Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Contract of the Dying Minister

The Minister’s mansion did not look like a place someone came to die.

It towered over the hills of East Meridian, its glass façade glowing warm gold against the night like a lantern suspended above the city. Security drones hovered in slow, silent circles overhead. The driveway, paved with black-stone imported from Morocco, shone with rainwater that had only just begun to dry.

But the air told a different story—heavy, cold, expectant.

Judah felt it the moment he stepped out of the armored escort vehicle.

This was a house holding its breath.

He adjusted his red lion half-mask and scanned the courtyard. The Red Sun team fanned out behind him—three senior guards, two medics, and their temporary chief-of-contract: Chief Officer Kweku Narteh, better known as Black Hawk.

Judah didn’t need to look at him to feel the man’s irritation.

Black Hawk hated that the Dralio had chosen Judah.
Hated that the elders kept pushing Judah forward.
Hated even more that Judah had survived every test they hoped would humble him.

Tonight, Judah could feel the man’s resentment like a blade against the back of his neck.

“Stay close,” Black Hawk said without looking at him. “Don’t talk unless someone asks you something. And do not—under any circumstance—let the Dralio speak through you. This is diplomacy, not a battlefield.”

Judah nodded. “Understood.”

Black Hawk didn’t hear the reply. Or pretended not to.

They moved toward the entrance, where two exhausted-looking home security guards bowed stiffly. One of them kept glancing over his shoulder, as though afraid something inside might reach out and pull him back in.

A bad sign.

The interior of the mansion was a cathedral of marble, mirrored pillars, and silent servants in white uniforms. Every sound echoed—footsteps, breaths, whispers of cloth. Judah could feel the Dralio stirring uneasily.

Something is sick here, the spirit murmured.
And something else watches from the dark.

Judah swallowed hard. Spirits rarely spoke without reason.

The team was led through the grand foyer, past portraits of the Minister shaking hands with presidents, generals, and foreign monarchs. Only one portrait had been taken down—its rectangular shadow still fresh against the wall.

“Where’s the missing frame?” Judah whispered to a passing servant.

The servant flinched. “Removed this morning… by order of Madam Abena.”

Judah made a note of that.

The Minister’s wife was a name whispered in both political and criminal circles. A woman said to move influence like a chess board.

They were guided up a staircase, down a hall too quiet for a house with this many staff, and into a private medical suite. Two medics hurried past them, their eyes darting, their faces pale.

Inside, Minister Koa Nyane lay on a wide bed, surrounded by machines that hummed and blinked weakly. His skin had turned a waxy, unnatural yellow. His lips twitched with each breath, as though he were struggling to hold onto something slipping away.

His wife stood at his side, tall, composed, wearing a silk wrapper the color of dying embers.

Madam Abena.

Black Hawk stepped forward and bowed. “We are the House of the Red Sun. You requested emergency elite protection.”

Her eyes—sharp, tired, and terribly alert—fell on Judah first, not Black Hawk.

“Which of you is the Lion?”

Judah blinked. “I am.”

“Come,” she said. “You stand closest.”

Black Hawk stiffened, jaw tight enough to crack.

Judah stepped to the bedside. As he approached, the Minister’s eyelids fluttered. His voice rasped like paper dragged across stone.

“Lion…” he whispered.

Judah leaned in. “Yes, sir. I’m here.”

The Minister’s hand twitched, reaching. Judah took it gently.

Black Hawk shot him a warning glare, but Madam Abena raised a hand to silence him.

“My husband speaks only when he must,” she said quietly. “Let him speak.”

The Minister’s lips barely moved, but Judah heard every word.

“They’re coming… for her.”

Judah felt his stomach tighten. “Who?”

The Minister’s eyes, cloudy with sickness, sharpened suddenly like a hawk sighting prey.

“Those I once trusted.”

His hand squeezed. Hard.
Too hard for a dying man.

Judah winced as heat sparked beneath his skin—the Dralio reacting instinctively.

“They poisoned me,” the Minister whispered. “My own council. My own guards.”

Judah froze.
Black Hawk took a step forward.
Madam Abena went still as stone.

The Minister coughed, blood spotting the corner of his lips.

“They want her dead next… so she can’t expose them,” he gasped. “Save her… Lion. Please.”

Judah swallowed the spike of adrenaline. “We will protect her, Minister. I swear it.”

The Minister’s grip relaxed. His hand slid from Judah’s fingers and thumped against the bed.

The room fell into a thick, suffocating silence.

Then Madam Abena exhaled, shaky but controlled.

“So,” she murmured, “it’s as we feared.”

Black Hawk stepped forward. “Madam, if your household staff or your personal guard are compromised, we must relocate you immediately. A secure location—”

“No,” she cut in sharply. “I am not running from men who owe their power to my husband. If they want my blood, they can bleed first.”

Judah felt something shift—an energy, dark and purposeful.

He looked toward the far corner of the room.

A shadow moved where no shadow should have been.

The Dralio’s voice rose like a low growl.

Lion… something hunts.

Judah turned sharply.

“Everyone down!” he shouted.

Before the words fully left his mouth, the window exploded inward.

Glass sprayed like knives.

A figure in a black hawk half-mask—sleek, agile, deadly—dove through the opening with twin daggers drawn.

Not Black Hawk.

Someone else.
Someone wearing the same spirit’s symbol.

Judah lunged forward, instincts firing. The assassin struck at Madam Abena—

—and Judah slammed into her just in time, rolling them both behind the reinforced medical cabinet.

Black Hawk drew a pistol and fired. The assassin spun aside, impossibly fast, the bullets punching holes through the far wall.

Judah rose to his feet, aura blazing red-gold.

The assassin paused at the sight of him.

“The Red Lion,” the intruder said softly. “Good. They said to kill you too.”

Judah smiled beneath the mask, though his heart thundered.

“Come try.”

The assassin charged.

—End of Season 01