The night was eerily quiet in Carrowind's industrial outskirts—too quiet. Ethan Ward parked the black sedan beneath a dead streetlight outside a shuttered textile mill. The crumbling structure loomed in the moonlight like a mausoleum of forgotten labor, its walls scorched from years of neglect, its windows opaque with grime.
He killed the engine. Silence swallowed him whole.
"Three guards. Armed," came a low voice from the passenger seat. It was Lucien Vex, his newest contact in the underworld. Ex-military. Scarred. Unflinching.
Ethan glanced at the layout on the faded blueprint Lucien had scrounged. The mill had once belonged to Westbrooke Fabrications, a front for laundering cartel money, but now it served a more sinister purpose. A trafficking route. Children, mostly. Sold like cattle.
"We move fast. Quiet. No unnecessary kills," Ethan said, slipping on his gloves.
Lucien smirked. "You've got a conscience, huh?"
"I've got lines," Ethan replied coldly. "Don't make me cross them."
They slipped through the side entrance, hugging the shadows. Every step they took echoed with unspoken judgment. Ethan moved like a ghost, every muscle taught, every nerve alert. The mask he wore—a cracked, matte-black half-face shield—turned his breath into mist.
Inside, the building stank of mold, blood, and despair. They passed a room filled with rusting sewing machines before reaching a long corridor where voices echoed—drunken laughter and the clink of glass.
Ethan signaled. They breached the door.
The first man went down without a sound—a syringe in his neck. The second tried to scream, but Lucien's blade slit his throat cleanly. The third reached for a gun, only to freeze as Ethan's pistol pressed against his forehead.
"Where are they?" Ethan asked, voice like gravel.
The man shook. "Basement. Red door. Code is 1735."
Lucien knocked him out cold.
As they approached the door, Ethan's stomach twisted. This wasn't a job. This was justice. Something no badge ever gave him. Something the law never enforced. He punched the code in and descended into darkness.
The basement was lit by a single flickering bulb. Five children huddled in the corner—malnourished, wide-eyed, bruised.
"Don't be afraid," Ethan said, kneeling. "You're safe now."
A small girl grabbed his hand, trembling. "They said no one would come."
Ethan couldn't respond. Not without his voice cracking.
Lucien kept watch, but Ethan's attention was fixed on the smallest child—a boy no older than five, missing three fingers.
"What's your name?" Ethan asked.
"Caleb."
That name punched something deep inside Ethan. The memory of his own son, years ago, crying after scraping his knee. The echo of a life long gone. A life he had traded for blood and vengeance.
"We're getting you out," Ethan whispered.
They exited the basement, ghosts carrying the future in their arms. But as they reached the stairwell, an explosion rocked the building. Fire belched from the hall behind them.
"Ambush," Lucien growled, drawing his weapon.
Ethan shoved the kids into a maintenance closet. "Stay quiet. No matter what."
Gunfire erupted. Shadows flitted past shattered glass and flame. Lucien took a hit to the shoulder but returned fire with lethal precision. Ethan moved like a machine, calculating every angle, every breath, every bullet.
He didn't shoot to kill. Not always. But tonight? These men—who had bought, sold, and broken children—earned no mercy.
The last thug fled through the fire, shrieking.
Lucien leaned against a wall, bleeding. "We're not just pissing off gangs anymore. Someone's organizing this."
Ethan nodded grimly. "I know."
Lucien gave him a wary look. "You're changing, Ward."
"No," Ethan said as he helped the children out through the smoke, "I'm becoming what the world created."
Later, Ethan stood alone in the rain, watching the children get loaded into an unmarked van. Trusted allies—those he still had—would get them medical care and new homes. Not perfect justice. But something.
"You did good," said a familiar voice behind him.
Ethan turned to see Isabelle Cross, his ex-partner from the force, now working Internal Affairs. She shouldn't have been here. He hadn't called her.
"How did you—"
"I've been watching you," she said. "Ever since Mikhail's murder. You've changed, Ethan."
"You mean, I stopped pretending?"
Isabelle stepped closer. "You're playing with fire."
"I am fire," Ethan replied coldly.
She hesitated. "You think this ends well?"
Ethan looked away. "There's no ending. Only the price."
Back in his hideout—a reconditioned war bunker beneath the city—Ethan sat before the wall of photographs, strings, and symbols he had been building for weeks.
All roads were pointing to one man. One name that kept appearing in whispers, coded messages, and frightened last words.
"Voltaire."
But Voltaire was dead. Or so he had thought.
The bunker lights flickered. A message had been slipped beneath the metal door.
Ethan opened it carefully. Inside: a single playing card.
The Joker.
No words. Just the twisted grin.
Ethan's eyes narrowed. This wasn't a warning. It was a declaration.
"You think I'm your pawn?" he whispered. "I'm the one who burns the board."