Before dawn, an armored convoy rolls into Bermuda Base.

  The sky was still dark when the sound of heavy engines rumbled across the wasteland. The gates of Bermuda Base groaned as they swung open, revealing the convoy—four armored transports, their metal frames scarred from weeks on the road. Dust and exhaust fumes choked the air as the trucks rolled in, their headlights cutting through the morning gloom like predatory eyes.

  From the main bunker, Dominic stood waiting, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets. His face was unreadable, but his jaw tightened slightly. He already knew who was inside those vehicles.

  The first door swung open with a metallic clang. A boot hit the dirt. The missing warlords step out—hardened, battle-worn, and bringing bad news. Darius the true boss, is back. His second-in-command, Dominic, has kept things running, but with the recent sabotage, losses, and rumors of a traitor, control has slipped. Darius immediately asserts his authority.

  And then, he stepped out.

  Darius "Brimstone" Kova.

  Six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, built like a man who had spent his life carving his way through hell and coming out laughing. His dark tactical gear was dusty but pristine, a suppressed M4A1 slung over his shoulder. A thick scar ran down his jawline, splitting into a grin that had seen more death than mercy.

  Behind him, the others followed. A sudden shift.

  Bear, the Russian enforcer, a walking wall of muscle and brutality. Reaper Liu, silent and precise, his cold gaze scanning the compound. Lana "Wildfire" Quinn, her twin Glocks holstered at her hips, eyes sharp with mischief and bloodlust. Hector, tall, lean, the only man in Bermuda who could carve out a throat and finish his whiskey in the same breath. Blitz, shade, specter, vulture, shade, fang grim. All intense, what the warlord will say?

  The warlord of Bermuda had returned.

  Darius stopped a few feet away from Dominic, his grin unwavering.

  "Miss me?"

  Dominic didn't answer at first. His gaze swept over the convoy, noting the absence of a few familiar faces. "Took you long enough," he finally said.

  Darius stretched his neck, cracking his knuckles. "Yeah, well… I’d love to say it was a peaceful trip, but it turns out when you put a bunch of faction leaders in a room together, people get touchy about business."

  He glanced around the base, his expression shifting slightly.

  Scorch marks from the fire still stained the ground. The repairs on the rig were still unfinished. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut.

  Darius’s grin faded.

  "What the fuck happened while i was gone?"

  "We had some problems". Dominic replied.

  The base was gathered in the main courtyard by noon.

  The returning warlord stood at the center, his presence alone enough to shift the entire hierarchy of power. Some of the crew shifted uncomfortably, unsure where their loyalty should land. Others watched in silence, waiting.

  Darius stood before them, rolling his shoulders like a man about to throw the first punch in a bar fight. "You know what I fucking hate?" he began casually. "When I leave for a business trip and come back to find my house on fire."

  His eyes landed on a man near the front—one of the security chiefs responsible for guarding the poppy fields. Darius’s grin returned, but it was sharp as a blade.

  "You were on duty the night of the fire, weren’t you?"

  The man swallowed hard. "Boss, I—"

  Darius moved fast. One second he was talking, the next his fist had slammed into the man’s jaw, sending him sprawling onto the ground.

  The base went silent.

  "You let someone walk into my house and set it on fire." Darius crouched down beside the man, voice low and dangerous. "And I don’t like that."

  He stood, nodding toward Bear.

  Without hesitation, Bear grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him toward a metal stake near the edge of the base.

  By the time the sun set, his body was still hanging there. A warning to anyone else thinking of failing Bermuda PMC.

  Inside the command bunker, the war table was already covered in maps, reports, and digital logs. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and unspoken tension.

  Darius leaned back in the rusted steel chair, exhaling slowly. "Alright, let’s get down to it. The meeting was a fucking mess. Mutation Republic’s warlords are fighting among themselves. Some of them want more drugs, some of them want more control. They’re getting desperate."

  "Desperate enough to sabotage us?" Dominic asked, leaning forward.

  Darius scoffed. "Maybe. But we’ve got other problems." He tapped the table. "Phoenix Corp’s got new leadership. They’re looking to push into Bermuda’s market. If they find a weak spot, they’ll take it. So either we’re dealing with a rogue Republic warlord, a PMC power grab, or someone from the Citadel playing both sides." His gaze flicked toward Darius. "And while we were gone, someone lit our fucking fields on fire."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Dominic met his stare evenly. "We’ve been working on it. But whoever did it covered their tracks."

  Darius smirked, leaning forward. "Then we burn every bush until the snake comes out. Now i need to change my mind."

  Dominic excited, "We brought some new flesh. I saved some for you."

  Darius, "I have my own entertainments". and left for his room where someone was waiting.

  The room was dim, lit only by flickering oil lamps and the soft glow of neon signs buzzing weakly outside the window. Smoke curled through the air—thick, pungent, laced with something strong enough to make the walls feel like they were breathing. The bass of distant music throbbed in the background, a slow, rhythmic pulse, like the heartbeat of the underworld.

  Darius leaned back against the worn-out leather couch, a cigarette dangling between his fingers, his other hand nursing a glass of dark amber liquor. His shirt was open, the heat of the room clinging to his skin, sweat mixing with the scent of smoke and sex. His mind was a slow burn, half lost in the narcotics coursing through his veins, half focused on the woman draped against him.

  Lana. She sat beside him, her legs curled beneath her, wearing nothing but a loose silk robe that barely clung to her shoulders. Her dark hair was damp with sweat, strands sticking to her flushed skin. Her Glock lay within arm’s reach, even now. Always ready.

  On the other side of Darius, the slave girl lay sprawled across his lap, naked and pliant, her body marked by past scars and fresh bruises. She had been a gift—an offering from a desperate trader looking for favor. Darius had accepted without hesitation. He always took what was his.

  Lana exhaled, a lazy smirk playing on her lips as she reached for the small tray on the table, a glass vial of powder resting atop it. She dipped a finger in, pressed it to her tongue, and let out a slow sigh. “Dominic’s making his move soon.”

  Darius took a drag from his cigarette, the ember flaring bright in the dim light. “I know. But he's not the traitor.”

  The slave stirred slightly at his side, her fingers tracing along his stomach, but she didn’t speak. She wouldn’t dare.

  Lana studied him, her eyes sharp even through the haze of drugs and pleasure. “He’s got Blitz. Shade. Specter. That’s not just muscle—that’s strategy.”

  Darius smirked, lazily running a hand up Lana’s thigh, his fingers pressing into her skin. “You worried?”

  She laughed, low and throaty, shifting closer. “Worried? No. Just making sure you’re not too distracted.”

  Darius turned his head, catching her lips in a slow, drug-laced kiss. When he pulled back, he murmured, “I’m never distracted.”

  Lana tilted her head, studying him, then nodded towards the slave girl. “And her? What happens when Dominic takes over? If he wins?”

  Darius ran his fingers through the girl's hair, gripping it just enough to make her inhale sharply. “Then I make sure he doesn’t.”

  Lana smirked. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  She shifted, straddling his lap, her fingers tracing his jaw. “So, what’s the plan, boss?”

  Darius crushed his cigarette out on the ashtray beside him, the glow dying as he pulled her closer, his lips grazing her ear.

  “When the time comes we strike first. But first lets just sort this mess out.”

  And as the night pressed on, filled with whispered plans, smoke curling in the air, and the heat of tangled bodies, the war for control had already begun.

  The door swung open without a knock—only one man would do that.

  Dominic.

  He stood in the doorway, backlit by the cold, blue hallway lights. His tactical jacket was unzipped, the holster on his hip unfastened, his expression unreadable. Behind him, Bear loomed, a human wrecking machine with blood still smeared across his knuckles.

  "We found the rat," Dominic said flatly.

  Darius didn’t move at first. He let the silence stretch, lazily dragging the tip of his cigarette across Lana’s collarbone before flicking the last of the ash onto the floor.

  "Bring him in."

  A scuffle.

  Then two enforcers dragged the man inside, his face already swollen from the first round of interrogation. He was dumped onto the floor, gasping, coughing blood onto the cracked concrete. One eye was nearly swollen shut, his lip split down the middle.

  Darius rolled his shoulders and stood, letting Lana slide off him. The slave girl shrank back instinctively.

  He crouched beside the man, grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanking his head up. "You’ve got two seconds to explain before I make this really fucking unpleasant."

  The rat coughed, spitting blood onto the ground. "I—I don’t know shit!"

  Bear’s boot came down hard on the man’s ribs, a wet crack echoing through the room.

  Darius sighed, almost disappointed. "That was your answer?"

  He leaned in, pressing his forehead against the man’s temple like a lover whispering sweet nothings. "You were getting paid. By who?"

  The rat shuddered, his breath ragged. "Didn’t see their faces," he croaked. "Black armor. Military-grade. They gave me cash. Just to pass messages. That’s all. I swear."

  Darius exhaled, his patience wearing thin. "And what messages were you passing?"

  The rat swallowed hard, his swollen eye darting toward Dominic, then Bear, then back to Darius. "Supply routes. Guard rotations. They… they knew about the fire before it happened."

  Silence.

  Darius released his grip and stood up, rolling his neck. "Who else knows?"

  "No one," the rat rasped.

  Darius turned to Dominic. "You believe him?"

  Dominic crossed his arms. "Does it matter?"

  Darius smirked. "No. Not really."

  He nodded toward Bear.

  The enforcer didn’t hesitate.

  A single gunshot rang out, splattering the rat’s brains across the floor.

  The room was silent except for the crackling neon outside.

  Darius exhaled slowly, rubbing his jaw before turning back to Lana and the slave girl. He slid back onto the couch, pulling Lana into his lap, dragging a lazy hand over the girl’s bare stomach.

  "We’re burning every fucking bush until we find those black-armored ghosts," he murmured, exhaling smoke. "And then?"

  Lana smirked, grinding against him slightly. "Then we carve them up nice and slow."

  Darius grinned. "That’s what I like to hear."

  The night was far from over.

  And the war had only just begun.

  The wind howled through the skeletal trees, whipping through the frozen pines that clung to the mountainside. Snow crunched softly beneath heavy boots as two figures moved silently through the upper canopy, perched on thick, ice-laden branches like specters above the world.

  They were dressed in full black tactical armor, matte plating absorbing what little moonlight dared touch them. Just void-like silhouettes against the snow-laden boughs.

  One of them adjusted the scope on a high-powered drone reconnaissance rifle, its digital interface blinking faintly against the night. Through the lens, he tracked movement far below—Bermuda Base, a walled fortress of metal and fire, its inhabitants blissfully unaware they were being watched.

  "Asset compromised," the first man said, his voice distorted slightly through the modulator in his helmet. "They flushed him out."

  The second figure remained still for a moment, scanning the compound with his own optics before responding. "Expected. We knew he wouldn't last long. Phase Two starts now."

  A brief silence passed between them, the wind whispering secrets between the branches.

  "Need another leak," the first man finally said. "Someone inside. Deep this time."

  The second man shifted slightly, reaching up to tap a device on his wrist. A soft beep sounded as encrypted data pulsed to an unseen network.

  "Already working on it," he murmured.

  Far below, inside the compound, Darius sat in the warmth of two women in his bunker, oblivious to the eyes that watched him from above.

  A war was coming.

  And Bermuda had no idea.