Tangled With the Mafia Boss

"His head! Throw the rock at his head!"

The voice was loud, angry, and came from someone running through the crowd. A rock flew through the air. The sound of metal hitting wood rang sharply.

The fight had started just like that. Two groups of young men from two different housing blocks went at each other without warning, driven by old grudges that were never settled.

"Don’t back down! They’re stepping into our turf!" shouted one of the boys from the area known as the “Wolf Den.”

Under the dim light of the street lamps, their shadows moved like soldiers at war. Some carried sticks, some iron bars, and others only had clenched fists.

The narrow alley turned into a battlefield. Shoes slammed against the asphalt, screams mixed with curses filled the air.

From one corner, a young man fell. Blood dripped from his temple, but he tried to stand up. His eyes were red. Not from the wound, but from something deeper. The feeling of defeat.

"Pick him up! Get him out of here!"

"No! We're not done yet!"

Smoke from a pile of half-burned trash floated through the air, making the chaos even worse. The smell of sweat, blood, and iron mixed into one.

**

In the middle of it all, no one noticed a man walking slowly along the edge.

He didn’t seem in a hurry. Most of his face was hidden under the hood of a black jacket. In his hand, he held a metal jerry can. Old, rusty, and heavy.

He looked down, pouring liquid from the can onto the ground. Then he walked a few meters and did it again. Then again. And again.

Like a painter finishing the final line on his canvas. And the canvas was the slum they called the Wolf Den.

**

"Hurry! He’s got a knife!" the young men in fight, shouted.

"You threw the rock first, asshole!" yelled a boy from the other side.

"Hey! Step back! He’s armed!"

Panic exploded between the crashing metal and wild screams. Another loud impact rang out. Maybe a pipe, maybe a stone hitting someone’s head. Somewhere in the noise, a raspy voice cried, “Help! Someone’s down! Help .............”

But all those sounds faded away for the man in the black hood. He was now kneeling at the end of the alley. His hands moved quickly, pouring the last of the liquid, forming an almost perfect half circle.

“Stupid, wild animals… busy killing each other. This is the Perfect time!” he muttered softly, almost like a dark prayer only the night wind could hear.

He looked toward the main street, still a mess. Perfect.

He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out an old metal zippo lighter. Flicked it once. Nothing. Flicked again. A soft metallic click. A tiny spark.

His left hand held a piece of paper soaked in oil. He brought it close to the flame.

The fire caught slowly. Then spread. To the ground. To the cloth. And to the oil.

The man didn’t wait. He turned and walked away. Behind him, the first flame touched the side of a worn-out wooden house.

**

"FIRE! FIRE! HELP! ........THERE'S FIRE HERE!"

The screams were louder than anything else before. In an instant, the fight stopped. Every eye turned to the wild orange glow rising behind a wall of rusty tin.

"My house! That’s my house!" yelled one of the boys from the Wolf Den.

People began to run. The sounds of footsteps, children crying, glass shattering, all of it exploded at once.

“A… fire?!”

The scream tore through the night like a knife slicing thin cloth. Orange light danced in the small windows of the tightly packed houses. The fire spread fast, wild and hungry. Roofs made of tin and plastic started to melt. “Ohh God, not now… not our home,” whispered a young man behind a door, frozen between panic and disbelief.

“WAKE UP ALL! EVERYONE OUT! NOW!”

A mother screamed, pulling the arm of her half-asleep child. The small body bumped into the doorframe as she dragged him out in a rush. “If we’re even a minute late, we’ll be ashes,” she muttered, biting her lip to hold back the tears and the scream stuck in her throat.

In another corner of the alley, an old man clutched a small gas tank like it was part of his own body. “Don’t blow up, please don’t blow up…” he whispered, dragging his feet. Smoke started filling his lungs, making him cough and stumble. But he kept walking, because stopping meant dying.

A teenage boy, face covered in soot, dragged a bucket of water from the kitchen. He threw it at the burning wall, only to see the water vanish into steam in an instant. “What’s the point… what’s the point of all this if we always lose…?” he said hoarsely, almost as if speaking to the fire itself. Within five minutes, the Wolf Den was no longer a place to live. It had turned into a maze of flames. A hell, with a name and an address.

Cries echoed from every direction. People tossed their belongings out of windows. Motorbikes were pushed and crashed into fences. Everyone wanted to survive, but there wasn’t enough space.

“Shit! The road’s blocked!”

“Go around back! GO AROUND BACK!”

In the middle of the shouting, someone stopped and looked around. A woman in her thirties, hand covering her mouth, stared at her burning house. The only thing her late mother had left her.

“No… no… God, please…”

She dropped to her knees. Her tears came faster than her mind could make sense of what was happening. The world sounded distant, like an echo in a tunnel.

Suddenly, someone grabbed her arm.

“Don’t freeze, lady! Run!”

She was pulled away. Her flip-flops slipped off her feet, but there was no time to go back.

The flames grew taller now. The color of the sky turned orange-red, like a sunrise that came too early, and far too wrong.

**

From the rooftop of an old building across the street, the hooded man stood still. Hands in his pockets. Eyes locked on the fire.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t smile. He didn’t even look pleased. He was just… calm. His gaze studied the blaze like an engineer checking the results of a finished design.

After a while, he took out his phone and typed something.

'Wolf Den is done. Move to next target?'

The message sent. He waited a few seconds...

A reply came. 'Wait for orders. Don Blackwood will be pleased.'

He nodded to himself. Then, like a shadow, he vanished into the night. Just as sirens and flashing red-blue lights began to claim what was left of the street.