Chapter 1

Aries Mathis stared blankly at the secondary monitor.

The countdown timer for his monthly streaming hours ticked down, the red numbers burning into his retinas.

A heavy wave of irritation settled in his chest.

He moved his mouse.

His character paced along the edge of the map.

His fingers slammed against the mechanical keyboard, the sharp clacking sounds filling the otherwise dead silence of his bedroom.

Through his noise-canceling headset, Ricky Boggs' voice grated against his eardrums.

"Are you blind? Heal me! You absolute garbage fire of a medic, move your feet!"

Ricky was screaming at a random player they had matched with.

Aries felt a muscle feather in his jaw.

He reached up and hit the physical mute button on his microphone cord.

He opened the team text chat.

"Shut your mouth and focus on your lane, Ricky."

Ricky ignored the text.

He keyed his open mic again, his voice dripping with venom as he hurled a string of vile, degrading slurs at the random medic, each word more intensely personal and humiliating than the last, attacking the player's intelligence and worth. Aries felt a muscle feather in his jaw. He had heard standard trash talk his entire career, but Ricky was crossing a line into outright psychological abuse.

On the screen, the medic's character froze.

The player was clearly stunned by the verbal assault.

The temperature in Aries' eyes dropped to freezing.

He let go of his mouse.

His character stopped moving entirely, standing completely still in the middle of a war zone.

Aries reached up and flipped the mute switch off.

He keyed his global microphone.

"Your positioning is a joke, Ricky. You pushed too far left, ignored the sightlines, and now you are crying because a random player cannot fix your stupid mistakes."

Aries kept his voice entirely flat, the coldness in his tone heavy enough to crush bone.

Ricky let out a loud, defensive scoff.

"Look who is talking. Your stats in the league have been absolute trash lately, Mathis. Do not lecture me."

Aries let out a short, hollow laugh.

His heart pumped a steady stream of ice through his veins.

"My stats are dropping because I have to cover your blind spots. Your macro awareness is nonexistent. You play like a rookie who bought his account."

The chat on his secondary monitor exploded into a blur of text.

Tens of thousands of viewers were watching this internal team meltdown live, the text scrolling so fast it made Aries dizzy.

Aries grabbed his mouse again.

He moved his character directly next to Ricky.

He used a collision mechanic, wedging his character's hitbox perfectly against Ricky's, trapping him against a concrete wall in the game.

"What are you doing? Move!" Ricky screamed.

A loud crack echoed through the game audio.

An enemy sniper put a bullet straight through Ricky's character's head.

Ricky's death screen popped up, and he started screaming incoherently into the microphone.

A notification popped up on Aries' screen. The random medic had sent him a follow request. Aries' cursor hovered over the accept button, his finger trembling with leftover adrenaline. Instead of clicking it, he stared at the username, RiverBowman. He committed the tag to memory, a silent acknowledgment of the player who had endured Ricky's abuse, before he dismissed the pop-up.

"Stay behind me," Aries typed into the lingering team chat box.

What followed was a bloodbath.

Aries let muscle memory take over, his hands moving in a blur of terrifying precision.

He hunted down the enemy team, securing four consecutive kills in less than sixty seconds.

The victory screen flashed across his monitor.

Aries kept his face entirely blank as he clicked the button to exit the lobby.

Before he could queue up again, a massive donation graphic covered his secondary monitor.

A robotic female text-to-speech voice filled his headset.

"Did you hear the news? Former captain Elias Beck is coming back to North America."

Aries' fingers locked up.

His hand froze on the mouse.

The knuckles of his right hand turned completely white.

The chat on his screen shifted instantly, a tidal wave of viewers confirming the news, spamming links and screaming about the return.

Aries' lungs stopped working.

His chest tightened so fast it felt like a blunt knife was twisting between his ribs.

He slammed his hand against the keyboard, ripping his headset off his ears. He snatched his smartphone off the desk. He didn't dare open a browser on his streaming monitor with fifty thousand people watching. His hands were shaking so badly he dropped the phone twice onto his mousepad before finally unlocking it. He opened his mobile browser, his thumbs fumbling erratically as he typed the letters.

E-L-I-A-S.

He hit enter.

The front page of the biggest esports news site loaded instantly on his small phone screen.

A massive banner stretched across the top of the display.

"Tactical Mastermind Elias Beck Ends European Contract, Officially Returns to NA League."

Aries stared at the high-definition photo of Elias' cold, sharp face.

His stomach violently cramped.

Bile rose in the back of his throat.

He did not look at his chat.

He did not say a single word to the fifty thousand people watching him.

Aries reached down under his desk.

His fingers found the physical power button on his computer tower.

He pressed it hard.

The monitors went completely black.

The hum of the cooling fans died instantly.

Aries slumped back against his gaming chair, the leather squeaking in the dead silence of his room.

He sat in the dark, dragging ragged breaths into his burning lungs.