The city was locked and loaded. You could feel it in the air, like static before a lightning strike.

New York didn’t sleep, it chambered a round and waited. Rain streaked down the windows of my apartment, turning the skyline into a watercolor of bad decisions. I checked my guns on the kitchen table like a priest laying out sacramental tools.

Beretta. Cleaned. Oiled. Familiar.

Desert Eagle. Heavy. Excessive. A brick that solved arguments permanently.

Pump shotgun. Short barrel. Wood stock scarred like it had history.

Extra mags. Loose rounds. A shoulder holster that knew my ribs better than my doctor did.

I wasn’t going out for milk.
The tip had come through an old NYPD channel, dirty, buried, whispered. A private militia had moved into the city. Not gangsters. Not suits. Something worse. Former military contractors with nothing left to believe in except fire superiority. They called themselves The Cinder Group. Real subtle.

They were buying weapons in bulk. Military grade. Enough to arm a small war. And New York was the battlefield.

I put on my coat. The weight settled in like a bad memory.
The meet was happening in an abandoned railyard in Queens. Rusted tracks, derelict boxcars, floodlights rigged up by men who liked shadows but needed to see what they were killing. I scoped the place from a water tower, rain dripping off my nose, city noise muffled by distance and intent.
At least twenty men.

Assault rifles. AK variants. ARs with optics worth more than my rent. Submachine guns slung low like they were part of the uniform. Shotguns. One guy had a belt-fed monster mounted on a truck like he was expecting the apocalypse to RSVP.
I counted exits. I counted angles. I counted how many bullets I had versus how many regrets I’d be adding.
Then I jumped.
Bullet time kicked in as gravity did the rest. The world slowed, stretched, begged. I hit the ground firing, twin pistols barking like they’d been waiting for permission. Two men dropped before their brains finished processing surprise.
Gunfire erupted. Muzzle flashes lit the yard like strobe lights at a funeral rave.
I rolled behind a boxcar as rounds chewed through steel. The sound was deafening, metal screaming, bullets whining past like angry insects. I popped up and fired again, switching to the Desert Eagle. The recoil punched up my arm like a bad idea with consequences.
One shot. One body.
I moved fast. You stayed still, you died. That was the rule.

A man rushed me with a shotgun. I sidestepped and emptied my Beretta into his chest, close enough to smell cordite and cheap cologne. He folded like a bad poker hand.
I grabbed his shotgun and kept moving.
The yard turned into chaos. Shouting. Orders breaking down. Training collapsing under panic. These guys were good—but they weren’t ready for someone who didn’t care if he walked away.
I slid under a flatbed railcar as a burst of automatic fire shredded the space I’d just vacated. Came up on the other side and pumped the shotgun twice. Two shells. Two bodies launched backward like they’d offended God personally.
I was bleeding. Didn’t know where. Didn’t care.
They pushed me toward the warehouse at the edge of the yard. Concrete. Tight corridors. Kill boxes waiting to happen. I kicked the door in anyway.
Inside was worse. Narrow hallways. Stairwells. Fluorescent lights flickering like they were trying to escape. Men stacked up, rifles raised.
I threw a flashbang.
White light. Screams. Confusion.
I went in shooting.
Short controlled bursts. Headshots where I could manage them. Center mass when I couldn’t. The walls were repainted in violent abstract. Shell casings carpeted the floor like brass confetti.
A man with a riot shield advanced down the hall. Smart. Too smart.
I shot the light above him. Darkness swallowed us both. I slid low and fired upward, rounds punching through the shield’s viewport. He went down blind and screaming.
Stairs up. Stairs down. No time to choose wrong. I went up.

The second floor opened into an office space converted into an armory. Crates everywhere. Ammo. Grenades. Enough firepower to overthrow a country with bad leadership.

That’s when I saw the guy in charge.
Tall. Scarred. Tactical vest loaded like a Christmas tree. He held an assault rifle like it was part of his nervous system.

“Payne,” he said, recognizing me like a myth that turned out to be real. “Heard you were hard to kill.”
“So far,” I said, and fired.
We danced. Bullets traded. Cover splintered. Glass exploded. I switched weapons twice, guns running dry faster than my patience. 
He moved well, trained, disciplined. This wasn’t a thug. This was a soldier who’d run out of wars.
I dove as his rifle chewed through my last piece of cover. Time slowed again. I reloaded mid-air, hit the ground, came up firing the Desert Eagle one final time.

The round took him in the throat.
He dropped his rifle and collapsed, clutching at a future he wasn’t going to have.
By the time the sirens came, the building was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that followed something final.

I walked out bleeding, smoke rising behind me like a signal flare for the end of the world. Police lights painted the rain red and blue. 
I didn’t stop.
Later, in my apartment, I cleaned my guns again. Blood under my nails. Bruises blooming like unwanted flowers.

The city was still there. Still breathing. Still waiting.

I checked my ammo.
Plenty left.

The night wasn’t over yet.