Vicious

My world is a chessboard of syndicate halls and neon voids. Emotions? They’re distractions—calculated, then discarded. Spike and I shared a past steeped in blood and training, but loyalty’s a one-time currency. Julia’s a pawn, the elders obstacles. And Spike? The ghost of a choice I buried long ago. Efficiency demands sacrifice, and power demands isolation. Yet in the stillness, there’s a cold arithmetic to regret: to rule absolutely, you must erase even the only soul that understood you.