After barely surviving an ambush by an organization called “Lotus”, Damien Voss vanished from the map. He fled to Sweden—trading bullets and blood money for snow, silence, and a chance to breathe. For the first time in years, the world around him didn’t bleed.

His plan was simple—almost laughably so. Live quietly. Spend what he had. When the money dried up, crawl back to the States and start taking contracts again.

But peace has a half-life. Two years later, the stillness began to rot. The silence felt too heavy, the calm too clean. The old itch returned—precision, adrenaline, purpose. The kind of hunger that never really dies, only sleeps. So he packed light and booked a one-way flight home.

When he landed in the U.S., no one came to greet him. No call, no message—nothing. Odd. Once upon a time, he’d had a circle that ran tighter than most families—contract killers, fixers, and the rare few who actually gave a damn whether he lived or died.

Now? Radio silence.

Still, there was something about that quiet that didn’t sit right. It wasn’t the peace he’d earned; it was the kind that watched. Even after years in exile, his instincts hadn’t dulled—they just whispered lower. Maybe paranoia never really retires.

He left the terminal and caught a cab, the city lights sliding past the window like ghosts of an old life. Destination: a dimly lit bar downtown. The kind of place that never changed, no matter how many bodies hit the ground or years slipped by.

It belonged to his old mentor—Souta Myoga. If anyone remembered The Reaper, it would be the souls haunting that bar.

He arrived at the place. Same dusty neon sign flickering like it was holding onto secrets, same air heavy with smoke and the kind of conversations that never made it past the bar. The bartender spotted him immediately and grinned, wiping a glass with a rag that had seen better decades.

“Back from the dead?” the man said.

Damien smirked, sliding onto a stool as if he belonged. “The thing is, I never died.”

He let the words hang, taking a slow sip of whiskey, feeling the warmth crawl down to his bones. Around him, familiar faces nodded politely, murmurs filling the gaps, but his eyes swept the room, sharp and quiet. Small talk came and went, laughter, casual greetings, old jokes recycled from another life—but beneath it all, a chill snaked up his spine.

Because even here, surrounded by familiar faces, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the hunter had just become the hunted.