13/12/2025
CHAPTER SIX – BLOOD TRAILS AND BROKEN LOYALTIES
Kayole woke up afraid of its own footsteps. People no longer walked straight; they zigzagged, paused, looked back, listened to echoes that weren’t theirs. The ex*****ons from the night before had done what police press conferences never could—they had rewritten fear. Gaza boys stopped gathering in groups. Phones were switched off. Houses changed daily. Trust, that fragile currency of the ghetto, collapsed overnight. Nobody knew who had been seen. Nobody knew who had spoken. And worse—nobody knew where the Punisher and the Widow were watching from.
Mwanee Sparta felt it too, though he refused to show it. He paced inside a half-finished apartment, the walls naked, the windows coughing dust. His rifle leaned against the wall like a bad idea that had overstayed its welcome. Cleah sat on the mattress scrolling endlessly, pretending not to notice the way his jaw tightened with every rumour that slipped through the air. Teddy Kasanga tried to laugh it off, saying the dead were careless amateurs, that Gaza was untouchable, that legends thrived on exaggeration. But even his laughter cracked. In the ghetto, confidence is loud until silence answers back.
What Mwanee didn’t know was that the hunt had narrowed. Saigoni the Punisher had traced Gaza’s movements the way hunters read bent grass. A boda rider paid with fear. A landlord bribed with safety. A phone ping that lasted a second too long. He moved through Kayole in plain sight—cap low, jacket dusty, eyes memorizing exits. Black Widow worked the other side of the map, threading through salons, clubs, and backrooms where women heard everything before men did. She listened more than she spoke, and when she spoke, doors opened. By the time the sun dipped, they knew where Gaza slept last night—and where it would run tonight.
The first crack came from within. W***y, tired and thin, started asking the wrong questions. Why move again? Why no plan? Why did Saigoni’s name make grown men whisper? Mwanee heard doubt and smelled betrayal. In their world, doubt was a knife held backwards—it still cut. An argument flared, voices rose, Cleah shouted for calm, and Teddy stepped between them with a smile that begged for peace. But the damage was done. Suspicion lodged itself in the room like smoke, refusing to clear.
That evening, Gaza split up. Survival masqueraded as strategy. It was the oldest mistake. Saigoni followed the silence left by W***y’s fear, tracked him to a bedsitter where the lights stayed off even at dinner time. There was no dramatic entry, no shouting. Just a knock that sounded like a neighbour’s. When the door opened, Black Widow was already inside, her presence a cold certainty. W***y talked. Not everything—but enough. Names. Routes. A place where Mwanee liked to feel safe. The Punisher listened, nodded once, and left W***y breathing with a warning heavier than a beating: disappear, or be remembered.
By midnight, Kayole’s alleys held their breath. A car rolled slowly, engine whispering. A shadow crossed a balcony. Somewhere, a child cried and stopped suddenly, as if the night had shushed them. Mwanee felt the pressure then—the sense of being narrowed, cornered by walls that had always been friendly. He grabbed the rifle, signaled Cleah, told Teddy to move first. They slipped out into darkness that no longer belonged to them.
And high above, on a rooftop that smelled of rust and rain, Saigoni steadied his view while Black Widow marked time. The city didn’t know it yet, but a line had been drawn—thin, invisible, final. Kayole was about to learn that legends don’t chase forever.
They wait.
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