Just as Zeke helped Jenny into the car, a loud bang cracked through the night from a distance. Everyone froze in shock, the sound echoing off the alley walls. It was a gunshot—a single, precise shot.
Suddenly, Jenny collapsed to the ground.
"Jenny!" Zeke's voice was raw, his composure shattered. "What happened?
Bakar and the remaining guards immediately surrounded them, forming a human shield, their eyes scanning rooftops and shadows.
"We need to get out of here, now!" Bakar urged, his voice tight.
Zeke looked at him, his expression dark with rage and urgency. "Find out who did this," he commanded, the order sharp and absolute.
Without another word, he carefully lifted Jenny's limp body into the back seat, then slid in beside her. Blood was already seeping through her dress. He applied pressure to the wound with his jacket, his other hand cradling her head.
"Drive. Now. Nearest hospital," he ordered the driver, his voice low but vibrating with intensity.
The car sped through the night, leaving the chaos and the unanswered questions behind—for now. All that mattered in the rushing silence was the fragile rhythm of her breath and the deepening red stain on his hands.
The bullet had struck the right side of her belly. She was breathing in ragged, wet hitches, her face pale and beaded with cold sweat.
"I don't think… I can make it," she whispered, her voice fading. Her eyelids fluttered, consciousness slipping away.
"Don't you dare," Zeke growled, pressing his hands firmly against the wound to staunch the bleeding. "Calm down. We'll be there soon." He lifted his head, voice sharp with command. "How many more minutes?"
"Three, sir!" the driver called back, swerving through traffic with reckless precision.
"Make it two."
The car screeched to a halt under the bright, sterile canopy of Clean Health Medical Center, a private hospital owned by the Black family. Zeke was out of the door before the engine stilled, shouting for help.
An emergency team was already rushing out with a group of nurses ,alerted by his security detail. Efficient and silent, they took Jenny from his arms and whisked her through the sliding doors toward the emergency surgical wing.
Zeke followed, his clothes stained dark red, his expression a mask of cold fury. A senior administrator approached, but Zeke's focus was on the doors that had swallowed Jenny.
"Save her," he said, the words low and absolute. "Whatever it takes. You pull every specialist. You use every resource. She does not die tonight."
The administrator nodded briskly and hurried away, already speaking into a headset.
Alone in the gleaming hallway, Zeke slowly looked down at his bloodied hands. The Men in Black hadn't just made a move. They had declared war. And Jenny, whoever she truly was, had just become the battlefield.
He pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over Bakar's contact. The hunt was no longer about secrets or shares. It was personal.
"Find them," he whispered into the phone, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Before I do."
The surgery took about five hours. The gunshot had been fatal—or nearly so. The bullet had grazed vital organs, and the medical team worked with frantic precision to repair the damage.
Zeke paced the private waiting room like a caged animal, the sterile white walls closing in with each passing hour. His shirt was still stained with Jenny's blood, a dark, rust-colored map of his failure.
One of his security team entered, his expression grim. "Sir, we caught three of the Men in Black from the alley. They're in holding. But the shooter… he was a ghost. Highly skilled. No trace, no shell casing recovered. It's like he was never there."
"Damn it," Zeke seethed, the word sharp and low. His hands clenched at his sides. "Get me Bakar. Right now."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and strode out of the waiting room, down the hushed hospital corridor, and into the adjacent private wing of the facility—a secured area often used for medical supply.
Bakar was already there, standing rigidly as Zeke entered. The room was cold, lit by a single overhead light, and smelled of antiseptic and tension.
"Report," Zeke demanded, his voice echoing slightly off the tiled walls.
"The captured men aren't talking yet, but they will," Bakar stated, his own anger tightly leashed. "The shooter was professional. Military or ex-special forces, likely. This wasn't a warning shot, sir. It was an execution attempt."
Zeke's jaw tightened. They hadn't just wanted Jenny dead—they had wanted her dead in front of him. A message of ultimate disrespect, a demonstration of their reach.
"She survives," Zeke said, the statement hanging as both an order and a desperate fact. "And when she wakes up, she's going to tell us everything. Until then," he continued, his eyes locking onto Bakar's, "you make those men in the other room wish they'd never heard the name 'Black.' Find out who gave the order. I don't care how."
Bakar gave a sharp, silent nod.
As Zeke turned to leave, his phone buzzed. A message from the head surgeon:
Stable. Critical, but stable. She's in recovery.
He didn't feel relief. He felt the sharpening of a blade. Jenny held the truth, and now, so did the men in his cells. The war had moved from the shadows of the Grotto into the bright, brutal light of his world. And Zeke intended to win it.