Chapter 1- THE ALLEYS WITNESS
The alley smelled like rust, oil, and something far worse something coppery and alive, thick enough to coat the back of his throat.
Cyrus slowed before he meant to.
It was the sound that did it. Not laughter. Not shouting. Not the city’s usual midnight chaos.
Something wrong. Wet. A breath pulled in too sharp and cut off too fast.
He should’ve kept walking.
Instead, curiosity curled around his spine and tugged.
“Hello?” His voice echoed weakly, swallowed whole by brick and shadow.
Then he saw them.
Three figures beneath a flickering streetlight that buzzed like a dying insect. Two men stood apart, watchful, still. Between them a woman dressed in black so deep it seemed to devour the light around her. She stood as if the alley belonged to her, as if it had been built for this moment.
At her feet knelt a man. Bloodied. Shaking. Barely holding himself together.
A child clung to him, small hands buried in his jacket, face hidden, breathing too fast.
Cyrus’s lungs forgot how to work.
The woman crouched.
Her movements were unhurried. Almost gentle. She lifted the man’s chin with two fingers, examining him like a craftsman inspecting a flaw.
“You knew the rules,” she said quietly.
Her voice wasn’t angry.
That terrified him more than shouting ever could.
The man’s voice cracked completely. He pleaded until words lost shape, clutching the child like a shield that had already failed.
Jewels didn’t flinch.
She stood over him, the alley narrowing, the city pressing in like it didn’t want to see. The streetlight painted her in pulses shadow, light, shadow until she looked unreal, carved from night.
“You stole from very powerful people,” she said calmly. “You ran.”
She looked down.
“And you brought her.”
That broke him.
Her brothers stood back family forged in violence, not blood.
Kyle dark-haird, sharp eyes, leaned against the brick wall, tall and immovable, hands folded like this was just another transaction. His face was sharp, beautiful in the way predators often were. He turned his head away only once.
Newt didn’t look away at all.
Jewels reached into her coat.
The blade caught the light.
The man screamed not because of the weapon, but because of how steady her hand was.
“No—please—!”
She didn’t argue.
She stepped forward.
The alley filled with sound his voice collapsing into something animal, the scrape of shoes, the sharp, choking realization that mercy wasn’t coming.
Cyrus couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t look away.
When it ended, it ended quickly.
Too quickly.
Silence rushed in, thick and suffocating.
Jewels straightened. Blood dotted her knuckles. Her expression hadn’t changed. The blade vanished like it had never existed.
She looked down at the bodies.
Not with satisfaction.
Not with regret.
With finality.
“Clean it,” she said.
Kyle nodded and moved.
One of the men broad-shouldered, dark hair cut short and sharp like everything about him, scarred shifted, scanning the alley’s mouth. The other, sharp-eyed, ginger hair catching the streetlight like flame, freckles scattered across his pale skin that looked almost soft until you noticed his eyes too cleaver and cold. He leaned against the wall, tilted his head just enough
And saw him.
The world tilted.
“Boss,” the sharp-eyed one said, low and calm. “We’ve got a witness.”
Everything stopped.
The woman straightened slowly.
Her hair was dark ink-black, pulled back loosely, strands escaping to frame her face like she didn’t care enough to tame them. It caught the light when she turned her head. Her eyes found me almost immediately.
Amber.
Amber warm and ancient and completely unreadable. The kind of eyes that didn’t reflect fear back at you, only calculation.
There was a mole just beneath her bottom lip, small and precise, the kind of detail that shouldn’t have mattered and yet burned itself into my memory like a brand.
I realized I was staring hard.
It felt like being pinned in place by something ancient and precise. She didn’t rush me. Didn’t raise her voice. She only looked at me, head tilted slightly, as if weighing what kind of man I was.
“How long have you been there?” she asked.
Cyrus opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
A faint smile touched her lips not kind. Not cruel. Curious.
“That’s unfortunate,” she murmured.
My eyes flicked stupidly back to the bodies. The smaller one made my stomach twist violently. My chest felt tight, breath shallow, panic clawing its way up my throat. One of the men stepped forward, hand already moving.
The woman lifted a single finger.
“No.”
The alley obeyed.
She walked toward Cyrus, heels clicking softly against concrete stained with things that would never wash away. When she stopped inches from him, he could smell her smoke, metal, something expensive and dangerous.
“You saw me,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
Cyrus nodded once, terror buzzing so loud it drowned out thought.
Most men begged.
Most men broke.
Instead, Cyrus whispered, “You didn’t have to do that.”
Her eyes darkened.
Not with rage.
With interest.
Something shifted in her subtle, dangerous.
That was the moment everything went wrong.
Because Jewels, queen of blood and silence, felt something she had not allowed herself to feel in years.
Hesitation.
