The sun was blazing over the city, far too cheerful for the kind of thoughts running through Darius’s head. He sat on the couch with his face buried in one hand, staring at a framed picture of his mother like it might somehow explain how everything had gone so wrong. The memories came back in waves — the night he went out with his friends, Kian and Tobin, and crossed a line there was no coming back from. He tried to shake it off, but guilt has a way of sticking to you.
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A few months earlier, under the cover of night, the three of them had gone hunting for easy money. They had convinced themselves they were just taking from people who had more than enough, but that excuse never made them good men. They were armed and restless, carrying rifles, knives, and swords, moving toward a newly built house that had been marked for them by someone who wanted to stay anonymous and get paid for it.
Darius led the group. He had done this enough times to know how to look calm while his heart was running a marathon. Kian carried a rifle and a sword, trying hard to look like a man built for danger. Before they moved in, they muttered their little slogan — the one they had started repeating like it actually meant something.
“Let guts make the impossible possible, and let the brain work pretty well.”
Tobin snorted under his breath, then went to the gate with a silenced pistol and forced it open. The three of them moved carefully toward the door, checking both sides as if danger might politely announce itself first. A cold wind brushed their bare arms, and for a second even they seemed to remember that this was a terrible life choice.
Darius kicked the door open.
They stormed inside.
At the table sat a young married couple and their little boy, sharing supper and laughing in the comfort of a normal evening. Their peace lasted about one second too long. The husband, Mikel, stood up first, only to find himself staring into the mouth of a gun. His wife, Lana, froze with her mouth slightly open, and the child just stared, too small to understand what was happening. Lana tried to scream, but there was no time for panic. The room had already been taken over.
“Bring out all your money,” Darius shouted. “Cash, bank accounts, whatever you’ve got. Hand it over, and maybe you walk out of this night alive.”
“I don’t have money here,” Mikel said, his voice shaking so badly it barely sounded like his own.
Darius fired. Lana fell, and Mikel’s face broke in a way that no words could fix.
“I’ll give you everything,” he begged. “Just don’t touch my wife or my child. Please.”
“Then don’t waste our time,” Darius snapped.
Terrified, Mikel gave them access to his offshore account and handed over every bit of cash in the house. But when they got what they wanted, the violence did not stop there. Kian raised his rifle and killed Lana. Tobin followed and shot Mikel. Then Darius turned on the child and ended it without hesitation. When it was over, the house felt emptier than silence.
“We leave no loose ends,” Darius said flatly.
Mikel, dying on the floor, looked toward his wife and child with tears in his eyes.
“I’m dying before I finish my destiny,” he whispered. “One moment we were laughing, and the next it was all gone. Everything I worked for disappeared in seconds. I forgive you, but I won’t forget this. The world is ruthless. The hustle, the grind, all of it — gone. Until we meet again.”
His strength faded. He crawled weakly toward his family one last time before death finally caught up with him. If only he could turn the night around. If only life worked that way.
“Wake up!”
Esther’s voice snapped Darius back into the present. He jerked upright on the couch, breathing hard, still haunted by the faces of Mikel and his family. They were not the only ones, either. The past kept replaying itself in his head like a punishment that refused to end. Then a loud bang hit the door.
Everything froze.
In a second, the door flew open, and they all stood there in stunned silence.
