The underworld whispered his name with caution.
Viper—the man who once ruled blood and shadow with iron resolve.
But after Ayla's death…
He became something else entirely.
A man with nothing left to lose.
The Day the Explosion Happened, He Lost Everything.
They never found her whole. Just pieces.
No final words. No closure. Just fire… and silence.
He didn't scream. He didn't cry.
He just walked into her room and sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the photograph of her younger self, drawn in charcoal by her own hands.
For hours.
Days.
Nights.
Until someone gently knocked on the door, and Kalen walked in.
Kalen Was Elara's Son.
Not his.
But after the flames took Ayla, and Elara vanished without a trace, Viper claimed him.
Not for protection.
Not for redemption.
But because the boy's eyes reminded him of her.
Not Ayla. Elara.
The woman who once made him believe in something softer than vengeance.
But Even Kalen Couldn't Pull Him Back.
Viper spiraled.
The man who once ran empires started running from himself.
He overdosed once. Then again. Until Leon and two others cornered him in one of his hideouts, glassy-eyed and half-conscious.
"You're killing yourself," Leon hissed, gripping Viper by the shirt. "Ayla wouldn't have wanted this."
Viper looked up slowly, voice dry and broken.
"She's dead, Leon. What she wanted doesn't matter anymore."
Rehab Was a Cage of Memories.
He didn't speak for the first week.
Didn't eat for three days straight.
When the therapist asked him to talk about Ayla, he stood up and punched the wall hard enough to shatter bone.
But late one night, Kalen visited him.
He didn't say much—just sat across from the man who had become both father and ghost.
"I don't remember her voice anymore," Kalen whispered.
That broke him more than anything else.
So He Tried.
Tried to stop destroying himself.
Tried to remember her in pieces that didn't burn.
Tried to breathe through the nights without clawing at his skin.
He wasn't healing.
But he was surviving.
And for now, that had to be enough.