Andre Gatewood had always believed rage came in two forms.
The loud kind wild, sloppy, the kind that made men shoot without aiming.
And the quiet kind—the kind that sharpened itself, piece by piece, until the rage became strategy.
When the call came about Little Dre's body being found in the Valentina's bathroom, Andre didn't shout. He didn't break anything. He didn't punch walls or curse the sky like half the men in that room expected him to.
He just sat still.
The type of stillness that meant something was about to die.
He held the phone to his ear long after the voice on the other end had gone silent, his hand trembling once before going completely steady.
"Take me to him," Andre said finally.
The house erupted into motion shoes grabbing keys, guns being checked, cars revving outside but Andre moved slow, placing the phone down like it was made of glass. His eyes stayed empty, a pitch-black void that didn't show anger, only intent.
When he stepped into the hallway, men moved out of his way like furniture sliding back into place.
Little Dre wasn't just his brother.
He was the last thing Andre had to anchor him to the days before power had twisted everything.
And someone had walked into a bathroom and executed him like he was nothing.
Eastside soldiers waited outside the house, lined up like shadows. Some expected tears. Andre gave them none.
Instead, he scanned their faces, searching for the weakest link the one who would break under pressure and give Andre the excuse to shoot someone immediately.
But everyone stared at the ground, terrified, loyal, and waiting.
Andre climbed into the backseat of the SUV. Torian sat beside him, jaw tight, hands clenched in his lap. He hadn't slept since the store shooting he initiated. The mistake that pushed everything into motion.
He swallowed. "Boss… I'm"
Andre lifted one finger.
Torian shut his mouth.
"Not here," Andre murmured, eyes forward. "Not yet."
The drive to the morgue felt like drifting inside a nightmare. Sirens wailed somewhere distant. Lights swept over the windshield. The city felt like it had paused to see which part of it would burn first.
Inside the morgue, Little Dre lay under a white sheet.
Andre didn't move for a long time.
The coroner stepped forward. "Mr. Gatewood… I'm sorry for your loss. We still"
Andre peeled the sheet back himself.
He stared at Dre's face swollen, blood dried along the jaw, a bullet hole neatly dead center above the cheek.
A clean hit.
Professional.
Intentional.
Andre's breathing stayed slow, but the air around him tightened, compressing like a fist.
"Whoever did this," Andre whispered, "didn't do it for respect."
He pulled the sheet back over Dre's face.
"They did it to send a message."
Torian shifted next to him. "The Southside boys"
Andre turned his head sharply.
"Don't think," Andre said. "You thinking is what got us here."
Torian looked away, jaw flexing.
Andre placed both hands on the edge of the metal table, knuckles whitening.
"Mateo gave them boys a job," Andre said quietly. "A job that magically lined up with Dre being in the same area the same night. Mateo put them in motion. Mateo stirred the water."
"You think Mateo ordered the hit?" one of the lieutenants asked.
Andre didn't blink.
"I think Mateo opened the door," Andre said. "And whoever killed my brother walked through it."
A silence fell heavy across the room, thick like wet cement.
Then Andre spoke again, voice low but razor-clean.
"Put a price on the Southside boys."
Heads snapped up.
"How much?" another lieutenant asked.
Andre's eyes went dead. "Fifty thousand each. A hundred for the big one. The one they call Big Head."
Torian's breath caught.
"Boss… that's… that's cartel level money."
Andre stepped away from the table.
"Good," he said. "Because this ain't a street beef anymore."
He walked to the door, pausing only once.
"And find Mateo," Andre added. "If he started this storm, then he gon' drown in it."
Mateo always ate at the same restaurant when he wanted to feel untouchable.
A quiet Latin spot near the harbor. Soft lighting. White tablecloths. A private booth in the back where the chef came out himself.
He liked predictability.
Predictability made him feel in control.
Tonight, predictability got him shot.
He stepped out of the restaurant at 11:42 p.m., wiping sauce from his fingers, bodyguards flanking him. His phone buzzed. A text from someone he didn't expect to be messaging this late.
Then a second vibration.
Then a third.
His brows furrowed. He slowed his steps.
"What's wrong?" one guard asked.
Mateo never got to answer.
A black sedan screeched around the corner.
No hesitation.
No warning.
No words.
Three shooters leaned out the windows before the tires even stopped skidding.
Muzzle flashes lit the night like fireworks.
Mateo's world exploded.
Bullets tore through the sidewalk.
Glass shattered behind him.
His guards dove in front of him, guns raised, but the attackers didn't aim at them—they aimed only at Mateo.
One bullet hit his shoulder.
Another punched into his ribs.
He stumbled, eyes wide, coughing blood before he even hit the pavement.
"Get him down! Get him down!" a guard screamed.
But Mateo was already collapsing.
A security camera above the restaurant swiveled, catching everything the shooters' masks, the license plate, the bodies dropping.
Neighbors screamed.
Cars screeched.
One guard managed to fire back, hitting the sedan's window, but the shooters ducked and sped off, tires peeling, sparks flying as the car clipped a fire hydrant.
Mateo lay bleeding on the pavement, gasping wetly, one hand twitching toward his chest like he could somehow hold himself together.
"Stay awake, Mateo!" the guard shouted, pressing down on the wounds.
Mateo's eyes fluttered.
His lips trembled.
His voice was only a whisper.
"Gatewood…"
Then he passed out.
Chaos followed the cartel leader like smoke.
Hospital lights blurred as Mateo was wheeled through emergency doors, blood dripping off the gurney onto white tiles that would never be clean again.
A swarm of doctors and nurses cut off his clothes, pushed IVs into his arms, pressed bags of blood above his head, shouted codes over each other.
"BP dropping!"
"He's crashing!"
"Push two units!"
"Roll him—now!"
The ER felt like a battlefield.
Outside, eight cartel soldiers packed into the waiting room, blocking every entrance. They had guns hidden under jackets, knives tucked behind belts, and rage simmering through their veins. Anyone walking too close felt the heat.
Nobody knew if Mateo would live.
Nobody dared to say he might die.
And nobody missed the message written in blood on the sidewalk outside that restaurant:
This was war.
When news of Mateo's shooting reached the cartel boss La Sombra the entire criminal underground shifted like a plate of the earth moving.
Phones lit up.
Corners froze.
Rivals whispered.
Alliances trembled.
La Sombra threw his glass across the room when he heard the report. Wine splattered the wall like blood.
"Who?" he demanded.
"We don't know yet," his second-in-command said. "Street chatter says Gatewood."
La Sombra's smile was slow. "Gatewood finally grew fangs."
He leaned back in his leather chair and folded his hands.
"Then the board changes."
Across the city, in an abandoned cleaners, Southside Boys gathered again.
Big Head sat on a crate, hands clasped in front of him. Rob paced like his ribs still hurt. Psycho couldn't stop tapping his foot against the floor. Murk leaned against the boarded window, watching shadows outside. Jack studied each face like he was memorizing how fear shaped them.
The room felt tense like the air before a riot.
Big Head's phone buzzed.
Not a call.
A group text.
From Keisha
"Y'all seen the news??? Mateo got hit leaving El Faro. He in critical. Whole damn Eastside celebrating like Christmas came early."
Another buzz.
From an unknown number
"If y'all alive, pick up."
Big Head froze.
Only one type of person sent a message like that.
Cartel.
He answered.
A low voice came through the line. Calm. Controlled. Dangerous.
"Adrian," the voice said. "This is Rafael. Mateo's lieutenant. You know me."
Big Head didn't speak.
The boys stopped moving.
The voice continued. "Your block has been busy tonight. Very busy. We know you didn't shoot Mateo."
Big Head's eyes narrowed. "How?"
"Because Andre Gatewood's shooters were sloppy," Rafael said. "He wanted a message delivered. He wanted Mateo dead for killing his brother. That's his logic."
The Southside boys exchanged quick looks.
"Mateo alive?" Big Head asked.
"Barely," Rafael said. "In critical condition. He might wake up. He might not. But his boss isn't waiting to find out."
Psycho cracked his knuckles and smirked. "What that got to do with us?"
Rafael didn't bother hiding the answer.
"La Sombra is calling for war."
The room went still.
Rafael kept talking.
"And because Mateo had business with you boys, La Sombra has decided something…" He paused. "He is giving you a pass on your time limit."
Big Head straightened. "Pass?"
"Yes. Mateo promised you seventy-two hours. Now the clock stops. You owe nothing for now."
Jack blinked. "For now?"
Rafael's tone darkened.
"But La Sombra is offering something better. Kill Andre Gatewood before we do… and he will reward your crew."
Psycho grinned. "Reward? With what?"
"Protection. Territory. Doors that only open once." A pause. "And money. A lot of it."
Big Head closed his eyes for a second.
The entire city was shifting beneath them.
The Eastside wanted their heads.
The cartel wanted Andre's.
The Northside was waiting in the shadows.
And the Southside?
They were suddenly unchained.
Rafael spoke one last time.
"And Adrian…"
"Yeah."
"You boys move carefully. Blood is in the water. Everything hunts differently now."
The call ended.
Silence.
Then Psycho laughed, leaning back with a spark in his eye. "This just got fun."
Rob stared at Big Head. "What we doing?"
Big Head breathed out slow, feeling something new settle inside him.
Not fear.
Opportunity.
"First," he said, voice low and calm, "we find out everything about Andre's next move."
Jack nodded. "And then?"
Big Head's eyes hardened.
"Then we decide who dies first."
The Southside boys stared at him, realizing the same thing at the same time:
This wasn't survival anymore.
This was expansion.
This was their chance to take the whole board.
And for the first time…
Big Head felt the city tilt in his favor.
Andre Gatewood didn't sleep.
He didn't blink much either.
He sat inside his study with the lights dimmed low, staring at a map of the city spread across his desk. Colored pins marked corners, blocks, stash houses, trap apartments, and known associates. The map looked like a war diagram but tonight, it became something else.
A kill list.
Andre placed a red pin directly over the Southside's territory.
"You boys wanna play executioner?" he whispered. "Then you gon' learn what the gallows feel like."
Torian stood near the wall, silent, sweating. Andre hadn't told him to leave. He hadn't told him to stay. He just existed there, like a man chained in a lion's den, praying the lion stayed full.
Another lieutenant entered quietly. "Boss. Our eyes on Mateo's people say they gearing up for blood. His boss La Sombra been moving heavy hitters around."
Andre smirked thinly. "Good."
"Good?" the lieutenant repeated.
Andre tapped the map with two fingers.
"Chaos," he said. "Chaos makes people desperate. Desperate men make mistakes. Mistakes make opportunities."
Torian swallowed. "But if they really think you the one who hit Mateo"
Andre cut him off with a glance sharp enough to peel skin.
"They don't think," Andre said. "They know."
"So what's the move?" the lieutenant asked carefully.
Andre leaned back in his chair, eyes unreadable.
"We drown them before they learn how to swim."
He pointed at three locations on the map.
Mateo stash warehouse.
Mateo corner on the Eastside border.
Mateo's cousin's barbershop.
"Hit all three," Andre said. "Tonight."
The lieutenant blinked. "Tonight? All three at once?"
Andre nodded. "Quiet. Precise. Burn everything after."
"And… the Southside?"
Andre's jaw twitched not in anger, but calculation.
"Let them hide," he said. "Let them breathe. Let them think they have time."
Torian shifted. "Why give them time?"
Andre stood slowly.
"Because I want Adrian alive until the moment he watches everything he loves turn to ash," Andre said. "Then I'll bury him."
No yelling.
No theatrics.
Just a promise colder than the morgue where Dre's body still lay.
On the opposite side of the city, La Sombra's war room was just as quiet.
But the silence wasn't the calm kind.
It was the storm-building kind.
Rafael stood beside a digital screen showing camera footage of Mateo's shooting. The assassins' car a black sedan—sped from the curb. The shooters leaned out without hesitation. Their movements were sharp, practiced, military clean.
"This was professional," Rafael said.
La Sombra sipped his drink, eyes narrowed. "Gatewood always did surround himself with men who lacked fear."
"Not clever men," Rafael added. "But fearless ones."
La Sombra nodded. "Fearless men die faster."
He tapped the freeze-frame of the shooter.
"This one… Torian. He's the wildcard."
Rafael nodded. "Sloppy but loyal to Andre."
La Sombra leaned back, gazing at the footage as though studying a painting.
"And Mateo's condition?"
Rafael's voice softened. "Alive. Barely. Critical care. Doctors say he might stabilize… but he won't be speaking or moving anytime soon."
La Sombra placed his drink down.
"Then there is no need to wait for him," he said. "Orders will come from me."
He waved a hand, dismissing the idea of hesitation entirely.
"That Southside crew already accepted my offer. Let them prove themselves. Tell them the deal is unchanged Gatewood's head earns their survival."
Rafael bowed slightly. "And if they start getting bold?"
La Sombra shrugged lightly.
"Then we cut off their heads too."
Murk cleaned his gun in the dim corner of the cleaners, metal pieces laid out like a surgeon preparing for work.
He wasn't talking.
He wasn't looking at the others.
He was thinking.
Psycho paced like a wolf locked in a room too small.
"Bro, we just got handed a golden ticket," Psycho muttered. "Kill Andre, get paid, get a pass, get territory? That's like Christmas on steroids."
Jack didn't look convinced. "Cartels don't give freebies. If they help us now, it's only to own us later."
Rob rubbed the back of his neck. "But we can't do nothing. Not with Andre setting bounties on us."
"He put fifty racks on your head," Psycho said to Jack. "Hundred on Big Head. I feel disrespected. Why I ain't worth six figures?"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Focus."
Big Head stood perfectly still near the boarded window, watching distant streetlights flicker.
He finally spoke.
"Mateo in critical," Big Head said. "La Sombra already gave us that offer earlier tonight. He wants Andre gone. But that don't make him our friend or our savior. The cartel boss is using us as a pawn. Andre is moving without waiting. The Northside is watching us climb the cross so they don't have to."
Rob frowned. "So what's our move?"
Big Head took a slow breath.
"We let them fight."
Psycho stopped pacing. "What?"
"We let Andre and the cartel try to kill each other," Big Head said. "Let them spill blood all over the Eastside. Let them burn their corners, their lieutenants, their stash houses. Every bullet they shoot at each other is one less pointed at us."
Jack nodded slowly. "And while they fight… we expand."
Murk looked up for the first time.
"Expand where?" he asked quietly.
Big Head turned.
"The border blocks," he said. "Eastside distracted. Cartel angry. Northside just observing. We move into the blind spots. Quiet. Fast."
Psycho's grin stretched. "You saying… we start taking shit?"
"You saying," Rob added, eyes widening, "Southside finally runs something?"
Big Head didn't smile.
"I'm saying we stop surviving," he said. "And start building."
Jack shook his head, a slow grin forming. "Damn."
Murk leaned in. "We can grab dope from Mateo drops."
Big Head nodded. "We steal their product, sell it on smaller corners. Build soldiers. Build reputation. Build money."
"And what about the cartel?" Rob asked.
Big Head shrugged. "If they too busy shooting at Andre, they won't know who robbed them. Not yet."
Psycho clapped his hands once. "I been waiting for this version of you, boy."
Then Big Head's phone buzzed again.
He checked it.
FROM: UNKNOWN
"Mateo survived the night. Andre hit two of our warehouses. War incoming."
Another message followed:
"If Southside wants to live, move now."
Big Head's blood cooled.
Murk snapped the last piece of his gun into place.
"Looks like we ain't the only ones thinking ahead," Murk said.
Across the city, Andre's retaliation hit Mateo's crew harder than expected.
At the Eastside border, gunfire erupted at 3:14 a.m.
Mateo's soldiers opened a warehouse door expecting product pickup. Instead, they found the place on fire barrels leaking gasoline, crates burning, the whole block glowing orange against the night.
One screamed orders.
Another screamed in pain.
A third called Rafael shouting about an ambush.
Across town, another stash spot exploded, fire engulfing the alley.
Andre watched both scenes on grainy FaceTime calls.
He didn't speak.
Didn't smile.
Didn't blink.
Torian whispered, "We should finish this. Hit Mateo's family next."
Andre turned.
Torian froze.
"You don't make suggestions," Andre said quietly. "You make the mess, and I clean it."
Torian swallowed. "I didn't mean"
"You meant exactly what you said," Andre interrupted. "And that is why you should stop talking."
Then Andre stepped closer, voice almost gentle.
"Tonight," he said, "you redeem yourself."
Torian exhaled. "Whatever you need, boss."
Andre pointed to the screen showing the hospital.
"We finish Mateo before he wakes."
Torian blinked. "The hospital? Boss… that's"
"Difficult?" Andre said. "Good."
Andre walked back to the window, staring at the Eastside.
"Bring me Mateo's head," he said. "Or don't come back."
Back at the cleaners, the boys sat in a circle, no one laughing anymore.
Big Head outlined the plan with a broken tile.
"Mateo's crew is about to hit Andre," Big Head said. "Andre's about to hit Mateo again. That means both sides distracted. Perfect time for us to move."
"What move first?" Jack asked.
Big Head pointed at a mark near the river.
"This is Mateo's drop spot. Light guard tonight. Heavy product."
Psycho grinned. "We robbin' the cartel."
"We're robbing ghosts," Big Head said. "Because by the time they realize what's missing, they'll be too busy killing each other to care."
Murk nodded. "We hit it before sunrise."
Rob exhaled. "This some grown-man war."
"No," Big Head said. "This is the moment the Southside stops being prey."
The room tensed dangerous, electric, ready.
Then the cleaners door rattled violently.
Everyone aimed guns.
Big Head whispered, "Hold."
A voice hissed
"Open up! It's me!"
Keisha.
Rob let her in quickly.
She stumbled inside, breathless, eyes wide.
"You boys need to hear this."
"What happened?" Big Head asked.
"Rumor spreading fast," she said. "Andre hired out-of-town killers. Real ones. Not Eastside. Not local. Contracts."
Jack's blood chilled. "Who they coming for?"
"You," Keisha whispered. "All of you."
She looked directly at Big Head.
"And he doubled the bounty."
Psycho blinked. "So what now?"
Keisha stepped closer.
"You got less than twelve hours before they hit the Southside."
Everyone froze.
Big Head didn't.
He exhaled once.
"We move faster," he said.
He grabbed his gun.
"Tonight, we rob the cartel."
He turned toward the door.
"And tomorrow… we kill Andre."