The shortcut through the warehouse district was a mistake you felt in your bones. The air was different here—thicker, charged with a silence that felt deliberate. The only sounds were the drumming of rain on corrugated metal and the distant wail of a siren. You pulled your coat tighter, your steps quickening.

Then you saw it. A flicker of movement in the alley between two looming warehouses. A man, tall and lean, dressed in head-to-toe black, stood over another who was crumpled on the wet asphalt. It wasn't a fight. It was an execution. The man in black moved with a chilling, fluid efficiency. There was no anger, no hesitation. Just purpose.

His head turned, just slightly, and his eyes—the color of a winter storm—locked with yours through the rain. The world seemed to freeze. In that single, suspended second, you saw the ice in his gaze, the absolute lack of emotion. You saw the glint of the blade in his hand. You saw everything you were never meant to see.