CHAPTER 12
The gym was one of the few places where Arora could completely silence her mind. No strategy meetings, no district ledgers, no syndicate politics—just the steady rhythm of her own breathing and the heavy thud of leather hitting vinyl.
Every morning before headquarters fully woke up, she spent two hours pushing her body to its limit. It was an old habit, forged long before she inherited the mantle of the Black Rose. Where others relied on espresso to clear their head, Arora preferred physical strain.
The heavy bag swayed violently under a sharp combination. Sweat glistened on her skin as she stepped back, adjusting the hand wraps around her knuckles. After a series of quick stretches, she stepped onto the treadmill, ramping up the speed until her pulse hammered against her ribs.
The floor-to-ceiling mirrors lining the wall reflected her every movement. Usually, she ignored her reflection entirely, but today, her eyes caught on a small, dark mark near her chin.
She slowed the machine down, stepping off to lean closer to the glass.
A faint, swollen bruise sat squarely on her lower lip.
"Damn it," she muttered, inspecting the mark in the harsh fluorescent light. "That looks terrible."
The memory returned instantly—the heavy blanket catching, her foot snagging on the table leg, the sudden drop, and the violent clack of teeth against teeth. Arora closed her eyes, letting out a long, frustrated breath. In her line of work, she had been shot at, slashed with blades, and once thrown through a second-story window. Yet the single most humiliating injury of her life had been inflicted by a sleeping idiot.
"You are an absolute menace," she whispered to the empty room.
Several floors below in the residential wing, another victim of the previous night stood in front of his bathroom mirror.
Jack stared at his reflection, squinting at the tender purple mark near the corner of his mouth. He lightly tapped it with his index finger—and immediately winced.
"Ouch."
He leaned closer, inspecting the angle. His memories of the night were suspiciously hazy. He remembered Kelvin pulling out a bottle of top-shelf scotch, insisting they celebrate nothing in particular, and then... darkness.
Jack scratched his head, thoroughly bewildered. "Did I walk into a doorframe?"
The mirror offered no answers. After another ten seconds of intense scrutiny, he shrugged it off. "Yeah. Definitely a wall."
Satisfied with his terrible deduction, he grabbed a towel and walked out.
An hour later, freshly showered and dressed in crisp, dark clothes, Arora returned to her executive suite. The moment she pushed open the heavy doors, she regretted not staying in the gym.
Edwin and Miso were already sitting at her private breakfast table, locked in an intense petty dispute. Edwin was reaching across the marble tray while Miso repeatedly smacked his hand away with a linen napkin.
"Stop it, Edwin."
"It's literally one piece of toast."
"No."
"Half a piece?"
"Edwin."
"A quarter?"
SMACK.
Arora paused at the threshold, closed her eyes, and slowly pulled the door shut. She waited two seconds, then opened it again.
Unfortunately, they were still there.
"Good morning, Leader!" Miso called out brightly.
Edwin offered a short nod, rubbing his red knuckles. "Boss."
Arora walked over and pulled out her chair. "Why are you two in my private quarters at seven in the morning?"
Neither answered right away. Miso poured her a glass of fresh orange juice, while Edwin made another stealthy attempt toward the pastry basket—and failed again.
"Learn some table manners," Miso scolded.
"I have manners!"
"You act like you were raised by wolves."
Arora let out a quiet sigh, watching them. The two of them had been secretly dating for years, yet whenever they were off-duty, they bickered like an elderly couple arguing over store coupons.
"Get a room," Arora said flatly.
Both froze mid-motion. Miso nearly choked on her tea, while Edwin looked deeply offended. "We are discussing serious operational business!"
"You were fighting over carbs."
"Which is vital to operational readiness," Edwin insisted.
Deciding not to entertain the argument any further, Arora picked up her espresso. "Tell me why you're here."
Instantly, the playful air vanished. Miso reached into her coat, pulling out a thick manila folder and spreading several high-resolution surveillance photographs across the table.
"We finished auditing the Boar Horn case," Miso said, her tone dropping into full tactical mode.
Arora's gaze sharpened. The Boar Horns were a relatively new outfit trying to carve out territory on Chicago's west side. Usually, she ignored them; they were too small and disorganized to pose a threat to the Black Rose ecosystem. But small gangs had a habit of causing sloppy, unpredictable collateral damage.
"What do we have?" Arora asked.
Miso pointed to the primary photograph. "High-volume narcotics distribution."
Arora scanned the images—commercial packaging plants, wooden crates, delivery vans, and boxes labeled as bulk children's candy. Then her eyes locked onto a familiar face standing beside a loading dock.
Her expression turned icy. "Isn't that Zena?"
Edwin nodded grimly. "The same thug you folded at the diner."
Arora remembered him clearly. She had given him two warnings and a set of paralyzed nerves, yet he clearly hadn't learned his lesson.
"What's his play?" she asked.
"They're using legitimate candy distribution routes to move high-grade heroin," Miso explained. "The product is being funneled directly around high schools and university campuses across the district. If we let them operate unchecked, they'll flood the entire northern corridor within two months."
Silence descended on the room.
Arora stared at the photographs, her fingers sub-consciously drifting toward the edge of her desk where the old garden photograph lay hidden under a leather blotter. Two decades of unanswered questions were waiting in that vintage picture—the mystery of her mother, the old man in the holding cell, the unknown location.
She took a slow, grounding breath, forcing her focus back to the immediate threat. One crisis at a time. The past wasn't going anywhere, but poisoned drugs reaching students on her streets? That ended today.
"Leader?" Edwin asked quietly. "How do you want to handle it?"
Arora slid the surveillance photos together into a neat stack and stood up. The air in the room temperature seemed to drop instantly.
"Mobilize the Elite Squad."
Edwin and Miso snapped to attention, their posture shifting in a heartbeat. "We're taking down their main hub today?" Miso asked.
"Today," Arora confirmed, her voice terrifyingly calm. She picked up the photo of Zena, her gaze lingering on his face for a cold second before dropping it onto the table. "They wanted to make a name for themselves in my city. Consider this their formal welcome."
A dark, lethal smile touched Edwin's lips. Miso looked equally ready.
The Boar Horns had spent months trying to posture like a major syndicate, desperate to get the Black Rose's attention.
They were about to realize what a fatal mistake that was.
"Tell the captains to gear up," Arora commanded, stepping toward her dressing room. "The Boars wanted an audience with me. They have one."
To Be Continued...