Askai had sworn off his thug life like it was a curse he was finally rid of—but some stains don't wash off, not really. That bat, old and scarred like the memories it carried, had always been there. He'd tucked it away like a piece of his past he didn't want to look at but couldn't bear to destroy. Because deep down, Askai had always known—fate was cruel, and it had a way of dragging old ghosts back from the dark.

The bat wasn't just a weapon. It was history. Regret. A promise he never got to keep. And now, holding it again, his fingers remembered the weight too well. It wasn't comfort. It was reckoning.

They stood across the street from the Motel where a neon board flashed the word 'Night Queen'. It buzzed faintly, flickering like a dying heartbeat. This part of the city wasn't just rough—it was venomous. Everything here bled desperation: the smoke-choked bars, the muffled bass from the strip clubs, the whisper-thin promises of the betting dens. This was the raw, rotting underbelly of Nolan—a place where nightmares wore cheap perfume and predators smiled with gold teeth.

Askai had known these streets as well as he knew his own breathing. He had once ruled them with a bat in his hand and Jordan by his side, when they still called it the Crow Street.

Back then, they had been untouchable. They weren't boys, they were a storm.

But storms die down. And boys grow up. Or try to.

Now, standing across that hellhole again, Askai felt the old pulse thrum in his blood. Not nostalgia. Not pride. Just the bitter taste of unfinished business and the fierce need to protect what was his.

In the front of the motel, a lone man sat on a stool, head bowed, lighting a cigarette. Askai and Jordan crossed the street in a few quick, silent steps, their movements fluid and lethal, like two shadows merging with the night.

Askai didn't waste time on threats. He needed speed and surprise. He called, "Hey!" and before the man looked up, Askai brought the bat down—not against his head, not yet—but with a sickening crunch into his side, where the ribs offered minimal protection. The man gasped, the breath knocked violently from his lungs, before Askai delivered the second, skull-numbing blow to his head, knocking him out cold. The cigarette tumbled, landing in a spray of sparks on the pavement.

Jordan had already sped past him, through the ruined entryway and into the motel's shabby reception area, the pipe in his hand a blur. Crash. Shatter. The sound of splintering wood and glass was instantly deafening.

When this beautiful, shy blonde would turn into a hell-wrecking monster - There was no tell! 

The owner—a fat, greasy man named Al with eyes like a panicked hog—walked out of his office, snarling at the noise and intrusion. But one good, terrified look at the bloodied, vengeful face of Jordan, and the sight of Askai, his face carved in stone, holding that familiar bat, and he started scrambling backward.

Askai didn't let him. He ran after him and threw himself against the door just before Al could lock it. The owner fell heavily onto his ass, scuttling backward like a crab, hands raised defensively as Askai advanced, the bat dangling loosely but menacingly in front of him.

"So you thought you would double-cross my man," Askai's voice was low, strained, a sound of contained violence, "and still walk with your limbs intact? You paid Zeke to step on what was ours."

"I'll return every pen—Umph!" Al choked back a scream as Askai, with ruthless, cold-blooded efficiency, rammed the bat down hard onto his legs. Again and again. The blows were delivered with precision, designed to inflict maximum, debilitating pain without killing.

"Try again!" Askai demanded, his eyes gleaming with the manic desperation of a man backed into a corner, as the bat landed on the owner's shoulder, ripping the joint out with a sickening pop. Al could not hold back the screams now; they tore raggedly from his throat, useless echoes in the empty night.

Jordan entered behind him, watching the bloody mess writhing on the floor, his expression hard.

"Ask him where the damn key is, Kai!"

Askai turned to the manager, who, in a spasm of terror, threw a heavy brass key across the room as if it had burned him, clasping his both hands in front of his face in useless supplication.

Jordan caught it mid-air without blinking and left the office, his mission separate and clear.

"Please…" The owner begged, his voice breaking. He knew Kai, the Terror of the Crow Streets. He had seen what he was capable of. He had never wished to conspire against Jordan, for the primal fear of seeing Kai again, but Zeke's boys had whispered: He was gone for good. Foolish! Stupid! He had believed them.

Askai grabbed his phone from the desk and tossed it at the whimpering man.

"Call those you called earlier. Tell them who is waiting here to greet them. You paid them a protection fee. Ask them to protect you now. Call!"

Al grabbed the phone closer to his chest, cradling the device like a treasure. With trembling fingers, he pressed down the buttons, his teeth chattering, and then it finally connected—

"Save me!" The owner cried into the phone, hysteria lacing every word. "Kai is here. He and Jordan… please come!"

The man on the other side of the line, likely one of Zeke's enforcers, cussed under his breath, the sound faint and muffled.

"Hello… hello…" The owner wailed, holding the phone tightly, as Askai tossed the bat from hand to hand, the ominous rhythm echoing the pounding of Al's failing heart.

But the line went dead.

The owner frantically pressed down on the buttons again, again, but the line was irretrievably disconnected.

"So," Askai began, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, his face inches from the manager's terrified eyes.

"I'll pay double of what I owe… please…"

Askai clicked his tongue, a soft, disappointed sound.

"Looks like you forgot how it used to work, Al." He picked up the bat, gripping it tightly, and moved toward the man, tears and blood pouring down Al's face in rivulets of terror.

"Kai only asks once."

He said, and then, with the terrifying certainty of a man who had chosen his path, he raised the bat high in the air again.