Nathaniel hadn't seen Vincent Blackwood in twenty years.
Not since the night his grandfather was buried alive in a Widowmaker coup.
But corpses, it seemed, had a way of clawing back to life.
Vincent looked even worse than Nathaniel remembered—bones like iron rods under scarred skin, a gaze that could slice steel.
"You're a ghost," Nathaniel rasped, still half-believing he was hallucinating from blood loss.
Vincent just laughed—a jagged, broken sound.
"Ghosts don't bleed," he said, lifting a hand to show a still-healing knife wound across his palm.
A fresh one.
A promise.
"You think your little rebellion wiped us out? You think the boy's a king? Please. The real Widowmaker bloodline doesn't break that easily."
Nathaniel backed up a step.
"I watched them put you in the ground."
"And I clawed my way out."
Vincent's teeth flashed.
"Now, you and I—we're going to burn what's left of this rotten empire down to the bone."
Nathaniel shook his head slowly. "I'm not your weapon anymore."
Vincent's smile widened. "You were never mine, boy. You were always yours. You just forgot."
A heavy silence coiled between them.
Outside, storms raged across the mountain.
Inside, only one truth remained:
The Widowmakers had never died.
They'd just been waiting.
Plotting.
Feeding the bloodline.
Nathaniel looked down at his broken hands, then up at the man who had made him into a weapon before he was old enough to read.
Maybe there was no going back.
Maybe there never had been.
He clenched his fists.
"Where do we start?"
—
Meanwhile—
Alfreda moved through the city ruins like a wolf among sheep.
The "boy"—no longer a boy—had made his first fatal mistake:
He'd gotten lazy.
Rich with stolen blood and fear, he threw orgies of violence in the open—letting the world watch.
Power had made him bold.
Boldness made him stupid.
Alfreda licked blood off her split knuckles as she crouched on a rooftop overlooking the latest "celebration"—a grotesque scene of criminals pledging loyalty over body parts.
The boy sat on a gilded throne carved from human bones.
Smirking.
Laughing.
Untouchable.
For now.
Alfreda's gaze narrowed.
Every king had an Achilles' heel.
And she was going to find his.
Even if it meant ripping his kingdom apart brick by bloody brick.
—
Across the wasteland city, Celeste stood at her mother's grave.
No flowers.
No prayers.
Only a single bullet casing laid on the cracked headstone.
"You made me this way," she whispered. "Now watch what I become."
Behind her, an engine rumbled.
A black SUV.
Nathaniel stepped out, flanked by two masked soldiers.
Celeste turned.
Saw him.
Said nothing.
Nathaniel lifted his chin. "You with me?"
She didn't hesitate.
Not even a second.
She stepped off the grave like she was stepping off a battlefield.
Because she was.
"Let's kill the future," she said.
Nathaniel smiled grimly.
"First, let's kill the past."
—
Back in the boy's fortress.
He lounged on the throne, a knife spinning between his fingers, when the door burst open.
A messenger, pale and shaking.
"My lord—the Blackwood's alive."
The knife stilled.
"What did you say?" the boy asked, voice dangerously soft.
"Blackwood. Nathaniel. He's alive. And he's building an army."
The boy sat very, very still.
The room held its breath.
Then he laughed.
A slow, rasping, broken laugh.
"Good," he whispered.
He tossed the knife into the messenger's throat without looking.
The man collapsed, twitching.
The boy rose from his bone throne.
"Gather the council," he said.
"We're going hunting."
—
Later that night—
Nathaniel stood over a table littered with blueprints, files, and maps of the boy's empire.
Vincent leaned against the wall, watching.
"You sure you're ready for this, pup?" the old man drawled.
Nathaniel didn't look up.
"I was born ready," he said.
Vincent chuckled darkly.
"No. You were born wrong. But maybe that's exactly what we need now."
Nathaniel slammed a knife into the map—right into the boy's fortress location.
"We burn it down," he said.
"We tear out the heart," Celeste added coldly.
"And if the heart fights back?" Vincent asked.
Nathaniel smiled.
"Then we cut deeper."
—
Across the city:
Alfreda cornered one of the boy's lieutenants in a dead-end alley.
He begged.
He wept.
She listened.
And then she cut his throat.
No witnesses.
No survivors.
Only whispers.
Whispers of a new war.
A blood war.
One that wouldn't end until every traitor, every usurper, every ghost was ash.
—
Two Days Later.
The first strike came at dawn.
Nathaniel's army—small, vicious, loyal—struck the boy's safehouses like hammers.
Explosions ripped through the early morning mist.
Gunfire lit the streets.
Families that had pledged fealty to the new regime switched sides—or died screaming.
By nightfall, half the city was on fire.
Nathaniel stood atop the ruins of the boy's second-in-command's mansion, smoke swirling around him like a crown.
He held up the Widowmaker signet ring.
Crushed it between his fingers.
No more kings.
Only killers.
Only survivors.
—
But in the boy's fortress…
He watched the fires from his tower window, a glass of stolen champagne in hand.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't rage.
Didn't panic.
He just smiled.
Because he had one last card.
One final betrayal.
One weapon Nathaniel and the others didn't know existed.
Not yet.
The boy turned to his advisors.
"Let them come," he said.
"Let them think they're winning."
He raised his glass.
"Before I gut them all."