The city did not sleep after the sniper’s confession. It festered.
Every alleyway hummed with whispers, every minister’s office trembled under silent questions: How far has the Order dug its roots?

Ben Royale knew the answer already. “Too far.”

The war-room smelled of smoke and sweat. Maps stretched across the oak table, pins driven into port districts, red circles bleeding over rail lines. At the head, Ben’s voice was low, steel in velvet.
“The Order doesn’t live in shadows alone. It lives in shipments, in factories, in ministries. Tonight, we bleed them.”

John stood at his shoulder, silent, arms folded. Behind them, Owen leaned forward, eyes burning, watching routes traced in ink like veins across the city.

“They move heroin through the docks,” one of the Shadows reported. “Processed in warehouses north of the river. Weapons smuggled under the same manifests — declared as ‘machinery.’ Hotel chains launder their cash.”
“And the police?” Ben asked.
“Half blind. Half bought.”

Owen didn’t flinch. He was beginning to understand: bullets were only the surface. Real war was waged with ledgers.

That night, Owen watched from the estate’s surveillance hub as a Shadow agent entered a five-star hotel. The restaurant gleamed like a cathedral of glass and chandeliers. It was the kind of place where no guns were allowed, where ministers could toast champagne under the illusion of safety.

At a back table, a courier slid a briefcase beneath polished marble. Inside: bricks of cash and a folded map of supply routes. On another floor, a government inspector laughed with Kai Zeke, their hands brushing in a conspirator’s intimacy. Cameras caught everything.

From a private balcony, Thanos appeared in silhouette. His hand lingered too long on the minister’s shoulder, his smile rehearsed. The camera caught him whispering something, eyes wet — pleading? Or performing? Owen leaned closer to the screen, his fists tightening.

“Father,” he whispered, “which side are you smiling for?”

The first strike came at midnight.

SUVs slid like predators into the industrial quarter. The Shadows breached a warehouse that stank of ammonia and scorched metal. Inside: drums of precursor chemicals, half-finished weapons, and a ledger scrawled with numbers and initials.

Gunfire rattled the walls. Men loyal to the Order fought with desperation, buying time. By the time the smoke cleared, half the inventory had vanished into trucks that slipped through side alleys.

But the ledger was real. The Shadows carried it out in blood-stained hands.

Dawn broke red when the betrayal came.

A constable, one of Ben’s supposed allies in the intelligence division, was found slumped in a motel bathroom. Shot twice in the head, staged as a robbery. His badge lay on the sink beside a stack of torn invoices.

Ben stared at the photographs in silence. John muttered, “They knew we were coming.”

Owen studied the pictures longer than either of them. His voice, when it came, was cold:
“The Order doesn’t kill pawns for mistakes. They kill them for loyalty. He was ours. That’s why he died.”

Ben looked at him sharply — surprised at the clarity in his tone. Owen didn’t look away.

That evening, Owen sat with the seized ledger. The pages smelled of sweat and chemical dust. Numbers crawled down in columns, initials beside them. One name repeated, circled twice: Aegis Auditing & Trust.

He whispered the name once. Then again. He felt the words carve into him.

On the corner of the page, he drew a mark. His first mark.

The war had shifted. Bullets had been traded for contracts, but the blood was the same. And Owen understood now:
The throne would not be won with crowns or councils. It would be won with ledgers, silence, and the slow strangling of every name in these pages.