The broadcast only lasted two minutes.
No network claimed it. No logo, no anchor, no watermark.
Just a black screen. Then a voice.
Calm. Female. Unmistakable to the people who knew who she was.
Most of the world thought it was a hoax.
But to a small, violent minority — the ones who ran things from mahogany desks and deep vaults — it was the equivalent of a declaration of war.
“You’ve forgotten what fear feels like.
You’ve mistaken peace for silence.
And silence for submission.
Let me remind you:
I was quiet.
Not gone.”
Harper’s phone exploded with calls.
Senators. CEOs. A judge or two. Old money, old crime, all scared stiff.
They didn’t care that the woman’s face hadn’t been shown.
They didn’t need it.
The cadence was enough.
The cadence — and the fact that five small, tightly-held corporate servers crashed minutes after the broadcast aired.
Each one holding files they thought had been buried.
Each breach traced back to an IP address linked to a company Eve had gutted three years ago — then disappeared from.
Someone was digging up ghosts.
In the tunnels under Temple Avenue, Marco found a message on the wall.
Spray-painted in black:
“WHEN SHE SPEAKS, KINGS FALL.”
He stared at it for a long time.
Then he reached into his coat, pulled out a piece of paper.
Five names.
Four crossed out.
One remained.
He folded it again. Put it back.
One more.
Nathan met Harper in the upper decks of a private arena box.
The event didn’t matter. Something with noise, flash, and crowd.
They weren’t there to watch.
Harper lit a cigarette, blew smoke toward the glass.
“They’re not hiding anymore,” Harper said.
Nathan nodded. “That’s not new.”
“You still think this is some outlier? A rogue cell? A clever upstart with a flair for theatrics?”
He didn’t answer.
Harper tapped ash into a champagne flute, careless and precise all at once.
“They’re not trying to run the game anymore,” she said. “They’re trying to end it. Everything we built to keep the world orderly, manageable.”
Nathan looked at her then. Steady.
“You mean everything you built to keep yourselves untouchable.”
Harper didn’t flinch. Just lifted her glass like it was a toast.
“Sooner or later, they’ll push too far. Overreach. Slip.”
Nathan turned back to the window, to the city stirring beneath the clouds.
“Then you better hope I’m not on their side when they do.”
A beat of silence.
Then Harper, still but sharp: “What did you say?”
“I said,” Nathan replied, calm as glass, “maybe you should stop pretending I’m yours.”
He walked out.
Didn’t look back.
Eve was in the market square when it happened.
Not running. Not hiding.
Denim jacket. Windbreaker. Hair pulled back.
Just another face in the crowd.
But the man saw her.
Middle-aged. Polished. Banker-type on the surface. But the eyes gave him away — sharp, hungry, wrong.
He paused. She paused.
Then came the tell: the slight shift of weight, hand dipping into his coat.
He never got there.
Vasha moved through the crowd like smoke.
No warning. No noise. Just a whisper at his neck — and a needle between his ribs.
He dropped, silent.
Eve kept walking. Didn’t look back.
Vasha followed, trailing a few beats behind. She hadn’t known the woman’s face until now.
Marco had only told her: Watch the one the detective watches. Protect her if you must. She matters more than you understand.
Now she understood.
They met again a block later, in the hush of a quiet side street.
“That’s the third this week,” Vasha said.
“They’re growing bold,” Eve murmured, not breaking stride.
“They’re growing scared,” Vasha corrected. “Fear makes people stupid.”
Eve glanced sideways — not surprised, not thankful, just… measuring.
“Good,” she said softly. “I want stupid. I want reckless. It makes the field easier to clean.”
They moved in silence for a while. The street was narrow, the sounds of the market fading behind them. Eve finally stopped beside a shuttered storefront.
Vasha stopped too.
“You saw me,” Eve said. Not a question.
Vasha didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
A pause. Then: “You weren’t supposed to.”
“I know.”
Eve turned, really looking at her now — for the first time, not just as a voice on the wire, or a hand in the dark, but as something heavier. Measured. Final.
“There’s no halfway past this point,” Eve said. “No blurred lines. You walk forward from here, you do it knowing exactly what it means.”
Vasha didn’t ask for clarity. She didn’t need it.
“Loyalty or death?” she asked.
Eve tilted her head. “Loyalty is death. To everything else. Everything that came before.”
A long breath passed between them. Then Vasha nodded once — sharp, deliberate.
“Then consider the old me gone.”
Eve studied her for another beat. Whatever test was playing out behind her eyes, Vasha passed it.
“Good,” Eve said. “Because if you ever turn, I won’t hesitate.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” Vasha replied. “And if you fall?”
Eve’s lips curved — not quite a smile. Something colder.
“Then I was never worthy of being followed.”
That night, a message appeared on an encrypted network used by syndicates across five cities.
The message was simple:
“New crown. New rules. Speak now, or be replaced.”
Underneath it:
The symbol of a broken chess king, inverted.
A calling card not used since the “Disappearance of Hallow” years ago.
Anyone paying attention would know:
Eve was no longer just surviving.
She was claiming the board.
Baawa Unfiltered 