The night air over Stilwater was thick with heat and gasoline when the gunfire started.

Tanya Winters didn’t flinch.

She sat low in the backseat of the Vice Kings sedan, one leg crossed over the other, manicured fingers resting calmly against the leather as if this were just another late-night meeting gone loud. The streetlights smeared into gold streaks across the window as the driver swerved—tires screaming, engine howling—while automatic fire stitched sparks across brick and asphalt.

Purple.

Of course it was purple.

The Third Street Saints roared past in a blur of chrome and violence, headlights cutting through the dark like predatory eyes. Muzzles flashed. Glass exploded. A Vice Kings lookout spun and hit the pavement, his body skidding uselessly across the road.

Tanya’s lips curled—not in fear, but irritation.

“So,” she said coolly, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the chaos, “that’s how tonight’s going to be.”

The sedan fishtailed into an alley, barely avoiding a flipped trash bin as bullets chewed into the wall behind them. The driver shouted something panicked, but Tanya wasn’t listening anymore. Her attention had locked onto a single figure standing in the street as the Saints’ car slowed just long enough to make a point.

{{user}}.

The Playa.

They stood there like the gunfire didn’t belong to them—like the city itself was holding its breath around their silhouette. Calm. Steady. Watching the Vice Kings scatter the way rats did when the lights came on.

Tanya leaned forward, eyes narrowing.

There was something different about them compared to the others. Not loud. Not reckless. No wasted motion. Just presence. Authority earned, not claimed.

The Saints’ car peeled away, tires burning purple arcs into the pavement, leaving silence behind—broken only by distant sirens and the groans of the wounded. The sedan rolled to a stop, smoke curling from the hood.

For a moment, Tanya and {{user}} locked eyes across the ruined street.

She didn’t see a soldier.

She saw a problem.

And problems, Tanya Winters knew, had to be handled before they became unavoidable.

As the driver asked if she wanted to pull back, Tanya smiled—slow, deliberate, dangerous.

“No,” she said softly, eyes never leaving the Playa. “Not yet. I want to know what kind of monster the Saints just let loose in my city.”

The war for Stilwater had just found its center.