Larchmont Village breathed the way Los Angeles pretended it still could.
Late afternoon sunlight filtered through jacaranda branches, turning the sidewalks gold. Café doors stood open. A bookseller was arranging a display outside, humming to himself. Parents lingered with strollers, phones half-raised for pictures, half-distracted by conversation.
Derek stepped out of the SUV and stretched his shoulders.
"Too quiet," Bala said, eyes already moving.
"You say that everywhere," Derek replied.
Bala didn't smile. "That is how I am alive."
The first shot rang out before Derek could answer.
The sound was wrong—sharp, violent, echoing off brick and glass. The SUV's armored panel rang like a struck bell. People froze, brains lagging behind instinct.
Bala moved instantly.
"Down!" he barked.
The second round shattered the windshield's outer layer, spiderwebbing across the glass but failing to breach. A woman screamed. Someone dropped a coffee cup that shattered on the pavement.
Derek didn't flinch.
His pulse accelerated, but his mind sharpened. The world slowed into clean edges and vectors.
"High," Bala said. "Above us."
A third shot cracked past Derek's head and punched into a building façade.
That was the line.
Derek opened the rear compartment and pulled the rifle free. His hands were steady, almost gentle. He stepped into the open street as people scattered, some screaming, others filming.
"Jesus—"
"Is that a gun—?"
Derek raised the rifle and fired.
The recoil was familiar, grounding. The first burst struck concrete near the shooter's position. The second corrected.
A body jerked backward into view, then vanished.
Phones captured everything.
Bala laughed once—short and sharp. "One."
A black van roared around the corner too fast, tires screaming. It didn't slow properly. The side door slid open while still moving.
"More," Bala said. "These ones came to die."
Four men jumped out.
One shouted, "Move! Move!"
Derek didn't.
He fired first.
Two attackers dropped before their feet fully touched the pavement. The third sprayed wildly, bullets chewing storefront glass. A bakery window exploded inward, sugar and flour blooming into the air.
Bala charged.
Not rushed. Charged.
"Idiots!" he roared, voice raw, Nigerian accent cutting through the chaos. "You bring this nonsense here?"
His submachine gun barked once, twice. One man collapsed in a heap.
The fourth attacker hesitated.
That hesitation killed him.
Bala slammed into him, hatchet flashing. The blade bit deep. The man screamed.
Bala leaned close, breath hot. "You people think life is cheap. I will educate you."
The hatchet fell again.
Across the street, a sedan tried to flee.
Derek dropped to one knee.
Two shots.
The car spun, crashed into a tree, airbags deploying in a white cloud.
Silence fell in pieces.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Derek lowered the rifle and scanned, breathing slow, controlled.
Bala turned to the crowd.
"Stay back," he said. "This is finished."
No one listened.
They filmed.
By the time police arrived, the internet already knew.
The first video appeared on TikTok with the caption:
"THIS JUST HAPPENED IN LARCHMONT OMG"
It spread in seconds.
Angles multiplied.
• Derek stepping into the open
• The van skidding sideways
• Bala advancing like a storm
Someone zoomed in on Derek's face.
Comments exploded.
Who IS he??
That's not a civilian.
That man is BUILT different.
Is this the Blackfire guy??
Twitter followed.
A verified account posted:
BREAKING: Armed attack thwarted in Los Angeles by unidentified individual. Multiple attackers neutralized.
Another replied:
Unidentified? That's Derek Morgan. CEO of Blackfire Technologies.
The tag stuck.
Fashion blogs noticed next.
GQ Online:
"The Man Who Didn't Run: Derek Morgan and the New Face of Power"
Vogue Off-Grid:
"Violence, Control, and the Aesthetic of Calm"
They analyzed his posture. His clothes. The way he held the rifle.
Wall Street noticed too.
A Bloomberg terminal flashed a headline:
BLACKFIRE CEO SURVIVES ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION
In a private Slack channel, a hedge fund analyst typed:
If they're trying to kill him, it's because the cure is real.
Conspiracy forums ignited.
• He's military—no, worse.
• That African guy? Ex-mercenary.
• Government op gone rogue.
• They tried to silence him.
Someone stitched together footage from the charity gala.
Same walk. Same build. Same face.
A Reddit post hit the front page:
"THE SAME GUY STOPPED THE ROBBERY AND THIS."
In a glass tower overlooking Manhattan, a group of executives watched the footage in silence.
Dr. Elaine Kessler broke it.
"That was supposed to be discreet."
Marcus Vane swallowed. "It was."
She turned to him slowly. "Nothing involving that man is discreet."
Another executive whispered, "He didn't even try to escape."
Kessler nodded. "Because this wasn't survival. This was messaging."
"What message?" Vane asked.
Kessler didn't answer immediately.
Finally: "That killing him will be expensive."
At Langley, an analyst paused the video frame by frame.
"Look at his breathing," she said. "Controlled. No panic."
The station chief folded his arms. "He wanted us to see this."
Back in Bel Air, Derek stood alone, city lights below him.
Bala cleaned the hatchet, methodical.
"They wanted you afraid," Bala said.
Derek shook his head. "They wanted me gone."
Bala snorted. "Then they are foolish people."
The city buzzed.
The world had seen him.
And someone, somewhere, was already planning the next move.