When he was just 15, Tarek did something that changed his life overnight—he killed off a notorious couple Rocco and Lina and stole their cash. This act created a desire in him. Over the next few years, troublesome people in the slums of Scremia had a habit of disappearing when Tarek was around. Petty criminals, loan sharks, shady drunks—he bumped them off, cleaned up, and pocketed their earnings. By 18, he had a small empire of his own. Not big, not flashy—but enough to keep him in new clothes, good food, and out of most people’s way.
Then came the day when something snapped. He saw a preacher collecting money—coin by coin, note by note—from the poorest hands in the slum. Ragged women, starving kids, old men with bones showing through their skin—they all lined up to give what little they had. And all of it was going to expand some grand religious monument. Tarek watched from the shadows, lips tight, anger simmering in his chest. He wanted to strike, to take the priest out and prevent this abhorrent exploitation of emotions. But he wasn’t 15 anymore. At 18, the law had teeth. Get caught now, and you don’t just get a slap—you get locked away, maybe forever.
That’s when fate threw him a curveball. His cousin—older, richer, from a better part of the city—arrived in the slum to visit that same preacher. She came with clean clothes, perfume in the air, and an envelope thick with cash. She was going to donate too. Tarek saw an opportunity.
He cleaned himself up, slicked back his hair, put on the best T-shirt he owned, and approached her with a smile and a lie. Said he had a gift for her—something from his dead parents. Said he had another one for the priest too. She bought it. Took him along when she went to hand over the donation.
There, inside the religious hall, Tarek played his hand. Slipped something quiet and deadly into the priest’s food. A little drug cocktail. The kind that leaves no trace. Hours later, the priest was dead. The whispers said natural causes. Old age, bad diet, stress. But his cousin wasn’t buying it. She sat at the funeral, stiff with suspicion.
While she mourned, Tarek slipped away, broke into the priest’s modest quarters, and swept the place clean. Cash. Jewels. Hidden stashes. Every bit of it now his. He came back to the funeral with the goods in a briefcase like nothing had happened. Said a few words. Nodded along. Played the part.
His cousin, though—she wasn’t done. She stood up, angry, her voice cutting through the quiet. “This wasn’t natural,” she said. “Something’s off.” But the mourners shushed her. Told her to sit down. Told her to respect the dead. She sat down, but not quietly. She swore, right there, that she’d become a cop one day. That she’d find the truth, no matter what it cost her.
Tarek watched her with a new kind of fear. Not the fear of getting caught—but the fear of being hunted. And somewhere in that sharp, cold mind of his, a new idea began to form. Maybe his way of life had reached its limit. Maybe, if he really wanted power and wealth—the kind that lasts, the kind that’s protected—he’d have to flip the script.
Maybe it was time he became a cop.
