PROLOGUE — “Poetic Justice in Black”

The city never slept.

It rotted awake.

Neon bled through rain-slick streets, dripping down rusted fire escapes and flickering over cracked glass like a dying pulse. Sirens wailed somewhere far off—too far to matter. In this part of the city, justice didn’t arrive.

It was delivered.

Stephanie

From the rooftop, Stephanie Fantome watched the world like it was already a corpse.

Her long black coat shifted in the wind, shadows clinging to her like they belonged to her more than the ground below. A cigarette burned between her fingers—not for habit, just for something to hold while she waited.

“Target confirmed,” came Gage’s voice through the comm.

Stephanie exhaled slowly. “They always are.”

Below, a group of men stumbled out of a nightclub—laughing too loud, drunk on money and the kind of confidence that came from never facing consequences.

Human traffickers.

Gage

Three blocks away, perched in silence, Gage Fantome lay prone in a forgotten high-rise.

His breathing was steady. Mechanical.

Perfect.

Through his scope, the world simplified—heartbeats, trajectories, wind resistance… and something more.

His magic pulsed behind his eyes.

He could see them.

Not just bodies—but intent. Violence. Guilt.

It glowed like stains.

“Wind negligible,” he murmured. “Three targets aligned.”

He bit into his thumb. Blood welled instantly.

The bullet chamber shimmered.

Loaded.

“One shot,” he whispered.

He pulled the trigger.

Tara

Elsewhere, Tara Fantome smiled to herself in the dark.

She crouched beside a sewer grate, fingers gently brushing along a writhing cluster of black-veined vines.

“Go on,” she whispered, almost affectionately. “Be useful.”

The plants responded instantly—slithering through cracks, surging upward through pavement, coiling unseen through alleyways.

Above, one of the targets staggered—

—and then screamed.

Vines erupted from beneath his feet, wrapping, tightening, piercing.

Tara tilted her head, listening.

“Humans are so loud when they realize they’re meat.”

She tapped her earpiece. “One’s mine.”

Kari

Inside the club, time stopped.

Glasses froze mid-air. Music died mid-beat. A laugh cut into silence like a snapped wire.

Kari stood in the center of it all, eyes glowing faintly with shadow.

“Too slow,” she muttered.

She walked casually between frozen bodies, shotgun slung over her shoulder. One by one, she positioned them—slight adjustments, angles, inevitabilities.

A knife here.

A gun there.

A hand placed just so.

She reached the last target, leaning close enough to whisper:

“You should’ve stayed home.”

Then she stepped back.

Time resumed.

The room exploded into chaos—gunshots, screams, bloodshed—each victim killing the other in a perfectly orchestrated massacre.

Kari exhaled.

“Done.”

Diego

Diego arrived late.

Not by much—but enough.

He stood at the edge of the aftermath, chest tight, staring at what his siblings had done.

No evidence.

No pattern.

No crime.

Just… absence.

Stephanie appeared beside him, silent as ever.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” she said.

“I didn’t even say anything.”

“You didn’t need to.”

He hesitated. “Does it ever… feel like too much?”

Stephanie looked at the empty street.

“No,” she said simply.

Then, after a pause—

“It feels like balance.”

The Widows

They should have stopped there.

But the night wasn’t finished.

Michele’s voice came through the comms—calm, composed, but sharper than usual.

“New development. The Widows are planning a heist.”

Stephanie’s eyes narrowed. “Irrelevant.”

“They’re targeting my business.”

A pause.

That was all it took.

The Trap

The warehouse was quiet.

Too quiet.

Stacks of cash sat in the center—bait dressed as opportunity.

The Widows entered cautiously, weapons drawn.

“Something’s off,” one muttered.

“Yes,” Stephanie’s voice echoed from the darkness. “You are.”

What followed wasn’t a fight.

It was a demonstration.

Gage’s shots erased escape routes before they were taken.

Tara’s creations turned the environment into a living execution chamber.

Kari moved like a blur—violence condensed into seconds.

Diego… hesitated—

—but acted.

And Stephanie?

Stephanie ended it.

Black magic bloomed like a void swallowing light.

The leader of the Widows didn’t even get to scream.

Aftermath

By dawn, nothing remained.

No bodies.

No blood.

No proof.

Not even memory, in some cases.

It was as if the night had simply… corrected itself.

Home

The siblings gathered in the kitchen.

Normal.

Quiet.

Kari raided the fridge. Tara scrolled through something disturbing on her tablet. Gage cleaned his rifle like it was a ritual.

Diego sat down slowly.

Stephanie poured tea.

For a moment, they weren’t assassins.

They were just… family.

“Next time,” Kari said between bites, “can we do something less boring?”

Tara smirked. “You froze time and staged a massacre for fucks sakes.”

“Yeah,” Kari shrugged. “Routine.”

Stephanie took a sip of tea.

“Get used to it.”

Outside, the city kept rotting.

Inside, the Phantomthornhearts rested.

End of Prologue