Elias
The precinct was buzzing with static, the kind of restless energy that came when the city bled too fast for the cops to catch up. Phones rang. Coffee burned. Reports piled high and useless.
Elias Ward sat at his desk in the chaos, a cigarette smoldering in the corner of his mouth, staring down at a mess of photographs spread across the wood.
Bodies. Warehouses. Gangs. All threads tied to one name.
Damian Blackwell.
And now—something new.
He tapped a single photograph with his pen: crimson spray paint scrawled across a warehouse wall.
OMEGA.
Omegas didn't move like this. Not here. They stayed hidden, masked, protected—or they were claimed by Alphas who turned them into property. They didn't carve warnings into walls. They didn't leave signatures. They didn't survive this long.
Unless someone was keeping them alive.
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The Lead
The tip came from a dive bar in East End, the kind of place where the floor stuck to your boots and every eye measured the price of silence.
Elias slid a crumpled photo across the counter: grainy, pulled from a security camera outside a nightclub two nights ago. A hooded figure, lean and Omega-coded, caught in the blur of motion—knife in hand.
"You've seen him?" Elias asked.
The bartender froze. His eyes flicked to the photo, then to Elias. For a long moment he didn't answer. Then, in a low whisper:
"They say he tried to kill Blackwell."
Elias's pen stilled over his notebook. "And?"
The bartender licked his lips nervously. "And Blackwell didn't kill him. No one gets that close and lives. Not unless Blackwell… wants them to."
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Elias's Thoughts
Back in his car, Elias lit another cigarette, staring out at the rain-washed street. The words repeated like a drum in his head.
No one gets that close and lives.
Blackwell didn't spare people. Not rivals, not threats, not even mistakes. His empire was built on blood and silence.
So why was a rogue Omega—an assassin, no less—still walking the streets?
Elias exhaled smoke, the truth dawning sharp and cold.
Because Blackwell wanted him alive.
And if that was true… then this wasn't just a gang war. This was about something deeper, something dangerous enough to tear the city apart.
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