The air reeked with the smell of wet asphalt. The distant hum of the city pulsed beneath the stormy sky. Clavius stood under a flickering streetlamp, his greatcoat flapping in the cold night air. This is where it started. Here, he recruited the deadliest, the most brilliant, and the most unstable men he could locate.

  It started with Dante.

  A digital ghost. A cipher in the city's bloodstream. His name whispered in dark corners, spoken only by those who understood his worth. Clavius had spent months tracking him down—his electronic fingerprints led to dead ends, and his past was a mirage. But Clavius had something most others didn’t: patience.

  When he finally found him, Dante was seated in the back of a near-empty jazz club, hands clasped over a small puzzle cube, rotating its pieces with the precision of a machine. The glow of neon signs reflected in his sharp eyes.

  "You’ve been looking for me," Dante had said without looking up.

  "And you let me find you," Clavius responded.

  A small smirk played at the edges of Dante’s lips. "Perhaps I wanted to see if you were worth finding."

  They spoke in measured words, both men valuing silence over excess. Clavius laid out his vision—an operation unlike any before it, a team assembled not just for their skills but for the way they fit together like pieces of a grand machine.

  "You see the world like a puzzle," Clavius had told him. "I need someone who can see the pieces others overlook."

  Dante had studied him for a long moment, then, with a final twist, completed the cube in his hands.

  "I'm in."

  Alistair wasn’t a man you found. He was a man who found you.

  When Clavius arrived in a dusty, no-name town on the outskirts of civilization, he wasn’t there to drink or gamble. He was there for the man with the one eye, the one they called the Deadeye Ghost.

  The saloon was dim, the air thick with cigar smoke and bad decisions. A poker game was in session. Alistair sat at the head of the table, his fingers tapping idly against the worn surface, his revolver resting beside his drink—an unspoken warning. The man across from him was sweating, hands shaking as he realized just who he was gambling against.

  "Your move," Alistair had murmured.

  Clavius watched as the poor fool made his bet. He watched Alistair watch him, like a predator amused by the struggle of its prey. The man lost, of course. And when he reached for his gun, he never had the chance to pull it.

  Alistair moved so fast that Clavius barely saw it happen—the revolver spun into his grip in a fluid motion, the hammer clicked, and in the next breath, the man was slumped against the table, a bullet hole between his eyes.

  Clavius approached as the rest of the saloon held its collective breath.

  "I could use someone like you," he said.

  Alistair took a slow sip of his drink, then wiped his mouth.

  "You huntin’ men or ghosts, stranger?"

  "Both."

  Alistair grinned. "Then I reckon I’m your guy."

  Finding Conan wasn’t difficult. Gaining his allegiance? That was another matter.

  Clavius had walked into the grand estate surrounded by prowling shadows—lions, panthers, tigers, all watching him with golden, knowing eyes. And in the center of it all, reclining like a king upon a throne of velvet, sat Conan.

  "Ah, the prodigy himself," Conan mused, swirling a goblet of wine. "Tell me, Clavius, what could possibly bring you to my door?"

  "I need a man who understands power. A man who can move between worlds."

  "And why should I be interested in your little crusade?"

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Clavius had expected the question. He had expected Conan’s disinterest. And so he did what few would have dared—he stepped closer to one of the great tigers resting near Conan’s chair and placed a hand upon its head. The beast growled low in its throat, but Clavius didn’t flinch.

  "Because," he said calmly, "you're the only one in this city who doesn’t fear me. That makes you invaluable."

  Conan chuckled. "You do know how to flatter a man." He leaned forward, his gaze appraising. "Very well, Clavius. Let’s see if you’re as good as they say."

  And so, the pieces came together—Dante, the enigmatic genius; Alistair, the deadly gunslinger; Conan, the untamed king.

  The city never slept, but it certainly had its quiet moments. In those moments, in the spaces between shadows and the neon glow, Clavius built his plans.

  The Execution Squad moved fast. Too fast. They saw the target—Mayor Leclerc, the silver-tongued politician who ruled his city with the iron grip of a drug kingpin—and drew their blades before understanding the battlefield. Half of them died. The rest wished they had.

  Clavius sat in a dimly lit room. He steepled his fingers, eyes locked on the display of Dante’s laptop. The hacker sat motionless. His gaze reflected the pale blue glow of cascading files. Mayor Leclerc’s life unraveled in data—encrypted emails, transaction records, private security feeds. Dante heard every digital whisper.

  "The Execution Squad wasn’t sloppy," Dante murmured, scrolling through lines of code. "They were expected."

  Clavius’ gaze sharpened. "Expected?"

  Dante tapped a key, pulling up an intercepted message. It was sent before the Execution Squad ever made their move. A warning, delivered straight to the Mayor’s personal network.

  "He has his own eyes and ears. A secret police force embedded within his administration. They knew every step before it happened."

  Across the city, a man screamed.

  Alistair rolled his shoulder, flexing his fingers as he watched the Mayor’s aide-de-camp dangle from the ceiling beam, tied at the wrists, blood pooling beneath him. The gunslinger took his time, leaning against the wall, the end of his revolver still smoking from the last round.

  "So let me get this straight," Alistair drawled, tipping his hat back. "You knew exactly when the Squad was coming. You funneled them into a kill box, and now you think I won’t put another bullet in your kneecap if you don’t tell me who tipped you off?"

  The aide-de-camp spat blood. "You’re already dead, cowboy. You just don’t know it yet."

  Alistair grinned, spinning the revolver effortlessly in his hand. "You fellas always say that." He pulled the trigger.

  The man screamed again.

  Meanwhile, the streets belonged to Conan.

  Feral eyes glinted from alleyways. Slender forms slunk between parked cars, leaped over fences and climbed drainpipes. People ignored street cats. They were part of the scenery, easy to overlook. But Conan saw them for what they were—watchers, spies. Every window, every rooftop, every fire escape had a silent observer.

  Conan sat on the steps of an abandoned theater, absently scratching the chin of a black panther that purred beside him. Across the street, one of his scouts—a mangy orange tabby—leaped onto the hood of a car. Conan smirked.

  "Found you, little rats."

  The secret police thought they were shadows. Conan’s spies lived in the shadows.

  By the time the full picture came together, Clavius was three steps ahead.

  Dante had the city’s security feeds in the palm of his hand. Every patrol route, every alarm system, every emergency line—their target was naked before them. Alistair had personally ensured that no last-minute warnings would be sent. Conan’s feline network had marked every movement of the secret police.

  It was time to move.

  The assault was swift. Brutal.

  Alistair’s gunfire erupted in the night, precise and merciless. The secret police had numbers, but numbers meant nothing when a man could shoot faster than they could think. One by one, they fell, their silencers never leaving their holsters. By the time the last of them hit the ground, Alistair was already walking away, reloading without looking.

  Inside the Mayor’s estate, Clavius moved like a phantom.

  Security systems were frozen—Dante’s work. Every camera showed empty halls. Every alarm was silenced before it had a chance to scream. The Mayor sat in his study, sipping expensive cognac, convinced he was untouchable.

  He was dead before the glass hit the floor.

  Clavius didn’t waste words. A single bullet, placed clean between the eyes. No grand speeches. No threats. Just silence.

  The team left without fanfare, fading into the night like ghosts.

  By morning, Mayor Leclerc was a corpse. His secret police was wiped from existence. And in a private warehouse across town, twenty million in gold bars sat in pristine stacks, reflecting the dim glow of the overhead lights.

  Alistair whistled, running a hand along one of the bars. "That’s a lot of money."

  Conan smirked. "That’s a lot of dead men’s money."

  Dante adjusted his gloves. "The Execution Squad will take this as an insult."

  Clavius, standing at the head of it all, only smiled.

  "Let them."

  Clavius had forged them into something greater than just men with skills. He had made them into a force that could shake the very foundation of the underworld.

  As he sat in the restaurant now, surrounded by these men, he realized one thing:

  The game had only just begun.