overlooking the harbor—a place where no outsider had ever set foot and left to speak of it. It was where Alfred kept his ledgers, his weapons, and his secrets.
— Boss, Viktor began carefully, — the syndicate council meets at dawn. The shipment from the eastern docks—
— Postpone them, Alfred cut him off, his voice flat, absolute. — Let them wait.
They arrived twenty minutes later beneath a wrought-iron gate that swung open like the jaws of a vault. The car pulled into the underground garage, where white overhead lights stripped every shadow bare.
Alfred didn't wait for Viktor to open the door. He stepped out into the cold air, lifting Mila in his arms. She stirred, letting out a soft, frightened whimper, her small hand instantly flying to her chest to grip the hidden key. Alfred paused, his large, tattooed hand hovering over her back, patting her gently—a gesture foreign to his fingers, yet as instinctive as drawing a gun.
— I’ve got you, he muttered.
Bruno trotted out beside them, his claws clicking sharply against the polished concrete.
As they entered the private elevator leading up to the master suite, Viktor stepped inside with them, holding a small, blood-stained object he had found on the back floor mat where Mila had dropped her shoe. It was a silver lapel pin. Heavy. Engraved with a crest Alfred hadn't seen in over a decade.
A crest belonging to the Vane Syndicate—the ruthless, untouchable corporate cartel ruling the financial sector across the bay.
Alfred’s eyes narrowed, locking onto the silver emblem. The Vane family thought they owned the city's future. They thought illegal real estate and political bribes made them untouchable.
They didn't know who owned the night.
— Viktor, Alfred said softly, the temperature in the elevator dropping several degrees. — Dig into the Vane family's high-security residential contracts. Find out who bought property in the industrial district within the last forty-eight hours.
— And the girl, Boss?
May you like
Alfred looked down at Mila, whose face was stained with soot and tear-tracks, yet peaceful against his chest. He felt the cold, hard bite of the key pressing through her sweater against his ribs.
— She stays with me. And anyone who wants her... has to go through the entire underworld to get to her.
