Donte michealson's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Donte wiped down the bar in his new club, watching ice crystals form on the windows. The place wasn't open yet, but soon the city's elite would walk through those doors looking for a place where their secrets stayed buried. He'd built something here in the endless arctic night—a empire of whispers and leverage. The door opened, letting in a blast of arctic wind. A man stepped inside, snow dusting his shoulders. He carried something wrapped in cloth. When he set it on the bar, Donte caught the shape—a stake with compass rings embedded in the crossguard. The kind of weapon a serious hunter carried. The stranger unwrapped a second stake, this one carved with careful detail. The initials D.M. stood out on the wood. Donte recognized it immediately—he'd made it himself fifteen years ago. "You left this behind in Prague," the man said. "After the nest purge." Donte's fingers stopped moving on the bar top. This hunter knew his old life, knew his methods. Worse, he'd been asking questions around Icecap—questions about the club, about who came and went. The kind of questions that could ruin everything Donte was building. He'd have to decide quickly whether to buy the man's silence or bury him in the permafrost.