Chapter 2
Back on the street, Marcus stared at the girl like he was seeing a ghost.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
The girl wiped her tears with the back of her hand.
“Lily.”
The name hit him harder than any punch.
Daniel had said it that night.
“Lily needs me.”
Marcus stood up slowly.
The other bikers tensed.
“Boss…” one of them whispered. “This isn’t right.”
Marcus ignored him.
His eyes never left the girl.
“That’s not possible,” he said, more to himself than to her. “He was dead.”
Lily shook her head.
“He wasn’t,” she said. “Not right away.”
Marcus felt the ground shift beneath him.
“He came home,” Lily continued. “Bleeding… broken… but alive.”
Each word felt like a blade.
“He told me everything,” she said. “About you. About what you did.”
Marcus’s chest tightened.
“That’s a lie,” one of the bikers snapped. “We checked—”
Marcus raised a hand, silencing him.
Lily stepped closer.
“So I waited,” she said. “I waited until I was old enough to find you.”
Her voice grew stronger now.
Less fear.
More fire.
“My dad died two days later,” she said. “Not from the bullet.”
Marcus’s breath caught.
“From infection,” she finished. “From what you left him to suffer through.”
The weight of it crashed down on him.
He hadn’t just killed a man.
He had left him to die slowly.
Alone.
Marcus staggered back a step.
For the first time in years… he looked unsure.
“Why are you here?” he asked quietly.
Lily’s eyes burned into his.
“Because you don’t get to forget,” she said.
The street felt colder.
Darker.
The other bikers shifted uneasily.
This wasn’t a confrontation they understood.
This wasn’t power.
This was something else.
Something deeper.
“Are you here for revenge?” Marcus asked.
Lily shook her head.
“No.”
That answer surprised him more than anything.
“Then why?” he asked.
Her voice softened.
“Because he didn’t hate you,” she said.
Marcus blinked.
“What?”
“He said… you weren’t always like this,” she continued. “He said you used to be someone good.”
Marcus felt something crack inside his chest.
“That man is gone,” he muttered.
Lily stepped even closer.
“No,” she said firmly. “He’s not.”
Silence hung between them.
Heavy.
Unavoidable.
“You have to live with it,” she said. “That’s worse than anything I could do to you.”
Marcus didn’t respond.
He couldn’t.
For the first time in years… he felt something unfamiliar.
Guilt.
Real, suffocating guilt.
Lily turned to leave.
But before she did, she looked back one last time.
“He forgave you,” she said.
And then she walked away.
Disappearing into the dimly lit street.
The bikers stood frozen.
“Boss… what do we do?” one of them asked.
Marcus didn’t answer.
He sat back down on the bench.
But this time, he didn’t look like a king.
He looked like a man haunted.
His eyes drifted to the tattoo on his hand.
The serpent.
The dagger.
A symbol of loyalty.
Of brotherhood.
Of betrayal.
Slowly… Marcus clenched his fist.
For the first time in years—
May you like
It didn’t feel like power.
It felt like a curse.
