The first hit came at 2:17 AM.
Marina was on the Shinton Condo rooftop, shadowboxing under the harsh glow of the helipad lights, her breath fogging in the humid night air. The heavy bag she'd hung from the rooftop structure swayed with each strike—jab, cross, hook, the rhythm as natural as breathing. Below in the apartment, Nikki sat at the kitchen counter eating scrambled eggs and toast. "Breakfast for the baby," she had joked earlier, trying to keep things light despite everything. The lucky cat statue watched from the corner, its painted eyes gleaming.
Then the explosions ripped through the silence.
Marina's fists stopped mid-combination. Her head snapped toward Downtown, where orange fireballs bloomed against the night sky like cheap fireworks gone wrong. The Iron Tide clubhouse. She'd know that location blind—the anchor-and-chain sign, the heavy door, the corner table where Sal read his newspaper. Flames licked upward, black smoke curling into the neon haze.
Sirens screamed seconds later, cutting through the humid air like knives.
Her phone buzzed before the first echo faded. Hector's voice came through tight and raw, the kind of tight she'd only heard once before—when they'd pulled a fighter out of the ring on a stretcher.
"They hit the club. Molotovs through the windows. Sal's okay, but we lost all the bikes. The bar is wrecked. Kalumba's people." A pause, breathing hard. "They're asking for the redhead and the grey-haired bartender. By name, Red. They want you both."
Marina was already moving, heart hammering against her ribs. "I'm coming."
"Don't—" Hector started, but she'd already dropped the phone into her pocket.
She burst back into the apartment, red hair wild, sweat still cooling on her skin. Nikki looked up from her plate, fork frozen halfway to her mouth, scrambled eggs sliding off onto the plate. Her eyes went wide with sudden fear—the kind of fear that came from knowing too much about what Vice City did to people it hunted.
"Shut the door," Marina ordered, voice sharp but steady. She grabbed her leather jacket from the hook, shrugged it on. "Lock everything. Deadbolt, chain, the whole thing. Do not open it for anyone except me or Hector. Understand?"
Nikki nodded quickly, already standing, one hand moving instinctively to her belly. Her voice was small but steady. "Be careful, Red."
Marina paused at the door, just for a second. Looked back at the woman she'd pulled out of an alley, the woman who was already becoming something like family. "Lock it behind me."
The door slammed. The deadbolt clicked.
Marina ran.
---
She didn't take the Sabre—she'd returned it to Sal last night after the final move from her old apartment, keys in his palm, a small act of trust that now felt like a mistake. No time to second-guess. No time for anything except the burning in her lungs and the fire on the horizon.
Five minutes. That's all it took from the Shinton Condo to the Iron Tide, cutting through alleys she'd memorized over a year of late-night runs, hopping fences, sliding between buildings. Her combat boots pounded wet asphalt—the rain had stopped an hour ago, leaving the streets slick and reflective. Neon signs bled across the puddles in pink and cyan. Startled tourists pressed themselves against walls as she passed. Somewhere in the distance, gunfire popped—or maybe fireworks, or maybe something worse. In VEX City, it was hard to tell the difference.
Her red hair streamed behind her like a banner of war.
When she reached the Iron Tide, the clubhouse was a blazing inferno.
Flames roared through the broken windows, devouring the wood frame, the leather chairs, the photographs of bikers who'd been coming there since the eighties. Black smoke poured into the night sky, thick and oily, blocking out the stars. Ambulances lined the street, red and white lights painting the scene in pulses of emergency. Paramedics loaded bodies onto stretchers—some moving, some not. Marina counted at least three covered forms. The anchor-and-chain sign hung crooked, half-melted, dripping metal onto the sidewalk.
The smell was worse than the sight. Burning leather, gasoline, something sweet that might have been the old wooden bar, something acrid that might have been worse.
Sal and Hector sat on the curb across the road, faces lit by the fire. Sal's massive frame looked smaller somehow, shoulders slumped, leather vest singed at the edges. His hands rested on his knees, trembling slightly—from shock or rage, Marina couldn't tell. Hector stared at the flames, jaw tight, a fresh cut bleeding above his eye. Neither of them looked at her when she arrived.
Marina slowed to a walk, chest heaving, and stood beside them. The heat from the burning building pressed against her skin like an accusation, like a hand on her chest pushing her back.
Her eyes burned with pure rage—not the feral grin she wore in the ring, not the wild energy she'd felt on the docks. Something deeper. Colder. Older. The kind of rage that didn't scream or laugh. The kind that just waited.
She waited for blame. For anger. For "this is because of you."
It never came.
Sal didn't look at her at first. He just stared at the flames consuming the place that had been his home, his family, his empire for nearly two decades. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough gravel, scraped raw by smoke and something else.
"Go beat the shit out of Kalumba, Red."
Hector turned then, meeting her gaze. His eyes were steady despite the chaos, despite the blood drying on his forehead. "Remember your training. Don't let the anger make you sloppy. Make it clean. Make it count."
Marina stood there a moment longer, the fire reflecting in her amber eyes, the smell of burning leather and gasoline thick in her lungs. The rage didn't fade—it sharpened. Became something she could hold, something she could aim.
She nodded once, sharp and final.
Then she turned and disappeared back into the night, red hair catching the firelight like blood.
She didn't wait for Sal or Hector to say anything else.
She turned, her boots slapping wet asphalt, lungs already burning from the earlier run. The fire's heat still clung to her skin like a brand, phantom warmth that wouldn't fade. Every siren in the distance felt personal now—each one a reminder of the bodies under the sheets, the covered stretchers, the faces she might never see again.
She cut through alleys she knew better than her own name, dodging startled drunks and late-night delivery bikes. A homeless man cursed at her from a doorway. A cat yowled and scattered. Her mind raced faster than her feet, a storm of calculations and consequences.
They want me? Fine. They want Shupto too? Then they're going to regret both of us.
She didn't have a plan yet—only rage and the address burning a hole in her pocket. Third building from the southern edge of the docks. The door propped open with a rock. She'd memorized it days ago, told herself it was for emergencies, told herself she'd never use it.
She was halfway to VEXport when she heard the lowriders.
Heavy bass thumped from behind her, vibrating through the wet pavement, through her chest. Two cars—black with tinted windows and gold rims—crawled down the street, windows cracked, eyes scanning the sidewalks. The headlights cut through the neon like surgical blades. One of the passengers leaned out, a man with a gold tooth and a baseball bat resting on his shoulder, shouting in Creole mixed with broken English.
"Red bitch! Grey ghost! Come out and play!"
Marina pressed herself into a shadowed doorway, heart slamming against her ribs. She counted four men per car. Bats. Guns. The kind of crew that didn't care about witnesses, that would leave bodies in the street and drive away laughing.
She waited until they passed, the bass fading slowly, then broke into a sprint again, cutting north toward the docks through narrower backstreets. Her thighs burned. Her breath came in ragged gasps. But she didn't stop..
Meanwhile, on his rooftop near VEXport, Shupto Malik was already moving.
He had heard the explosions too—the distant thump-thump-thump that wasn't thunder, wasn't fireworks. Seen the orange glow lighting up the sky toward Downtown, reflected off the water like a second sunrise. When the first lowriders started circling his block, he didn't panic. Panic was a luxury he couldn't afford, hadn't been able to afford since he was seventeen and swimming toward an embankment he couldn't see.
He simply grabbed his small backpack—the one with the map, the binoculars, and the photograph of Liam Taylor—and climbed higher.
From the water tower, he watched two of Kalumba's men kick in the back door of La Reina Negra. The wood splintered. Glass shattered. Madame Jean's voice carried faintly on the wind, cursing them in rapid Creole, her words too fast for Shupto to follow but the tone unmistakable.
Shupto watched them tear the city apart.
The club was burning.
His bar was next.
And somewhere out there—
Marina Delgado was running straight into the fire.
Shupto exhaled slowly.
"So this is how it starts…"
His grip tightened on the edge of the tower.
"Good."
Because if Kalumba wanted a hunt—
he was about to learn
who the real predators were.