Chapter 1

SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER…

[MAVERICK]

Maverick lounged against the tree outside John Mullion's bar, inhaling the smoke with a quiet intensity, and as he exhaled, a subtle smile spread across his lips. A wicked smile. It was time.

Maverick's eyes gleamed with an unearthly green light against the dark canvas of the night sky, a phenomenon that inspired a mix of fear, respect, and reverence from his people.

"Say the word, Mav." One of the men, named Ken, said to him. "We have them surrounded. There's no escape for them tonight." he assured.

Maverick's response was a low, amused chuckle, his gaze never wavering from its current focus. He found the implied alternative too absurd to warrant a direct reply. Even if they were not surrounded, even if Mav had come alone to take all the twenty armed men inside that bar, no one would be able to escape. Not one.

He kept his gaze cast downward, his chest heaving with slow, deliberate breaths, and when he finally spoke, it was like dark magic slicing through the pure night air, enough to send chills down the spine of every man with a hearing range and enough to make goosebumps spread like cholera on the skins of all.

"Bring me, Mullion, kill the rest." he said. Ken nodded to him and ran swiftly to the others, and a few seconds later, five of Mav's men entered into the bar, and the commotion began.

The cacophony of screams and gunfire stirred Maverick, but he strained to remain still, as he always did. The familiar sounds of terror and desperation, men pleading for mercy, awakened a dark hunger within him, a craving he loathed to acknowledge, even to himself.

Blood.

Blood, and his need to just shift to the feral beast that he was. His true primal nature.

After a moment of bloodiness and screams came the usual silence that ensued after the war was over. And then, Mullion's screams filled the air as Ken dragged him by his hair towards Mav.

Finally, my prize.

"MAVERICK!" Mullion screamed.

"Hello, John. You don't look so good on this beautiful night. Why? Did you do this to yourself?" Maverick asked in a rhythmic tone.

Mullion was not bleeding as much as his dead mates in his bar, but he had some blood on the left side of his head, as though someone had bashed him. Probably Zane, Mav thought. Zane had a thing for dashing out the cruellest blows.

"Fuck you, Maverick!"

"Fuck me?" Mav said, and with that, Ken pointed is gun at Mullion's feet and shot at it. Mullion cried out. "I'm not the one that messed with Don Charles' products. You are."

"I'm not the one doing the messing!" He confessed, but Mav didn't care. It was too late for confessions now.

"I asked you a fucking question, John. Did you do this to yourself or not?"

"Please….please, we can fucking work this out Mav. I didn't betray the Don. I have a wife and two kids, Mav. Lina is fucking pregnant with my third. I'm all she's got." Mullion begged.

Mav put his hand around John Mullion's neck and slowly began to raise his entire body up from his neck as he slowly strangled him. Ken and Zane who were behind Mullion took a step back.

"Did you do this to yourself, John?" Mav asked again, growing even more impatient, before a slight gasp of a yes came out of the what little space was left of his airways. Pleased, Mav continued to strangle him, until he broke his neck, and john Mullion's lifeless body fell to the ground and now, silence was sure, save for the crickets of the night and their kinky chirps.

"The bar is ours. Spread the news. I don't want to have to do this again for a while." Mav said to Ken as he stamped his cigar on Mullion's body and walked. Ken and Zane followed behind him, while he other guys did some little tidying around the place.

"Right. Done." Ken assured.

"That was good, Mav." Zane said.

"Thanks."

"Did he have to die though?"

"Zane, Don said everyone dies. He gave the order." maverick said, and Zane nodded in resignation.

"Charles is going to be mad you went without him, though." Ken put in.

"Again. Don gave me the go ahead. He said that Charles was handling a meeting with the Milo brothers."

Zane exchanged a knowing glance with Ken, and they both chuckled, shaking their heads in unison. "And when have you ever seen, that Don actually let the junior handle a meeting alone?"

Maverick rolled his eyes, a sense of guilt suddenly washing over him. "Shut up, Zane." He said.