The room reeked of power.
Gold-veined marble floors reflected the flickering light of an overhead chandelier, where diamonds dangled like corpses on threads. A dozen armed men lined the walls, each clad in tailored black, silent as statues. They didn't blink. They didn't shift. They breathed only when he allowed it.
At the head of the table sat a man slouched in a throne-like chair, swirling a glass of aged rum between tattooed fingers. His name was Emery, and behind him sat the shadow of the world.
He was seventy-two.
Born on the streets of Guelph as a child, raised under bloodied fists and Mexican dust, a runaway by six and a kingpin by twenty. By twenty-five, he had united gangs across Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. By thirty, he had men in every country government agents, police commissioners, senators, royal guards, prime ministers. No one touched him.
Because Emery owned them.
He had sat in war rooms, jungle bunkers, Dubai palaces, and Korean skyscrapers. He'd crushed rebellions before breakfast and waged silent wars the world never learned about. From drugs to arms to cybercrime, he didn't just break the law he rewrote it.
Now, for the first time in fifty years, he was dying.
And he was laughing.
"Can you believe it?" Emery rasped, raising his glass toward the only other four men allowed to sit. "All the bullets. All the bombs. And we go out like this."
"Old and ugly," said Griff, the Underboss tall, lean, calm-eyed. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, a book open in one hand. The glare of the sunset reflected off his circular glasses, and his nose looked like it would break if you sneezed near it. "Fucking tragic."
"Ugly?" said Vice, the lanky one with the devil's grin. "Speak for yourself, you fucking Frenchie. I'm aging like wine. You? You look like milk left out in the sun."
Griff glanced over his book. "That why your spine snaps every time you take a step?"
"Better a broken back than a fucked eye," Vice fired back.
Sark chuckled darkly, arms folded. "Griff's nose looks like God lost the blueprint halfway through. Shit's practically a red button waiting to go off."
Griff smirked. "And you still ain't pressed it."
Sark raised both hands. "Hey, I'm just kidding. You know I'm soft for deformities."
"Soft in the brain, maybe, fatass," Dragu added in a joking tone. Built like a freight train with scars that could tell stories. "You girls done whining, or can we enjoy our last drinks in peace?"
"Don't act tough," Vice said. "You cried when your dog died."
Dragu stared. "He was a better man than you'll ever be."
Emery chuckled, the glass shaking slightly in his old hand. "You feel it?"
They did.
Something tugged at their bones. Not pain. Not sickness. Something deeper.
The lights dimmed without flickering. No power failure. No warning. Just blackness creeping along the walls like a tide.
Dragu stood. "That ain't normal."
"No," Emery said, standing too. He downed the rest of his rum. "This… feels like karma."
Then the world cracked.
Their bodies gave out not from poison or illness, but time itself. As if fate had stretched their souls too far. The guards didn't move. Because as Emery informed them before. All they could do now was give them a proper Burial and replace there positions with the next in line
The last thing Emery saw was the skyline of Mexico City burning gold in the sunset.
Then darkness.
And in that darkness a voice.
It didn't speak words. It spoke knowing.
You've had your kingdom.
Now earn it again.
Crying. Cold.
A wet cloth rubbed his forehead. Emery blinked, disoriented. A woman with sunken eyes hovered above him dirty brown hair, calloused hands, ragged breath. She muttered something in a language neither Spanish, English, nor Korean.
He couldn't move. His body was… small.
A crib.
A slum.
He couldn't even control his head.
His mind raced. He wasn't dreaming. He remembered everything. He was Emery Vane crime god, warlord of the modern age. Why the hell was he a baby?
The door slammed open.
A man strutted in, drenched head to toe in armor made of leather and iron. He reeked of blood and rot. His voice was exhausted and brutal.
The woman, seemingly happy, asked about his day.
"How was your day, honey?"
The man sat down in an almost broken wooden chair, hitting the floor so hard that dirt fell from his armor.
"It was alright. A beast tried to get in, but the guards and I took care of it," said the man.
"That's good."
The infant that was once Emery Vane stared up at the broken ceiling, confusion flooding his mind.
But none of that mattered.
Because he was back.
And the world didn't know what it had just done.