Chapter 35: The Breaking Point

By 10:00 AM, Julian’s diversion snapped into place with mathematical precision.

Two heavy river carriages carrying provincial police marshals arrived at the South Quay. A crowd of over fifty harbor workers, shopkeepers, and dock elders gathered near the water as the lead marshal pulled out a stack of stamped arrest warrants, calling for Master Rashid.

As planned, Rashid stepped forward to face the law, supported by Leo and the senior harbor watchmen, holding the line with cold, quiet dignity to prove the documents were fraudulent.

Nearly every man in District 4 rushed toward the quays to witness the confrontation.

Three blocks away, Farooq Flour Mills was eerily quiet.

The heavy water wheel turned slowly, splashing water into the empty side canal. The young mill hands had run down to the docks to support Rashid, leaving only two people inside the main compound: Mr. Farooq, sitting in his second-floor office going over the wage books, and Hunza, who stayed behind to keep watch over the storehouse.

Hunza stood in the middle of the quiet yard, holding a wooden broom, his dark eyes scanning the empty wooden gates.

The heavy silence felt wrong.

Why would Julian send the marshals now? Hunza analyzed, his mind racing through the board. If his goal was to ruin Rashid publicly, he would have done it at the central market. He pulled everyone to the harbor... he emptied the mill.

A sudden, sharp coldness gripped Hunza’s spine.

He dropped the broom. He turned around to look up at the glass windows of Mr. Farooq’s office—and caught the quick, dark silhouette of three men slipping through the back pedestrian gate behind the storehouse.

They weren't carrying official court documents. They were carrying heavy iron pipes and drawn blades.

And walking at the front of the shadows, pulling a brass pistol from his coat with a slow, terrifying smile, was a man Hunza thought was buried deep in the marshlands weeks ago.

The iron latch of the mill gate clicked shut behind the three men.

Hunza stood in the middle of the empty yard, his boots anchored to the rain-soaked floorboards. The rain fell in a heavy, rhythmic whisper, but the air inside his chest felt red-hot.

Walking out of the dark shadow of the grain storehouse was Barlas.

He was thinner than before, his coat torn, and a jagged, raw purple scar stretched from his ear down to his collarbone. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and filled with a unstable, terrifying energy—the look of a man who had crawled out of a grave and left his sanity behind.

"You look surprised, boy," Barlas rasped, his voice sounding like dry stones grinding together. He raised a heavy iron pistol, his hand trembling slightly with raw hatred. "Did you think the marsh would hold me?"

Hunza did not answer immediately. His dark eyes darted from Barlas to the two broad-shouldered thugs behind him, both holding heavy steel pipes. His mind was trying to calculate a way out, but the space was entirely closed.

"Julian pulled the harbor watch to the docks," Hunza said, his voice flat, forced, and dangerously quiet. "You lied to him."

"I didn't lie to anyone!" Barlas spat, taking a step forward, his boots squelching in the flour dust. "Julian wants his paper kingdom. I want your blood! I spent three weeks in the mud eating raw river fish because of you and that old thief Rashid!"

Stolen novel; please report.

From the top of the wooden stairs, the office door clicked open.

Mr. Farooq stepped out onto the high timber balcony, leaning heavily on his wooden cane. His old face tightened with pure horror as his eyes landed on the scarred man in the yard.

"Barlas!" Farooq called out, his voice shaking. "Leave the boy! This business is between the elders—"

Barlas didn't even look up at the balcony.

With a sickening, casual flick of his wrist, Barlas raised the iron pistol toward the stairs and pulled the heavy trigger.

BANG.

The gunshot echoed like thunder inside the high wooden rafters of the mill.

A sharp gasp tore from Mr. Farooq’s chest. The old man’s cane slipped from his fingers, clattering down the wooden steps. He clutched his side, blood instantly staining his clean linen shirt, and collapsed heavily onto the balcony floorboards.

"MR. FAROOQ!" Hunza screamed.

Something inside Hunza shattered.

The quiet, analytical young supervisor who measured flour sacks and read trade ledgers vanished in a single heartbeat. A wave of raw, blinding rage—hotter than anything he had ever known—surged through his veins.

Hunza didn't think. He didn't calculate.

With a roar that shook the dust from the rafters, Hunza charged forward like a wounded bull.

The first thug lunged with an iron pipe, swinging hard at Hunza’s head. Hunza didn't dodge. He ducked under the swing, took the heavy blow across his thick shoulder, and grabbed the man by the throat. Using his massive build, Hunza slammed the thug backward into a heavy granite grinding stone with bone-breaking force. The man went limp, dropping into the flour dust.

"Kill him!" Barlas screamed, trying to re-cock the single-shot pistol with shaking hands. "Kill the bastard!"

The second thug rushed in with a drawn hook blade, slashing wildly at Hunza’s face.

Hunza caught the man’s wrist mid-air. His broad, calloused hands clamped down like iron vices, twisting the wrist until the steel hook clattered to the floor. Hunza drove a heavy, brutal elbow straight into the man's jaw, then threw him headfirst into the timber support beam.

Barlas raised the cocked pistol again, his face twisted in a frantic, manic grin. "You're just a filthy laborer, Hunza! You belong in the dirt!"

Hunza didn't back down. He stepped right into the line of sight, his face covered in white flour dust and dark red blood from a cut above his eye. His dark eyes weren't those of a strategist anymore—they were the eyes of a man who had lost his home.

"You shot an old man who gave you bread!" Hunza roared, his voice terrifyingly deep as he closed the distance between them. "You are nothing! You are just a dog barking for Julian Vance!"

"Shut up! SHUT UP!" Barlas yelled, pulling the trigger.

The hammer clicked down—a hollow CLACK.

The wet gunpowder had misfired.

Panic hit Barlas like a bucket of ice water. He threw the heavy iron gun straight at Hunza’s face. Hunza raised a forearm, knocking the gun aside, and grabbed Barlas by the collar of his coat, lifting the scarred man clean off his feet and slamming him against the heavy oak storehouse door.

"You took my peace," Hunza growled, his breathing heavy, ragged, and lethal as his hands tightened around Barlas’s neck. "You brought fire to my gates!"

Barlas clawed uselessly at Hunza’s massive wrists, his face turning purple, his bloodshot eyes wide with genuine, paralyzing terror as he realized the honest young supervisor was truly going to choke the life out of him.

"Kill me..." Barlas choked out, gasping for air, a sickening, insane smile still touching his lips. "Kill me... and you become... just like Rashid..."

Hunza’s muscles trembled with the violent urge to snap the man's neck. The world around him faded into red noise. He raised a massive, flour-dusted fist, pulled it back, and prepared to deliver the final, crushing blow.

In the shadows behind the side door, Leo had slipped into the yard completely unseen.

The young harbor steward stood frozen near the wooden water wheel, his face ghastly pale, his hands shaking violently as he took in the horrifying scene.

He saw the two thugs lying motionless in the flour dust. He saw Hunza—the calm, stoic supervisor everyone respected—standing like a terrifying demon over Barlas, ready to commit murder.

And then, Leo’s eyes moved up to the balcony.

Mr. Farooq lay bleeding on the timber floorboards, his chest making a faint, wet, rattling sound as he struggled for air. He was still alive.

Leo didn't scream. He didn't make a sound to interrupt the brutal fight in the yard. With tears streaming down his pale face, Leo quietly crept up the back wooden stairs, hoisted Mr. Farooq’s heavy, bleeding body over his young shoulders, and carried his unconscious master out through the rear exit toward the town apothecary before it was too late.

Down below in the dirt, Hunza knew nothing of Leo's entrance.

His fist hovered in the air, his dark eyes locked onto Barlas's gasping face, suspended on the razor's edge between the honest man he had been—and the monster the river was trying to make him.