The room smelled like old money and slow death—thick, suffocating, the kind of heavy power that makes it hard to draw a full breath.
Gold-veined marble floors stretched out like frozen water, reflecting the jittery candlelight from a massive, ancient chandelier. Above, diamonds hung from thin threads like glass tears—or severed lives. A dozen men stood like statues in the shadows, wrapped in tailored black. They didn't blink. They didn't breathe unless Crimson gave the word. Their silence was a warning: here, a god rules.
At the head of the table sat Crimson Vane. At seventy-two, his face was a jagged map of scars, his hands a sleeve of ink detailing every war he'd won. His eyes were still sharp enough to cut, burning with the stubborn fire of a king who refused to flicker out. He swirled a glass of aged rum, the liquid glowing like amber in the dim light.
He'd started on the dirt-poor streets of Guelph. A runaway at six, a kingpin by twenty. By thirty, he'd stitched together the gangs of North America into one ruthless machine. Senators, police chiefs, and prime ministers didn't just work for him—they belonged to him. He was the ghost in the gears of the world.
And now, after a lifetime of winning, he was finally dying.
He actually laughed.
"Can you believe this shit?" Crimson's voice was pure gravel. He raised his glass to the four men sitting across from him—the only ones he actually trusted. "All the bullets. All the bombs. And we're going out like this."
Grim, the underboss, sat with a stillness that felt like a coiled spring. He was lean, precise, wearing sharp rectangular glasses that caught the fading light. He had an old checkbook open in his lap—a weird, tactile relic in a room full of blood and steel. "Old and ugly," he muttered. "Fucking tragic."
"Ugly? Speak for yourself, you French bastard," Vice snorted. He was a lanky guy with a grin that never quite reached his eyes. "I'm aging like fine wine. You look like milk left out in the sun."
Grim didn't even look up from his checkbook. "Is that why your spine snaps every time you stand up?"
"Better a bad back than a fucked eye," Vice shot back.
Bison let out a low, dark chuckle and folded his arms. "Grim's nose looks like God gave up halfway through building it. Just a big red button waiting to blow."
Grim finally smirked. "And yet, you still haven't had the balls to push it."
"Hey," Bison grinned, holding up his hands. "I've got a soft spot for the deformed."
"Soft in the head, more like," Dragu growled. He was a mountain of a man, all muscle and scar tissue. "You girls done whining? Can we just drink in peace?"
"Don't act tough," Vice sneered. "You cried when your dog died."
Dragu's glare could have leveled a building. "He was a better man than you'll ever be."
Crimson's laughter broke the tension like a gunshot. The glass in his hand started to shake. "You feel that?"
They did. A primal, heavy weight was pulling at them—something deeper than just being sick. The lights didn't flicker; they just started to dim, a slow crawl of darkness swallowing the walls.
Dragu stood up fast. "That ain't right."
"No," Crimson said, pushing himself up unsteadily. He downed the rest of his rum in one go. "This... this feels like karma."
Then the world just cracked open.
Their bodies didn't give out to poison—they gave out to time itself. Fate reached in and pulled. The guards stayed still; they had their orders to bury the old world and wait for the new. The last thing Crimson saw was the Mexico City skyline burning gold in the sunset.
Then, nothing.
In the void, a voice—more of a feeling than a sound—vibrated through him. You've had your kingdom. Now go earn it again.
Crying. Cold.
A wet cloth hit his forehead. Crimson blinked, his head spinning. A woman was hovering over him with sunken eyes and tangled hair. She was muttering something in a language he didn't recognize—not Spanish, not English, nothing he'd ever heard in seventy-two years.
He tried to move, but his body felt... tiny. Heavy.
He was in a crib.
His head flopped to the side, his limbs weak and useless. His mind was screaming—this wasn't a dream. He remembered the wars, the money, the blood. He was Crimson Vane, the man who owned the world. So why was he trapped in an infant's skin?
He stared up at a shattered ceiling, his brain racing to catch up. It didn't matter, though. He was back. And the world had no idea what it had just let back in.