Chapter 28
The walk to Kai's apartment took fifteen minutes through the winding streets of the 7th District.
The sun had fully set by the time he reached the building, the streetlights casting pools of orange light across the cracked pavement.
He paused at the entrance, looking up at the window on the third floor.
The lights were on. He could see movement behind the thin curtains.
He climbed the stairs slowly, his legs heavier than they should have been.
Two days without sleep was catching up to him, but there was something else too—a reluctance to walk through that door, to see what was waiting on the other side.
The door was unlocked. He pushed it open and stepped inside.
The smell hit him first. Food. His aunt was cooking.
The small kitchen was visible from the entrance, and through the open doorway he could see her moving around the stove, her movements slower than he remembered, more deliberate.
She was wearing one of the dresses she'd left behind years ago, faded at the edges but still clean.
Her hair was pulled back, the gray at her temples more noticeable than it had been the last time he'd seen her.
Mai was sitting at the small table in the corner, her legs tucked under her, a book open in front of her that she wasn't reading.
She looked up when he entered, and for a moment, her face was blank.
Then something flickered in her eyes—recognition, relief, something that might have been hope.
She was beautiful. Kai had always known that, but sitting there in the dim light of his apartment, she looked like something out of the old paintings his uncle used to collect.
Her hair was dark purple, almost black in this light, falling past her shoulders in waves that caught the yellow glow from the kitchen.
Her skin was smooth, pale, the kind of complexion that looked like it had never seen a day of hard work even though Kai knew she had spent hours in the sun with her father.
Her face was delicate—high cheekbones, a small nose, lips that were full without being too much.
But it was her eyes that held you. Dark purple, They were her father's eyes.
Her body was the kind that made men stop mid-sentence.
She was lean in the way that came from good food and careful living, her frame long and elegant, her curves soft where they needed to be, sharp where they counted.
She wore one of Kai's old shirts, too big for her, the collar slipping off one shoulder, exposing the pale skin beneath.
She didn't seem to notice Or maybe she just didn't care.
"You're back," she said. Her voice was quiet, careful, like she was afraid of what might happen if she spoke too loud.
Kai closed the door behind him. "Yeah."
Rena turned from the stove. She was the image of what Mai would become in twenty years—the same high cheekbones, the same full lips, the same eyes that held too much to ever fully hide.
But where Mai's beauty was sharp and new, Rena's was worn smooth by time.
Her face had lines now that hadn't been there the last time Kai had seen her. Lines around her eyes, lines around her mouth.
Her hair black, pulled back in a loose bun that exposed the sharp angles of her face.
She was thinner than she used to be, her body still carrying the shape it had always had—full in the chest, narrow at the waist—but there was something fragile about her now.
Something that hadn't been there before.
She was beautiful too. The kind of beautiful that came from surviving.
"How is he?" Rena asked. She didn't need to say who.
Kai moved into the kitchen, leaning against the counter beside the stove. "He woke up today, He went home to see his mother, to ease her worries."
Mai's head lifted. "He's okay? Truly?"
"He's better than okay." Kai said.
Mai let out a breath, and for the first time since Kai had walked in, something like relief crossed her face.
"I thought he was dead. When he fell, I thought—" She stopped, her hands gripping the edge of the table. "There was so much blood. He wasn't moving."
Kai crossed the room and sat across from her. "He's not dead. He's fine,"
Mai's eyes were wet, but she didn't cry. She just nodded, her jaw tight, her hands still gripping the table. "Good. That's good."
Kai watched her for a moment, then turned back to Rena.
She had gone still at the stove, her hand holding the spoon in the pot, not stirring.
The silence stretched between them.
"Did you eat?" Kai asked.
Rena's hand started moving again, the spoon circling slowly through whatever was in the pot.
"I made food. Enough for all of us. You should eat too. You look like you haven't slept."
"I'll eat."
"You need to sleep too."
"Soon."
She nodded, not turning around. Kai watched her back, the way her shoulders were set, the way her hands moved with a steadiness that he knew was forced.
She had always been like this.
Even when he was a boy, after his parents died, she had held herself together in front of him.
She had cooked. She had cleaned. She had made sure he did his homework and went to bed on time.
She had done all the things a mother was supposed to do, and she had never once let him see her fall apart.
"Auntie," he said.
Rena set the spoon down and turned off the stove.
She moved to the table, her steps measured, and sat down across from him.
Mai shifted in her chair, pulling her legs tighter under her.
The silence was heavy.
Kai could hear the hum of the refrigerator, the distant sound of traffic from the street below, the soft rhythm of his aunt's breathing.
"Father's funeral," Mai said, her voice quiet. "When will we—"
"No."
Rena's voice was sharp. Mai's mouth closed,
"We can't," Rena said. "Not yet."
Mai's face crumpled, just for a moment.
Then she pulled it back, smoothing her expression into something blank, something that didn't feel. "I know. I know we can't. I just thought—maybe—"
"The Silent Kings," Kai said. "If we hold a funeral, if we gather people, if we draw attention to ourselves, they'll find us. They'll know we're the ones who killed their people. They'll come looking."
Mai nodded slowly, her eyes on the table. "I know. I already accepted that." She looked up, and there was something in her face that Kai hadn't expected.
Acceptance, yes, but something else too. "I just wanted to say goodbye. Properly. But I know we can't."
Kai reached across the table and took her hand.
Her fingers were cold, her grip tight. "When this is over, we'll give him a funeral,"
Mai's eyes were wet again, but she didn't let the tears fall. She just squeezed his hand and nodded.
Rena hadn't moved. She sat across from him, her hands still flat on the table, her eyes fixed on something in the middle distance.
Kai watched her for a long moment, then pulled his hand away from Mai's and stood up. He moved around the table and sat down in the chair beside his aunt.
She didn't look at him. Her breathing was steady, too steady, the kind of control that came from years of practice. He reached for her hand.
She took his before he could take hers.
Her grip was strong, her fingers wrapping around his palm, her knuckles white. Kai felt the tremble in her hand, the thing she was trying so hard to hide.
"Kai." Her voice was low, barely a whisper. "Would you promise me something?"
"Anything."
Her eyes met his. They were the same as Mai's, dark and deep, but where her daughter's held grief, Rena's held something that burned.
"Those bastards who did this. The ones who gave the orders. The ones who sent their men to follow him home. The ones who killed him." Her voice was steady, each word precise, each syllable cut clean. "I want to kill them. By my own hands."
Kai didn't speak.
"I've been sitting here for two days," Rena said. "Sitting in your apartment, waiting for you to come back, waiting for word about the boy who saved my daughter. And all I can think about is him. Your uncle, My husband, Driving home from work like he did every day. Calling me to ask if Mai had eaten. And then—" Her voice cracked, just for a second, and then she pushed through it. "And then nothing."
Her grip on his hand tightened. "I want them dead.All of them. The men who pulled the trigger. The men who gave the order. The men who sat in some room and decided that my husband's life was worth less than whatever was in that package. I want to kill them. But I can't do it alone."
She leaned forward, her face inches from his. "You have people. You have connections. You have that boy, Elijah. Help me, Kai. Help me make them pay for touching our family."
Kai looked at his aunt. At the woman who had taken him in when he was four years old, who had fed him and clothed him and held him when he cried for parents he would never see again.
At the woman who had never asked for anything, who had given everything, who had spent her whole life putting other people before herself.
He thought about his uncle. The quiet man with calloused hands who had shaken his hand like he meant it.
The man who had worked construction jobs that broke his body and paid too little, who had never complained, who had come home every night and asked about Kai's day like it was the most important thing in the world.
He thought about the phone call. His aunt's voice breaking. The shots through the line.
The body in the car, slumped against the steering wheel, still holding on to something that was already gone.
He nodded.
"They'll pay," he said. His voice was low, steady, the same voice he used when he was about to step into a fight he knew he might lose.
"Every single one of them. I promise you, Auntie. They'll pay for touching our family."
Rena's grip on his hand loosened. She didn't smile—Kai didn't expect her to—but something in her face shifted.
The hard edge softened, just for a moment, and she was the woman he remembered from his childhood.
The woman who had held him when he was small, who had told him everything would be okay, who had made him believe it even when she didn't believe it herself.
"Thank you," she said.
Kai squeezed her hand and let go.
He stood up and moved back to the stove, lifting the lid off the pot, breathing in the smell of whatever she had made.
"Now, let's eat. I haven't had a real meal in two days, and I'm starving."
Mai let out a sound that was almost a laugh.
Almost. It was small, broken at the edges, but it was there. "You're always starving."
"Not always. Just most of the time." He found bowls in the cupboard, three of them, and started ladling out the stew.
"Did you make this with the spices I left in the drawer? The ones from the market on 5th?"
"The ones that cost too much? Yes."
"They were worth it." He set a bowl in front of Mai, then one in front of Rena.
"Eat. Both of you. We have work to do tomorrow."
Mai picked up her spoon. "What work?"
Kai sat down with his own bowl, the steam rising in front of his face. "The building in the 9th District needs work. Elijah and I have been fixing it up. It's going to be our base."
He looked at his aunt, then at his cousin. "We're building something. Something that will make sure no one ever does this to us again."
Rena picked up her spoon.
Her hand was steady now, the tremor gone. "Then we eat fast. I want to see this building."
Kai smiled. "Tomorrow. Tonight, you rest."
Mai took a bite of her stew, and for a moment, the only sound in the room was the clink of spoons against bowls.
The food was good Rena had always been a good cook and Kai realized he hadn't eaten anything since the night before everything happened.
His body was hungry in a way he hadn't let himself feel.