Prologue :

The rain hadn't stopped in hours.

Lucien Vale sat in the back seat if his black Maserati, the low purr of the Ding engine blending with the steady drumming of water in the roof. Outside the city blurred - neon bleeding into wet asphalt, colors stretching and wrapping in the rain-speckled glass.The smell of wet concrete sleeper into the car whenever the driver cracked the window to clear the fog.

Up ahead, his men waited in the mouth of a narrow alley, their figures half-swallowed by the shadows beneath a flickering streetlamp. The deal would be over soon - clean, quick, forgettable.

Until he saw him.

Across the street, framed in the doorway of a rundown bar, stood a lone figure. Rain soaked through his clothes, plastering dark hair to pale skin. He didn't move, didn't flinch, even as the storm wrapped itself around him like a shroud.

Lucien leaned closer to the cold glass, his gaze narrowing. Thought the destroyed pane and the silver curtain of rain, he caught the man's eyes - empty, distant, locked on something far beyond the street, far beyond the night itself.

There was no curiosity in them, no fear, no spark. Only a hollow, unyielding stillness that felt heavier than the storm itself.

From the shelter of the car, Lucien felt the distance between them like a taut wire - silent, invisible, unbreakable. And yet something about that emptiness tugged at him. It was the same hollow stare his mother had worn the day before she died.

The memory rose unbidden: her sitting at the kitchen table in the dim light, hands around a cup she never drank from, eyes fixed so where in the past him, past the walls, past the world. The silence had been unbearable then, and now it pressed against him again, carried on the gaze of a stranger in the rain.

He should have looked away.

Instead, he stayed, watching as water traced thin lines down the man's face, indistinguishable from tears. The city moved around him - cars splashing through puddles, lights shifting and fading, doors opening and closing - but he remained, a statue carved from something fragile and unbreakable at once.

Lucien didn't know why it mattered. He didn't take interest in strangers. Lives came and went in his world without a trace. Yet there was someone who seemed carved from absence defined by the weight of what was missing.

A sharp knock at the car door pulled him back. His driver leaned in, voice low "they are waiting."

The rain outside felt colder now, sharper. The kind of night that swallowed sounds and sins alike.

He cast one last glance through the storm. The man in the doorway hadn't moved.

Then Lucien Vale stepped out - not to toward him, but toward the kind of work that never washed clean.

Content Warning

This story contains depictions of violence, blood, death, and other mature themes. Reader discretion is advised.

The rain followed him into the alley.

Lucien Vale moved like a shadow, the soft echo of his steps swallowed by the storm. Behind him, two of his men peeled off to block the entrance, their silhouettes rigid against the dim streetlights. Ahead, the narrow space opened into a dead-end courtyard, lit only by a single buzzing lamp.

Three men knelt in the mud. Their hands were bound, clothes soaked through, hair plastered to their faces. One had blood on his temple, dark and sticky. Another was shivering, teeth chattering so hard it was audible over the rain.The air smelled of wet concrete, copper, and fear.

The first man blurted out, voice cracking, “Lucien—Mr. Vale—please… we didn’t mean it. It was a mistake, just business, you know that. We swear—we’ll make it right—”

The second jumped in before Lucien could respond, desperation tripping over his words. “Please, we’ll pay it back, all of it. Just—don’t kill us. Please.”

The third’s voice was almost a whisper, trembling. “You could… you could let us go. Just this once. I have a family to feed.”

Lucien’s expression didn’t shift. He stepped into the weak cone of light, letting them see him fully—the tailored black coat, the gloves, the stillness in his eyes that made men forget the cold and feel something far worse.

“You knew the rules,” he said, voice low, even. “And you broke them.”

The first man shook his head violently. “We didn’t know it was your shipment. If we’d known—God—we never would’ve touched it. No one wants trouble with the Mafia.Not with you.We cam fix it."

You broke the rules.” Lucien’s tone didn’t change. “And in my world, that means there’s nothing left to fix.”

Lucien’s eyes didn’t soften. The rain filled the silence for him, drops pattering on his coat and the mud sucking faintly at his boots as he stepped closer.

He stepped closer, the mud sucking at his boots. One man tried to crawl backward but hit the wall behind him, cornered. Lucien knelt, meeting his eyes. “You had a choice. You chose wrong.”

The first shot cracked through the rain, muffled by the suppressor. The body slumped sideways into the mud.

The second man began to sob, shaking his head. “No—please—” Another shot. The sob stopped.

"You think begging changes the outcome?” Lucien asked softly. “Choices have consequences.”

Only one remained. He was frozen, lips moving soundlessly. Lucien didn’t ask for last words. He stood over him, eyes cold, and pulled the trigger.

The bodies slumped in the mud, rain pooling around them in dark, spreading shapes. Steam curled faintly from the warm metal of the gun. Lucien holstered it, his gloves unmarked.

"Clean it,” he said to his men without looking back. He turned and walked toward the mouth of the alley, the storm wrapping around him once more.

No one called after him. No one dared.

Rain still clung to the city, turning every streetlight into a halo of blurred gold. Water pooled in the uneven streets, reflecting the dim glow of neon signs like fractured glass. Inside the black sedan, the air felt warm but heavy, the faint scent of leather and gunpowder lingering—something that never truly left Lucien’s world.

He sat back in the leather seat, one gloved hand resting loosely on his knee, the other lying idle on the armrest. The car was silent, save for the steady drum of rain against the windows. The sound had a rhythm, slow but relentless, like a heartbeat he couldn’t quite escape.

The city crawled past in streaks of blurred light and shadow, the windshield wipers struggling to keep up with the downpour. Inside the car, it was quiet- only the rhythmic patter of rain against glass filled the silence.

Old brick buildings leaned toward the streets, their façades weathered by years of storms and neglect. A stray cat darted across the road, disappearing into an alley. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed and faded.That was the only moment the silence dared to break.

They took the same route as before.

Lucien’s gaze drifted without focus until a flicker of movement—or perhaps the absence of it—caught his eye. And there he was.

Across the street, framed once again in the doorway of that rundown bar. The awning above him dripped steadily, the water tracing silver lines down his shoulders. Rain plastered dark hair to pale skin. His clothes, soaked through, clung to a frame too still for someone simply waiting out the weather. He didn’t shift his weight, didn’t cross his arms for warmth. He simply stood there—motionless, gaze distant, as though the city around him was nothing but a faint memory.

Lucien studied him in silence. There was something about that stillness that clung to the air, an invisible gravity that drew his attention and refused to let go. It wasn’t just the man’s posture—it was the way his eyes seemed fixed on something far beyond the street in front of him. Eyes like that didn’t belong to someone lost in thought. They belonged to someone who had already lost too much.

The car rolled past, tires hissing against the wet asphalt. Lucien’s head turned slightly, watching as the figure shrank in the window’s frame. The man didn’t look up. Didn’t even blink.

The car moved on, and soon the figure vanished from sight, swallowed by the rain and the dim light.

Lucien sat back again, though his chest felt heavier than it had moments ago. He told himself it didn’t matter—that he didn’t even know the man’s name, and wouldn’t remember him by tomorrow. But the image was already carved into his mind like a scar.

When the bar finally slipped from view, Lucien realized his hand had tightened into a fist in his lap. He loosened his grip slowly, but the tension lingered, refusing to let go.