December 27, 2025
03:00 AM – The Old Warehouse
The warehouse was a cavern of rot and secrets. Michael's flashlight cut through the dark, landing on walls covered in his father's jagged notes. Richard Hale hadn't just served Asher Burke; he had been obsessed with him.
Michael found a small cassette player in a locked crate. He pressed play.
"Michael, if you're listening to this... you're already dead in the eyes of the law. Asher isn't a man; he's a system. To kill the system, you have to become a virus. Look under the concrete slab. There's a kit. A new start. And a list of sins that will burn this city down."
Suddenly, the heavy metal doors were kicked open. Flashlights flooded the room. Luca's men.
"D'Angelo says hi, Doctor!"
Michael didn't panic. He moved with a cold precision he didn't know he possessed. He grabbed his father's steel briefcase, but before jumping into the floor hatch, he did something intentional. He ripped a piece of his blood-stained white shirt and snagged it on a rusted nail near a pile of old files.
*Give them a body to bury,* he thought.
"Drop the bag, Hale!" the leader shouted, leveling his rifle.
"Tell Luca," Michael shouted back, his voice echoing in the vast space. "The ghosts of Dawson Bridge are done waiting."
He kicked a tripwire his father had rigged years ago.
**BOOM.**
A massive fireball engulfed the warehouse. The structure groaned and collapsed as secondary charges—stored fuel and old documents—ignited. To anyone outside, the warehouse was a furnace. No one could survive the heat.
Inside the crawlspace, Michael felt the shockwave rattle his teeth. He crawled through the soot-choked tunnels his father had built for this exact day. He emerged two miles away, near the icy banks of the river.
He stood in the rain, watching the orange glow of the fire in the distance. He took off his coat and threw it into the dark water. He took his phone and sent one last text to Natalia.
*"Cognitive Dissonance."*
He watched the message send, then dropped the phone and crushed it under his boot. Michael Hale was dead. The psychologist was gone.
As he walked toward the old clock tower in the distance, he wasn't thinking about healing anymore. He was thinking about collection.