Rafferty's office sat above the city like a confession no one had ever forced him to make.
Glass walls. Steel desk. No photographs. No windows that opened. The kind of place where power didn't need decoration because it breathed on its own.
Moody stood across from him, hands loose at his sides, posture unreadable. The room hummed softly—servers hidden in the walls, surveillance running like a second bloodstream.
Rafferty leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, eyes bright with a hunger that never slept.
"You brought them?" he asked.
Moody didn't answer immediately. Instead, he reached into his coat and placed a small, sealed drive on the desk. It slid across the polished surface and stopped precisely at Rafferty's fingertips.
"What you've been meaning to get," Moody said. "Accounts. Names. Routes. Everything tied to the eastern syndicates that never existed on paper."
Rafferty's smile was slow.
Reverent.
He didn't touch the drive at first.
"You always did know what I wanted," he said. "That's why the Silver Mark loved you."
Moody's jaw tightened.
Rafferty finally picked it up, weighing it like a relic.
"And in exchange?" Rafferty asked.
Moody met his gaze. "My freedom."
A pause.
Then Rafferty laughed—soft, delighted.
"Freedom," he repeated. "Such a dangerous word for men like us."
He tapped a key on his desk. Somewhere, locks disengaged. Files erased. Bounties dissolved quietly into nothing.
"You're free," Rafferty said. "Officially. Permanently."
Moody didn't move.
Rafferty leaned forward now, voice lowering.
"But let me warn you," he continued, eyes flicking to the side of Moody's head. "That shiny blueish thing behind your ears? The vow you took to earn it?"
Moody felt it then—the phantom weight, the echo of metal against bone.
"And what about it?" Moody asked in a suspicious tone.
"It is permanently attached. And since you're not part of the gang, I'm sorry i can't help you. And I want it removed in three months time."
"Ooh!why such a long time?
"Because it is not what you think it is. It's part of the vows you took." Mr Rafferty continued a lighter held tightly in his hand.
"The Silver Mark is the most precious thing a gang member can get,". "It makes kings nervous. It makes gods bleed. And it never truly lets go. And as far as I know, it's already inside you."
He smiled, sharp and knowing.
"So don't mistake this for the end of our war," Rafferty added. "I just changed the battlefield."
"I don't mind all that. I just demand one more answer before I disappear." Moody requested."
"Fine. Drop the question."
"Why Lena?"
Rafferty's laugh echoed in the room leaving Moody frozen. He took his glass, stared at it countless times then dropped it as pieces shatter on the floor. Rafferty's gaze softened—almost fond.
"You want to know why I've wanted Lena for so long?" he asked gently.
Moody's eyes darkened.
Rafferty stood, walking toward the glass wall that overlooked the city.
"You see those pieces that have just shattered. That's me. That's my life. That's what I am right now. That's why I'm struggling to get her so much."
" But that isn't a concrete reason?"
Rafferty squeezed the Lighter in his hand, his jaw clenched tightly but his eyes still glued through his glass towards the city. He paused for a moment then forced the words he's been holding to slowly.
"It's her heart," he said simply.
Moody's breath stilled. His heart racing. But he kept himself steady.
"When Lena was three months old," Rafferty continued, "a procedure was done. Experimental. Illegal. Brilliant."
He turned back.
"There's something of mine inside her," Rafferty added. "Something that was never meant to leave my body. A device. A fail-safe. A living vault." but it had to. To keep her alive.
Moody's hands curled into fists.
"She doesn't know," Rafferty said. "No one does. Except me, her mother and her dead father. That's why she's so adamant of doing anything I tell her to."
He smiled again.
"That's what I've been chasing. And since I have disclosed it to you too, I guess you're in the game, between life and death."
"Are you threatening me?"Moody asked his sense awakening."
"Hahhaha! Look kid, in years you're the first person i told this secret. Just take care of yourself. You don't know what's ahead. I'm Rafferty Rampanda." He warned him showing his serious face.
Moody walked out of his office with unknown feelings. Ever in his life has he dreamed of something like this. His mind never got at peace even though he was free from the bondage. Yet on the other side, Mr Rafferty's words were not to be taken as a joke. He was planning something. Something to finish him off.
"Secrets are meant for one person, not Crowds."He murmured his lips twitching."
---
Mr. Brine woke before dawn.
Not to alarms. Not to danger.
To the eyes.
Nicky stood at the foot of his bed, dressed perfectly, hands folded, watching him like she'd been there all night.
"You're awake early," Brine said, sitting up slowly.
"Everyone's waiting downstairs," she replied. "Mr Edwin. The family. The elders."
Brine frowned. "For what?"
Nicky smiled.
"You'll see."
Something in her tone unsettled him—but he followed anyway, unaware that his weakness had already been named, discussed, sharpened into leverage.
"It better be something important Nicky, if not, huh!"he whispered as they walk downstairs.
Nicky smiled alittle then entwined her hands with his, squeezing slightly.
------
Elsewhere, a letter crossed borders quietly.
Mr Luke wrote carefully. No emotion. No signatures that could trace him.
> Rafferty needs Lena because she has what was never meant to be his.
Something living.
Something beating.
Protect her.
The letter never said he was alive.
It didn't need to.
Finley delivered it to Mr Tan without a word. He had already told her every details concerning Mr Tan and even his whereabouts. It really seemed like he knew him very well.
Mashy, one of his men, came running with a letter held tightly in his hands. He handed it over to Mr Tan who froze for a second. His face drained. Then asked one of his men.
"Who delivered it?"
"It was some random girl who masked her face. She just dropped it at the mailbox then walked away. No one knows her."
"Jeez! Let me see what it says." He said unwrapping it."
He didn't hesitate. He called Brine immediately his heart racing.
Brine was in the middle of conversation seated beside Nicky when his phone rang.
One glance at the screen.
Then he stood receiving it as soon as he saw the caller. He knew an urgent call especially early in the morning, it meant something urgent.
"I have to go," he said flatly to his dad who stood up immediately he saw him stepping outside.
"Brine—" Mr Edwin began.
But Brine was already moving—out of the house, into the morning air, fury and clarity colliding in his chest.
"I told you but you didn't listen, now this is just a beginning." Mr Edwin said staring at Mr Stack's frowned face.
-----
Later that day, Sela and Bernard were returned to their mother—unharmed, confused, alive.
Lena was not with them.
Rafferty stood alone in his office again, the city burning gold beneath him.
"She'll have to do this," he said softly. "One way or another."
And somewhere between lies and vows and a heart that carried another man's secret—
The war tightened.
Not louder.
Closer.