"Shen! Shen! Shen! Shen!!!!!"
Zac Tucker's roar echoed down the damp corridors of the prison block, his voice sharp enough to slice through the silence.
Inside his dimly lit cell, he thrashed like a caged animal, slamming his fists against the concrete walls until his knuckles split open.
His breath came in ragged gasps, sweat dripping down his temples as fury twisted his face.
He knew now. He finally knew that Shan Goddem—the man the world feared and worshiped—was none other than Shen Tucker, his older twin brother.
The same brother who had taken everything from him—the Tucker Company, his position, his pride. And Ryona Monroe… the woman Zac swore was his. Except she never loved him. Not once.
"Shen Goddem…" Zac hissed, the name curling off his tongue like venom. "The infamous owner of the Black Dragon Group. The big MNC, trading, investments… You were the founder all along, huh? My chibai brother Shen Tucker turned out to be you! How the fuck is that even possible?!"
He kicked over his steel chair, laughing—short, broken bursts that slid into full-blown hysteria.
Metal clanged. Blood smeared. The sound of madness filled the cell.
"Fine," Zac muttered, his voice dropping to a low growl. "You want me to be the bad guy? Then I'll be the bad guy."
It was past midnight.
The prison block slept under flickering fluorescent lights. A lone guard made his routine rounds, dragging his boots lazily over the cold concrete floor.
He checked each cell—counted heads, adjusted his flashlight, and hummed to keep the silence away.
When he reached Cell 23—Zac Tucker's cell—he paused. The bed was empty. He blinked. Then blinked again.
"What the fuck…?" The guard reached for his radio. "Radio Two, do you copy? I got a missing celler, requesting permission to inspect—"
Static.
Then a faint click of approval.
He unlocked the door and pushed it open slowly. The moment the metal door creaked, a chill slid down his spine. The room was empty—no sound, no breathing, nothing.
"Code Yellow! I repeat, Code Yellow! Inmate number 116207 is nowhere to be found! Requesting backup—"
The guard froze. A cold drop of sweat ran down his cheek. Something was above him.
He tilted his head back slowly—and saw Zac Tucker, hanging upside down from the cell's upper railings, holding himself there with just his fingers, doing slow, rhythmic push-ups in the air.
His muscles quivered, veins bulging under the pale glow. His eyes, bloodshot and wild, locked onto the guard with a twisted grin.
"Hello," Zac whispered.
Before the guard could even aim his M4, Zac dropped.
He landed silently on the guard's shoulders, wrapping his legs around the man's neck. The guard's scream was muffled as Zac slammed his fists into the man's skull—once, twice, again—until bone cracked and blood sprayed across the walls.
The man collapsed, twitching, his radio hissing static beside him.
Zac rose from the corpse and picked up the M4, spinning it in his hand with a smirk.
"Tch. Heavy load. Trigger's tight. Recoil's stiff."
He glanced at the lifeless body on the floor. "But no matter who holds the gun… in the end—"
Two more guards appeared at the hallway's corner, shouting commands.
Zac didn't wait. He lunged forward like a panther, spinning midair. His knee smashed into the first guard's chest, sending him crashing into the wall.
Before the second could react, Zac twisted behind him, wrapped an arm around his throat, and snapped it with a sickening crack. The bodies dropped in unison.
Zac exhaled, stretching his left arm over his head until his joints popped.
"I'm always the fucking villain," he said softly, almost to himself.
Then he smiled—a slow, crooked, unholy smile—as the red emergency lights began to flash.
He swaggered down the corridor, shoulders loose, every step a deliberate show. Cells on his left and right filled with faces pressed against bars, criminals clawing and begging for mercy. They reached out with trembling hands, their voices a wet chorus of pleas.
"Uhhh, beg," Zac purred, amusement thick in his voice. "It's so… erotic. Ahaha."
Then a squad of guards crashed through the far doorway, weapons up. They opened fire. Zac moved like music.
He dove toward a nearby empty cell, slid through the opening, and used the metal frame to push off the wall, launching himself into the chaos.
Bullets stitched the air. The guards flicked their rifles to single shot to conserve rounds. Zac heard the clicks and smiled.
He ran along the cell wall with a catlike grace, planting his feet and springing off the concrete.
He flipped over a low railing and landed chest first on a guard, crushing the man to the floor. In one fluid motion, Zac stripped the fallen guard's pistol.
He spun it in his hand, felt the cold metal, and with a manic rhythm fired a triple burst into the corridor, sending three men staggering back with holes in their torsos.
A second guard tried to flank him. Zac leapt up, driving the heel of his palm into the man's face, then secured a ride by vaulting onto his shoulders.
With his thigh locked against the guard's jaw, he twisted until the neck snapped with a sick, decisive snap.
The man's body convulsed, fingers jerking uselessly in the air like a puppet cut from its strings.
Zac snatched two pistols from the bodies around him. He spun on the dead man's head as if it were a pivot, firing wild, precise bursts.
Each shot was a punctuation mark in his private symphony of blood. He laughed as he shot, a high, delighted sound that sat wrong in the dim corridor.
A stray round slammed into a nearby water tank. The metal screamed and split. The tank burst with a thunderous roar.
Water cascaded down the hallway in a white, roaring sheet. Sparks from severed wiring turned the torrent into a steam and electric hiss.
He used the sudden flood. Zac slid across the slick floor, body low, letting the water carry him like a blade.
He skimmed under falling debris, used the wet surface to skid past incoming gunfire, and kicked off a tipped-over bollard to vault over a cluster of stunned guards.
The spray masked his movements and turned the corridor into a hazardous dance floor.
Two more guards rushed him, weapons braced. Zac was already moving. He slipped through the water burst, snatched a guard's M4 in a backward reach, and executed a backward somersault that ended with him standing atop a toppled bench.
From that perch he fired down in short, clinical bursts. The shots found throats and shoulders and the soft joints of armor. The sound was a perverse drumbeat. He smiled at each impact, savoring the control.
When the smoke and steam curled back, the corridor was a tableau of bodies and broken metal.
Red pooled in the low points, reflected in Zac's eyes. He lowered the last pistol, wiped it clean on a sleeve, and winked at the stunned silence.
"I told you," he said to the emptiness, voice soft and certain. "I'm always the fucking villain."
After an hour of blood and metal and steam, Zac walked out of the prison like he owned the night.
He moved with a slow, satisfied swagger, shoulders loose, eyes already plotting the next scene.
He found a slick Honda Civic waiting where the shadows pooled, slid into the driver seat, and closed the door with a soft click.
Before he drove away, he pressed two fingers to his temple and made a gun motion, the gesture smooth and practiced. He whispered without hurry.
"Bang."
BOOM
The Sabah prison erupted behind him in a single, terrible heartbeat. Concrete tore apart, windows became fire, and the night lit up like a red halo.
The blast rolled down the compound and swallowed the screams. Guards and prisoners who had not already died were claimed in the collapse and the inferno.
Zac eased onto the highway, the Civic humming beneath him, his face calm as if he had only watched a movie.
He drove until the city lights blurred into neon. He pulled up outside a small phone shop that smelled of dust and solder. The owner looked up when Zac entered. They exchanged a glance like two conspirators who had rehearsed this one line.
"Seeing to another side," Zac said.
"Seeing to another," the owner replied, voice clipped, as if the phrase itself was a key.
The owner slid open a battered back door and a narrow stairwell revealed itself, stairs swallowed by shadow.
Zac descended with the same measured control he used in a fight. His footsteps were quiet, a metronome against the silence. He reached the bottom and stepped into a wide room lit by a bank of low lamps.
Every major syndicate in the city had representatives here. Men and women in tailored suits and leather jackets paused their conversations and turned. Chairs scraped. Eyes assessed him. A hush folded the room like a blanket.
One of the men at the head of the table raised an eyebrow. "Zac Tucker?" he asked, voice wary.
Zac gave a small nod and smiled like a man offering a pleasant surprise. "Greetings, friends. I hope you are all doing well."
A low murmur ran through the room. Someone scoffed. A cigarette ember flared.
"What do you want, Zac Tucker," another man said, leaning forward. His knuckles rested on the table. The line of his jaw said he had seen many threats and was not impressed yet.
Zac crossed one leg and settled onto a sofa at the side, limbs loose, as if he were choosing a chair at a private party rather than addressing a room full of killers. He lifted his glass, rolled it in one hand, and let the light play on the rim.
"I did everything for you," Zac said, voice even and cold. "Now it is time you help finish your end of the bargain. I have a single request."
A woman in white, immaculate and cruel, folded her arms and peered at him. "And that is?"
Zac let the glass fall from his fingers. It hit the floor and did not shatter. He smiled and his mouth did not reach his eyes.
"Kill Shen Goddem."
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Chapter 19 — End