Marcus Kane stepped off the battered husk of a '79 Cheetah, its once-sleek lines now a patchwork of rust scars and faded primer gray, the kind of ride that screamed "borrowed from a junkyard grave." His olive-drab duffel—stamped with faded USMC ink, heavy as unresolved grudges—hung slung over one shoulder, the strap biting into muscle like an old habit refusing to die. The engine ticked down to silence behind him, a low wheeze that mirrored the smog-choked exhale of Saints Row itself.
His steel-toed combat boot ground down on a discarded Freckle Bitch's cup, the cheap plastic crumpling underfoot with a brittle crack—empty, of course, stained with the dregs of some neon-green slush that reeked of artificial lime and regret. A freckle of dried soda flecked the sole, sticking like a bad memory. Marcus paused, hazel eyes narrowing against the haze, and spat a low curse under his breath. Fucking Christ. He'd forgotten how deep the Row's rot ran, how it clawed at your lungs with every breath, turning the air thick as congealing blood. Five years under Middle Eastern suns had sand-blasted his edges, but this? This was the original wound, reopened and festering, the cracked-concrete cradle that had spat him out raw and hungry.
He'd clawed his way up here once, dodging the Westside Rollerz' ricochet joyrides and the Vice Kings' shadow-boxing turf wars, but the pull of the streets had always felt like a noose disguised as family. Straight out of high school—diploma half-earned, knuckles still bruised from that dumbass brawl with Johnny Gat over a pool cue and a bad bet—he'd enlisted. Craved something sharper than slinging corner-store heists or falling in with the Kings, their gold chains and gospel-sampled anthems a siren call for every black kid with fire in their veins. The Carnales? Forget it. They recruited deep from the barrios, all machismo and maraca rhythms, and Marcus's olive tone—baked in by desert patrols, not bloodlines—might've bought him a sideways glance before the boot. Nah. The Corps had been his out, a steel spine grafted onto the chaos.
They'd molded him fast, those drill instructors with voices like gravel in a blender. Street instincts translated clean: the way he'd ghosted through back-alley scraps as a kid became textbook fireteam flanks, his ice-vein stare turning green recruits into operators who ate sand for breakfast. Five years blurred into a fever-dream montage—boots kicking in sun-bleached doors in Fallujah's labyrinth, overwatch perches in Mosul's skeletal high-rises, the M16's muzzle flash painting night into day. Started as a boot rifleman, humping a SAW through knee-deep wadis, but it wasn't long before he was the one calling shots. His men. The weight of that trust had settled in his chest like a loaded mag—familiar, fierce, the kind of love that didn't need words, just a nod across a kill zone. Every op, every after-action where brass pinned another cluster on his rack, he'd felt it coil tighter: this was purpose, unfiltered. His CO had pulled him aside once, over lukewarm MRE coffee in a FOB tent, eyes gleaming like he'd spotted a diamond in the dust. "Kane, you're MARSOC material. Recon's got your name penciled in—keep stacking bodies like this, and we'll have you kicking doors Uncle Sam forgot existed."
Then one clusterfuck of a mission had yanked the pin on it all.
It was billed as routine: HVT compound in a dust-choked village, intel painting it as a ghost town held by half a dozen tangos, easy in-and-out for the squad. Marcus had led the breach himself, stacked tight with his ghosts—Ramirez on point with the breacher charge, Doc Hale covering flanks, the rest fanning out like they'd rehearsed a thousand times. But the package was rotten from the jump: brass feeding them ghost data, ignoring the chatter of local informants who'd whispered about families hunkered in basements. The door blew, and hell poured out—AKs chattering from every shadowed archway, RPGs turning the courtyard into a gravel blender. It was a killbox, pure and simple, the village's narrow alleys funneling them into a meat grinder. They fought like demons, Marcus barking overrides through the roar, turning the ambush into a counterpour: frags arcing into windows, his M16 chewing through mags until the barrel glowed cherry-red. Tangos dropped in heaps—eight confirmed, maybe more—but the civvies... fuck. A woman clutching a kid, caught crossfire in the haze; an old man shredded by shrapnel when the wall caved. Unavoidable. The kind of math that haunted you in the rack, replaying on loop.
Aftermath was a scalpel to the gut. High command, ass-deep in congressional hearings and CNN optics, needed a villain to feed the machine. Flawed intel? Buried. ROE violations? Nah. Reckless aggression—that was the charge, pinned square on Marcus like a bullseye. The inquiry was theater: starched uniforms grilling him under fluorescents, twisting his SITREP into a confession. No appeals, no silver star—just a dishonorable stamped on his DD-214, hot as a fresh brand. Fucking politics. The betrayal burned deeper than any IED scar, leaving him hollowed out, duffel in hand, Greyhound exhaust still clinging to his civvies as Stilwater's neon sprawl swallowed him whole again.
He shifted the bag's weight, boot scraping the cup's remnants into the gutter, and scanned the block like old times—habit, not paranoia. Sirens wailed distant, a familiar dirge threading through the lowrider bass thumping from a hydrant-side dice game.
Marcus shouldered the duffel higher, the strap's worn canvas digging into his trap like a reminder that some burdens never lightened, and struck out toward the skeletal outline of his old walk-up—six blocks east, past the flickering neon of the Row's underbelly, the only scrap of legacy his folks had left him before a stray burst from a Vice Kings' drive-by turned their Crown Vic into a colander and their lives into chalk outlines on rain-slick asphalt. He'd been twelve, hunkered in the back seat with a half-eaten Big Bad Burger clutched in his fist, the world exploding in staccato muzzle flares and the wet thump of bullets punching through metal. Ma's scream cut short mid-syllable; Pop's hands spasmed on the wheel, veering them into a hydrant that sprayed crimson-tinged water like a busted artery. The inheritance? A shoebox of faded Polaroids, a stack of unpaid bills that smelled like his old man's aftershave, and that third-floor
shitbox apartment with its perpetually groaning pipes and a view of the Saints Row district's perpetual twilight. No will, no ceremony—just survival's cold math, teaching him early that family was a luxury you buried quick or it buried you.
Dusk had bled into the streets like spilled motor oil, the sun a bloated bruise sinking behind the jagged silhouettes of half-condemned tenements, but the Row pulsed with its own feverish life, refusing the night's mercy. Lowriders crawled the curbs on chrome-spoke rims, hydraulics hissing like territorial snakes, bass from trunk-rattling systems thumping out reggaeton laced with threats—Los Carnales marking their lane, gold chains glinting under sodium lamps like fool's pyrite. Bangers clustered in doorways, bandanas knotted tight around tattooed throats, passing blunts and side-eyeing the shadows for rivals or badges. Hookers worked the corners with the weary grace of ghosts who'd outlived their hauntings, skirts hiked high on fishnet thighs, lips painted bruise-purple, calling out in honeyed drawls that masked the edge of desperation. One peeled off the pack near a gutted payphone booth—a rail-thin Latina with track marks mapping her arms like forgotten constellations, eyes hollowed by too many bad highs—sauntering into his path with a sway that screamed pay for the illusion. "Hey, baby," she purred, nails like lacquered talons grazing his bomber jacket's zipper, breath fogged with cheap menthol and cheaper gin. "Lookin' lost. Let Mama fix that for ya—got a spot 'round back, real cozy."
Marcus didn't break stride, just rolled his shoulder to shake her off like shedding rainwater, hazel eyes sliding past her without a flicker of heat or pity. Not tonight, sister. Not ever. The Row's trade had always been a grindstone for souls, wearing them down to nubs, and he'd clawed his way out once—ain't sliding back into that muck for a fleeting pump of endorphins laced with regret and the clap. She huffed a laugh, bitter as burnt coffee, and melted back into the throng, already scanning for the next mark dumb enough to bite. He could feel the night's undercurrent tugging at him, that familiar itch between his shoulder blades where complacency bred knives in the dark, but five years of humping rucks through IED-littered wadis had forged him into something sharper, less forgiving. The Corps hadn't just taught him to kill; it'd etched the calculus of threats into his bones—assess, prioritize, neutralize.
His hand dipped instinctively to the small of his back, fingers brushing the Vice-9's polymer grip tucked into his waistband, the pistol's cold weight a talisman against the chaos. Adjusted it with a subtle twist—snug against the faded camo cargos that still carried faint sand grains from his last desert rotation—ensuring the holster's cant kept it concealed under the jacket's hem, ready for the draw that might come from a wrong glance or a whispered beef. On his left hip rode the KA-BAR, its seven-inch blade sheathed in scarred black leather, the edge honed to a whisper by boot camp stones and field sharpeners; it was more than a tool, it was an extension, the Marine's creed etched into its fuller: No better friend, no worse foe. He'd buried more than one ghost with that pigsticker, from Fallujah door-kickers to the rare bar scrap back stateside, and the Row's predators sensed it like sharks scenting chum.
Word traveled in packs here, faster than lead, and the gangers he ghosted past clocked him quick—eyes narrowing over rolled doobies and half-pulled hammers, the duffel's olive-drab bulk screaming jarhead returnee, a walking echo of discipline in a sea of spray-paint anarchy. One cluster of Rollerz wannabes—kids barely out of juvie, baggy jeans sagging under the weight of knockoff Nikes—leaned against a chain-link fence rattling with wind-chime graffiti, their stares lingering on the exposed ink peeking from his rolled sleeve: the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor stamped bold across his inner forearm, black lines faded but unbowed, a badge of the suck that separated tourists from operators. Then higher, collaring his neck like a warning label, the stylized skull—jaw unhinged in a perpetual rictus, "REAPER" scrawled in jagged script across the forehead, crosshatched with tally marks he'd added himself after each op that left tangos cooling in the dust.
He'd just brushed past a wiry brother hawking bootleg watches from a ratty folding table propped against a graffiti-scarred lamppost—Timex knockoffs and faux Rolexes glinting under the sodium glare, the seller's pitch a gravelly mantra of "Timin' is everythin', boss—get you synced for the hustle, twenty bones flat"—when the chaos cracked open around the corner. Vice Kings trio, gold chains swinging like nooses under their baggy hoodies, hunched over a fresh tag job, spray cans hissing purple over faded blue Rollerz scrawl on a brick wall that'd seen more beefs than a slaughterhouse. "Fuck them roller bitches," one muttered, Levar probably, shaking the can for that final flourish—until three Westside Rollerz peeled from the shadows, bats and pipes in hand, faces twisted in territorial snarl. "Y'all Kings trespassin'—time to pay the toll," the lead Roller barked, swinging a Louisville Slugger that cracked against a Vice King's jaw with a wet thwack, dropping him to spit teeth into the gutter.
Fists flew in a blur of knuckles and curses, the brawl devolving into a street-level tornado—elbows cracking ribs, boots stomping fingers, one Roller breaking free and bolting past Marcus with a wild-eyed glance, spray can whizzing after him like a dud grenade. Marcus froze mid-stride, hazel eyes snapping to the fray, the duffel hitting pavement as instinct kicked in harder than boot camp PT. But the Row escalated fast: a cherry-red Hollywood screeched to a halt, disgorging three Los Carnales in low-slung Dickies and rosary necklaces, Mac-10s barking lead that turned the fistfight into a slaughter pen. Bullets stitched the air, one Vice King folding with a gut-shot gurgle, Rollerz scattering as rounds chewed brick and flesh alike—two Kings down in red pools, Rollerz bodies crumpling like discarded rags, one Carnale catching a stray pipe to the temple before his crew mowed the rest.
The air reeked of cordite and copper, the surviving Carnales straightening with cartel swagger, muzzles smoking—until that escaped Roller doubled back, K6 Krukov braced in trembling hands, popping off bursts that dropped one Carnale mid-laugh, the Hollywood's hood blooming divots. "Eat this, putos!" he yelled, adrenaline-fueled rage twisting his features as the AK's chatter echoed off tenements. But victory turned sour: spotting Marcus in the crossfire haze—
duffel abandoned, stance low like a operator clocking threats—the Roller pivoted, barrel swinging toward him with a feral gleam, finger whitening on the trigger for the bystander tax.
No hesitation; Marcus's Vice-9 cleared his waistband in a fluid draw, the 1911's sights aligning like gospel truth—crack, center mass punching through the Roller's sternum, sternum cracking under the hollowpoint's bloom, the kid staggering with a wet wheeze as his AK dipped wild. Follow-up seamless: crack, the headshot erasing his snarl in a crimson halo, skull fragments peppering the wall as he ragdolled backward, Krukov clattering useless into the storm drain.
But the night stacked threats like bad bets: from the haze, the last Vice King emerged—gold-grilled sneer under a tilted fedora, GDHC .50 gripped like judgment day, having ghosted the shootout's edges for his cleanup angle. Again, the math was merciless: pivot sharp as a bayonet twist, Vice-9 whipping level—crack, chest hit folding the King mid-strut, ribs splintering like cheap plywood under the slug's fury. The capper: crack, headshot vaporizing the grill and the ego behind it, the enforcer spinning into the gutter with a brackish splash, gold teeth sinking into the murk like buried treasure nobody wanted.
The street clawed back into a brittle hush, gunfire's echoes fading into the Row's low growl—brass casings skittering like loose change over oil-slick pavement, catching sodium light amid the sprawl of bodies. Vice Kings in gold-chain tangles, Rollerz crumpled like junked dummies, Carnales slumped with rosaries askew, all fodder for the Row's cold math: meat for the gutter, fodder for tomorrow's headlines. The Hollywood's grille hissed steam from its riddled radiator, no explosive gut-punch to drag innocents under—just cordite sting and blood's iron reek hanging thick. Marcus planted firm, Vice-9 hot in his grip, slide locked on empty, pulse steady under scarred olive skin. Hazel eyes swept rooftops, alleys, fire escapes—Corps reflex clearing sectors—KA-BAR idle on his hip, edge clean for now.
Sirens ghosted distant, Stilwater's wolves sniffing the kill, but boots hit pavement closer: measured steps slicing the haze from an alley mouth. A tall black man emerged first—solid frame like a preacher who'd scrapped for his flock, white polo with purple collar hugging lean muscle over faded jeans, a black cap backwards and dark eyes keen under furrowed brows. Gold chains at his throat gleamed subtly, steps carrying quiet command, like he'd tamed worse storms. Beside him, a wiry white guy in his twenties—short blonde spikes, trimmed goatee framing a tight jaw, black tee with purple and white stripe horizontally, pale blue eyes flat and watchful, face etched with the wear of too many double-crosses.
The tall one paused at the edge, scanning Carnales' heaps, the dropped AK, then locking on Marcus—appraisal raw, like sizing a new blade. Voice dropped low, gravel-deep with street-bred rumble, commanding without volume. "Goddamn... you hit like the reaper comin' due. Born for
this smoke."
The wiry one thumbed his .38—a snub blue steel—back into hiding, slow and ritualistic, brushing powder from his brow. Eyes traced Marcus: duffel ditched nearby, Marine tat on the arm, Reaper skull at the neck—operator ink screaming volumes. "Row's a meat grinder now," he said, voice smooth with a New York edge, sarcasm thin but there, like a hustler mid-bluff. "Carnales, Kings, Rollerz chewin' turf to bone. You chopped through these fucker. Troy." Hand out, callused, eyes steady—testing, not trapping, goatee twitching faint. The clasp hit quick when Marcus took it—firm, no drag, goatee quirking that half-smirk veiling the cool math underneath, like he'd clocked worse unknowns and flipped 'em to assets.
The tall one closed the line next, his scarred paw extending smooth—long fingers etched from old wars, grip steel-forged when Marcus locked in, bay rum ghosting faint like a low sig. "Julius," he rumbled, the name dropping heavy as thrown iron, dark eyes drilling under those arched brows, holding the stare raw under the jittering lamps. Smog choked the unsaid between the three, no pull from dirt unspilled—just the seal, electric. "Rare someone poppin' three crews blind like that. Row's rottin' from the inside—gangs clawin' scraps that ain't theirs, leavin' strays like you to grind in the killbox just for breathin' the air. We run a set pushin' back, fixin' the mess 'fore it chokes us all. Saints Row church, couple blocks east off here. If you're lookin' to get some payback, we're happy to bring you on."
Marcus released the grip easily, scarred knuckles popping faint as he thumbed the Vice-9 back into his waistband—snug against the camo cargos, grip warm from the frenzy, a familiar weight that grounded him like an old scar itching in the rain. He nodded at the two shadows, hazel eyes flicking between Julius's unyielding stare and Troy's veiled cool, the Row's sodium haze painting their faces in stark contrasts: the tall one's silver chain a subtle glint, the wiry one's goatee catching a stray flicker from a dying bulb. "Name's Marcus," he said, voice low and scraped, the syllables hanging brief like spent brass.
He paused, boot grinding a stray casing into the oil-slick grit, mind churning the civilian void yawning ahead—five years of structured kill-or-be-killed traded for what? Clocking in at some rust-belt factory, sweat-stinking shifts for minimum wage and a pat on the back from suits who'd never humped a ruck through hell? Or slinging muscle as a club bouncer, breaking up drunk brawls over spilled shots, the brass's scapegoat badge still burning fresh under his skin? Nah, fuck that noise. The Corps had hammered him into a blade—relentless, efficient, the Reaper who turned ambushes into body counts—and if Uncle Sam wanted to sheath him dull and discarded, fine. He'd unsheathe himself, carve his own edge in the streets that birthed him. The thought coiled hot in his gut, a spark against the dull ache of discharge regret. "Fuck it," he muttered, jagged-lipped smirk cracking his scar. "I'll drop my shit at the apartment and head
over to the church."
Julius nodded once, sealing the pact quiet with that gravel authority, heavy brows easing a fraction like a storm front cracking open; Troy's half-smirk deepened the layers behind his pale blues, goatee twitching faint as he gave the alley a quick sweep—shadows for tails, rooftops for perchers. "Sounds good, playa," the black man drawled, "See you there." Julius jerked his chin toward the mouth they'd come from, motioning Troy to fall back the way they'd ghosted in—pair melting into the gloom like they'd owned it since the Row drew breath, leaving the echo of purpose hanging thicker than the sirens' distant wail.
Marcus lingered a beat in the ambush's cooling husk, duffel at his feet like a dropped gauntlet, the street a canvas of his handiwork: bodies splayed in indifferent sprawl, Carnales' rosaries tangled in gutter muck, a Rollerz flatbill floating lazy in a crimson puddle, Vice Kings' gold teeth winking dull under the lamps. He dragged a slow breath, savoring the metallic tang of fresh-spilled blood laced with gunpowder's acrid bite—ozone-sharp, like lightning-cracked earth after a desert patrol, the scent that used to steady him in the suck, now stirring something feral and alive under his ribs. Excitement prickled his skin, electric and unwelcome in its familiarity; he'd half-dreaded Stateside would sand him blunt, turn the weapon into a wage-slave ghost haunting dive bars and dead-end shifts, no enemy worth the hunt. But here? The Row thrummed with threats stacked like cordwood—Carnales creeping borders,Vice Kings empire from purple thrones, Rollerz joyriding chaos into every corner. His pulse quickened, not fear but hunger, the old Reaper itch flaring hot.
The smile splitting his face would've chilled any stray onlooker—lips curling wolfish over teeth, hazel eyes glinting cold under the scar's jagged pull, a rictus that promised ledgers balanced in lead and bone. He crouched fluid, scooping the Rollerz's dropped Krukov from the storm drain's lip—AK's polymer stock scarred from rough love, barrel still warm, faint wisps of smoke curling lazy from the muzzle like a dragon's exhale. Thumbed the mag release with practiced flick, slapping the curved banana free: half-loaded, 20 rounds of 7.62 beauty gleaming brass under the light, enough to tip a skirmish or chew through a door if the church "welcome" turned sideways. Racked the bolt quick—chamber hot, round nosed in—before slamming it home with a metallic chunk. Useful, he thought, slamming it home with a metallic chunk that echoed his resolve, slinging the rifle loose over one shoulder like an old friend reclaimed. Duffel yanked up next, strap biting familiar into his trap, and he struck out toward the apartment's sagging stoop—three blocks of shadowed Row, the night's pulse syncing to his tread, excitement coiling tighter, monstrous and unapologetic. This crusade? Might be the forge he needed. Or the next body count.
Either way, the dull was dead.