The Almighty Dominance

Ten minutes slid past.

The street stayed empty except for the twenty men huddled by the curb, eyes fixed on the dark mouth of the road as if a friend might step out of the shadows.

Alex walked up to them with the calm of someone already decided.

"Ten minutes," he said. "No friends showed. Like I promised - every pinky gets broken. So bear the pain."

"Don't you dare!" Max bellowed, panic cutting through his bravado.

"We've called the Chicago Outfit — a thousand of our men are on their way. You'd better run while you can, or we'll turn you into mince."

"Really?" Alex stepped closer until Max could feel his breath. "I don't see your thousand."

Color drained from Max's face. He tried to force menace into his voice. "You'll regret this. You'll regret everything."

Alex didn't warn. He grabbed Max's other pinky and snapped it like a twig.

Max howled. The sound ripped into the night and seemed to pull the darkness apart.

Engines answered the cry: trucks, pickups, motorcycles roaring down the avenue, lights cutting through the fog.

Men poured out of beds and from behind doors, clutching iron pipes, nailed bats, chains — anything that could smash bone and split skin.

The number swelled fast - easily hundreds.

"Who the hell touched one of ours?" someone yelled. "Who wants to die tonight?"

Normal people fled. Couples, joggers, late commuters - they scattered like leaves.

The thugs surged into the road, swinging weapons in lazy, dangerous arcs.

Most were kids with too much venom and too little sense; manipulated, impatient, hungry for violence.

They'd grown up trusting numbers more than skill.

They'd never tasted defeat.

Park staff and security guards watched, faces gone ashen. These men were used

to chasing drunks and scooping up pickpockets, not facing a street army.

"Everyone inside the park — now! Close the gates. Keep the children safe. Say nothing to anyone," Alex ordered.

"Are you sure?" one of the guards stammered. "They're too many."

"Trust me," Alex called over the growing din. "I'm more than enough. Move!"

The guards exchanged looks, then ran. The gate slammed shut, bolts clanking as they locked them from the inside.

Alex stood alone in the center of a hundred raised faces and crude weapons. They spat at him, lungs full of threat.

"You're dead, asshole!" one screamed.

"You hear us? You're begging for death!"

"Hurting the Chicago Outfit? You'll pay!"

The mob tightened like a fist ready to close. Men lifted bats, chains glinted, and for a heartbeat the world held its breath.

Then twenty figures stepped from the darkness behind Alex, the sound of boots and quiet authority.

led them, his expression flat

here,"

back. "New

Just brought them from

He turned his head just enough to let

will face

turned to the group.

- jeans, shirts crumpled like they'd just left a late

Alex with the calm of people

No hesitation.

hundreds?" Max roared, trying to reclaim the night. "Show no mercy. Kill them—show what the Chicago Outfit does

The Kingswell didn't answer.

flat, then exploded forward as

like moths to a flame -

surged forward like they

cocky grins, swinging bats and chains like trophies, shouting

with curses

the predators — from always having the numbers, from never once being challenged.

clumsy, and loud, a Kingswell's strike was sharp,

a ribcage, a knife slid between bone and

thugs went down screaming, clutching broken jaws and

friends laughed at

it was luck, a mistake, that their

they too dropped, gasping for breath with bones bent at

crack. The laughter

pavement made

had always believed in numbers. Numbers had always been their shield. Ten against one, twenty against one it

twenty, numbers meant

to bury their rising panic beneath violence, but each desperate attack was punished with

bat swung wide — countered by a

— caught, yanked, and turned into a noose against its

once a roaring fire burned

turned into screams. The ones who had sworn to kill now stumbled, backing away, tripping over the fallen as their

of the Outfit pulled handguns, their hands shaking,

cracks of gunfire split the night

Kingswell flowed between the

terrifying calm.

snatched up a fallen blade and hurled it

buried itself into a shooter's

wide, mouth frozen

point. Panic spread like

math that had always worked for them—we

- shattered.

they saw their numbers shrinking, their friends dying, their confidence

strutted in

to run, but

the pavement until bone gave way with a crack

missed, and took a fist to the

it collapsed

bubbling

become prey. The

minutes, the Chicago Outfit learned what it felt like to

the sidewalks, citizens stood frozen at first,

them too.

streets had

with a child