Author's POV
The boss laughed.
It was not a pleasant sound. It crawled out of his throat like something diseased, something that had been rotting inside him for years and had finally found a reason to surface.
"I did not expect," he said, his voice dripping with mockery, "that she would send children to save her son. Little boys and girls who should be in school, doing homework, learning how to be proper citizens."
He looked around at the group Ruz, Adrian, Josh, Mira, at all of them standing in the dim light with their hands still raised, with weapons pointed at their heads, with the blood of his men already on their knuckles.
"This is embarrassing," he continued. "For me. I have been beaten by grown men. I have been shot at by professionals. I have survived things that would make your nightmares look like children's stories. And now..."
He gestured toward them like they were insects he had found in his food.
".....now I am supposed to feel threatened by teenagers?"
Ruz stepped forward.
Not dramatically. Not aggressively. Just one step,
"Try us," she said. "We did not disappoint anyone yet."
The boss raised an eyebrow. "Kiddo. What do you think you are? Some kind of warrior who walked out of a storybook?"
He smirked. "Or maybe Queen of Hell."
The words landed.
Not because they were loud.because of the way he said them calm, certain, like he was stating a fact rather than making a claim.
Ruz and Adrian exchanged a glance.
Brief. Quick. Almost invisible.
But something passed between them in that glance. A code word. A shared understanding.
The boss's smile faltered. Just slightly. Just enough.
"You think titles scare me?" he asked.
Ruz tilted her head. "No. But actions do."
She moved.
Not toward the boss toward the man standing closest to Liam. The one holding a gun loosely in his right hand, like he had forgotten it was there because he had never needed to use it.
Her hand closed around the barrel.
Twisted.
The gun clattered to the floor.
And then
Everything happened at once.
No signal. No countdown. No word of command.
But somehow, all of them moved at the same time.
It was like watching a symphony of violence. Each person knew their role, knew their target, knew exactly where to be and when to be there. They had not practiced this. They had not planned this. But something about the past weeks the fights, the competitions, the chaos had forged them into something that did not need plans.
Adrian disarmed the man nearest to him. Smooth. Efficient. The weapon changed hands before the man even realized what was happening.
Josh swept the legs out from under another guard, sending him crashing to the ground.
Mira appeared behind a third, her arm already around his throat, her voice whisper softly in his ear. "Sleep."
He slept.
Nika threw a metal pipe she had found somewhere, Ruz did not know where, did not care and it struck a man's hand perfectly, knocking the gun from his grip.
Aira fought with fury. Every punch was personal. Every kick was meant to hurt. She was not fighting for strategy. She was fighting for Liam, and that made her more dangerous than anyone else in the room.
Zayn moved like water. Flowing around attacks, redirecting momentum, using his opponents' weight against them. He did not waste energy. Did not waste movement. Every action had purpose.
Rifat was brutal. Efficient. Cold. He did not fight like someone who enjoyed it, he fought like someone who had been taught that losing was not an option, and he had never forgotten that lesson.
Enzo, Marco, Diego, Eren they fought like they had been fighting together for years. Covering each other's blind spots, switching targets seamlessly, communicating with grunts and glances and the kind of trust that came from surviving things together.
And Ruz
Ruz fought like a storm.
Reckless but controlled. Wild but precise. She moved through the chaos like she had been born in it, like the noise and the shouting were her natural habitat, like she was more comfortable here than anywhere else in the world.
Guns hit the floor. Bodies followed.
The boss's men were trained. They were armed. They had experience.
But they were not ready for this.
They were not ready for teenagers who had been fighting their whole lives. Who had learned to survive before they learned to read. Who had turned their trauma into weapons and their pain into
A man dropped beside Ruz.
Not because she had put him there someone else had, Josh maybe, or Nika, she did not see but he landed close enough that his blood splattered across her hand.
Warm. Wet. Red.
She froze.
Not for long. Just a heartbeat. Just a second.
But it was enough.
The blood on her hand was not just blood anymore. It was something else.
Her vision blurred.
The sounds around her, the shouting, the crashing, the grunts of pain.faded into something distant, something muffled, like she was hearing them from underwater.
She punched the man she had been fighting. Once. Twice. He went down.
But she did not see him fall.
She was somewhere else.
A woman's voice. Screaming. Desperate.
"Leave her alone! She is just a kid! She has nothing to do with this!"
A man's voice. Loud. Cruel. The kind of voice that had never been told no and had decided that meant he could do anything.
"You cannot save him. You are useless. You are both useless." A pause. "You should die. Once I am done with what I need, I will kill both of you."
Ruz sat on the warehouse floor.
She did not remember sitting down. Did not remember the fight stopping around her. Did not remember her friends calling her name, shaking her shoulder, trying to pull her back to the present.
Her hand moved toward her mouth.
Toward the blood.
She was going to taste it.
She did not know why. Did not understand the impulse. But something inside her was screaming that she needed to know, needed to confirm needed to....
A hand caught hers.
Mid-air.
Firm. Steady.
"What are you doing?"
Liam.
He had just regained consciousness when he noticed her staring into space. Somehow, he managed to force himself to his feet and caught her hand.
"It is a bad habit," he said quietly.
Ruz blinked.
The warehouse came back into focus. The sounds returned. Her friends were still fighting around them, still winning, still protecting them while she sat on the floor like a broken thing.
"How did you...." she started.
"Not now," he said. "Are you okay?"
She looked at his face. At his eyes. At the way he was looking at her he was not surprised by it, like he knew something.
"I am fine," she said.
"Are you sure?"
Ruz stood up.
Rolled her shoulders. Cracked her neck
"Any questions?"
"No."
"Good."
He let go of her hand.
Did not ask more. Did not push. Did not demand explanations she was not ready to give.
He just let her be.
And she did not know whether to be grateful or terrified.
The fog in her head cleared not completely, but enough. Enough to fight. Enough to win.
She looked at the remaining men. There were fewer now. Much fewer. Her friends had been busy while she was gone.
"Let us finish this," she said.
She did not wait for an answer.
The fight resumed. Faster now. More desperate. The boss's men knew they were losing could see it in the way their numbers were shrinking, in the way their weapons kept disappearing, in the way these teenagers kept coming and coming and would not stop.
They fought harder.
It did not matter.
Ruz took down two more. Adrian took down three. Josh and Nika worked together like they had been partners for years, covering each other, setting up combos, taking down opponents twice their size.
Mira was everywhere and nowhere, appearing and disappearing, a ghost with fists.
Zayn and Rifat pushed toward the boss.
He backed away.
"Stay back," he said. "I will..."
"You will what?" Rifat asked. "Fight? Run? Beg?"
The boss's eyes darted toward the back door.
Toward escape.
Rifat saw it. Zayn saw it.
They moved to block him
Too late.
The back door burst open.
Not the boss's men.
Police.
Uniforms. Flashlights. Shouted commands.
"FREEZE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS! HANDS IN THE AIR!"
And behind them
Kuya.
And Liam's mother.
Ruz blinked. Processing. Understanding.
Adrian caught her eye. Nodded once.
He had messaged Kuya. Had told him everything the location, the need for backup. Had not asked for permission. Had not waited for approval. Had simply done what needed to be done.
Through the back door, into the darkness, before the police could reach him. His men scattered some caught, some fleeing, some surrendering with their hands raised.
But the boss was fast. Experienced. He knew these streets, these alleys, these shadows.
He disappeared.
The hospital waiting room was too bright.
White walls. White lights. The kind of sterile cleanliness that made everything feel fake.
Ruz sat in a chair, her arms crossed, her knuckles bruised, her shirt stained with blood that was not hers.
Adrian sat beside her. His lip was split. His knuckles were worse.
Josh leaned against the wall, his arm in a makeshift sling, dislocated shoulder, probably, though he had refused to let anyone look at it until everyone else had been checked.
Nika had a gash on her forehead that required stitches. She had refused numbing. Had sat through the entire procedure with a blank expression while the nurse stitched her up like she was mending a shirt.
Mira had a broken finger. She had set it herself. Had not even flinched.
Aira had bruises covering her arms, her ribs, her face. She looked like she had been hit by a truck. She was smiling.
Zayn had a cut above his eye. It was still bleeding. He refused to let anyone touch it.
Rifat had disappeared somewhere probably getting his own injuries treated, probably avoiding the others because he did not know how to sit still and wait.
Enzo, Marco, Diego, Eren were scattered around the room, each in their own state of disrepair, each pretending they were fine.
They were not fine.
But they were alive.
Liam was in a room down the hall, being examined, being treated, being monitored. His mother was with him. She had not let go of his hand since they arrived.
Kuya walked into the waiting room.
His footsteps were slow. Deliberate.
The kind of slow that meant he was controlling his anger.
Everyone straightened. Even the ones who were injured. Even the ones who were pretending to sleep. Even Ruz.
He stopped in the center of the room.
Looked at each of them.
One by one.
Then
"What," he said, his voice low and dangerously calm, "were you thinking?"
No one answered.
"I asked a question," he said. "What were you thinking? Driving to an unknown location. Entering a warehouse full of armed men. Starting a fight with no backup, no plan, no way of knowing if you would survive."
"We had a plan," Adrian said.
"What plan?"
"Win."
Kuya stared at him.
Silence stretched.
Then Adrian added, "It worked."
"It worked," Kuya repeated. His voice did not change. "You won. Against fifteen armed men. With no training, no weapons, no support. And you think that makes it okay?"
"We got him back," Ruz said.
"You could have died."
"We did not."
"You could have been killed. All of you. In a warehouse. Alone. And no one would have known where to find your bodies."
Ruz met his eyes.
"But we were not," she said. "And we found him. He is alive. That is what matters."
Kuya looked at her for a long moment.
Then he exhaled.
The anger was still there she could see it in the tension of his jaw, the tightness of his shoulders but something else was there too. Something softer.
"…You are all grounded," he said.
"For how long?" Josh asked.
"Forever."
"That seems excessive."
"It is not."
Adrian leaned back in his chair. "Worth it."
Ruz nodded. "Absolutely."
Kuya pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am too young to have this many gray hairs."
"Blame genetics," Ruz said.
"I blame you."
"That is fair."
Liam's mother came out of his room an hour later.
She looked exhausted. Wrung out. Like she had been crying and stopped crying and started crying again, and now her body did not know what else to do.
But her eyes were clear.
She sat down in the chair across from them. Looked at each face at the bruises, the bandages, the exhaustion.
"Thank you," she said. "For bringing him back."
No one knew what to say.
She continued, "You deserve to know the truth. About his father. About the man who took him."
She paused.
"He is Kairo."
The name landed like a stone dropping into still water.
"Kairo and Liam's father were business partners once," she said. "They built this business together. Successfully.And that made both of them wealthy."
Her voice hardened.
"But Kairo was not satisfied with wealthy. He wanted more. He started cutting corners. Hurting people. Doing things that were not just illegal, they were evil."
She looked down at her hands.
"My husband found out. He tried to stop him. Tried to report him. Tried to do the right thing."
A pause.
"Kairo did not like that."
Her voice cracked.
"He threatened us. Our family. Our son. He said that if my husband did not back down, he would make sure we regretted it."
She swallowed.
"He did not back down. He almost distroy his empire.
She looked up.
" But Kairo, He killed him."
Silence.
"He made it look like an accident," she continued. "A car crash. A drunk driver. No one suspected. No one investigated. No one cared.After him i run the company.I tried my best."
She looked at Ruz.
"But Kairo never forgot. He never forgave. Know he want our company, and liam is next owner next ceo of this company, he wanted revenge, not just against my husband, Against this company owner. Against liam"
Her voice dropped to barely a whisper.
"He has been waiting. All these years. Waiting for the right moment to hurt us again. And Next month, Liam will turn eighteen, and by law he will inherit his ancestral property and gain ownership of the company. That's why He is after Liam."
Ruz's hands curled into fists.
"Now he has his moment," she said.
Liam's mother nodded. "But he did not win. You made sure of that."
Ruz looked at her friends.
At their bruises and bandages and tired eyes.
"No," she said. "We made sure of that."
Ruz stood by the window of the hospital room, looking out at the city.
The sun was rising, the same colors as yesterday, the same sky, the same world.
But everything felt different.
Liam was asleep in the bed behind her. His mother sat beside him, holding his hand, not letting go.
The others were scattered around the room some asleep, some talking quietly, some just sitting in the silence and processing what had happened.
Adrian walked up beside her.
"Kairo," he said.
"I heard."
"He got away."
"For now."
Adrian looked at her. "You are not going to let that go, are you?"
Ruz did not answer.
She did not need to.
Because they both knew.
This was not over.
It was just beginning.