To be fair, Adam wasn't a saint.
He could lie about a lot of things—but not about temptation. Especially after watching Selina's dance. Her every move burned into his brain like embers in a snowstorm. It stirred things. Desires. Animal heat.
And yet, even with all that fire surging in his blood, he still hesitated.
Because fun in Gotham came with a price.
The kind that haunted you. The kind you couldn't wash off. And Adam had no intention of contracting something terminal just for a ten-minute high with a woman who might've shared a needle with half the block.
"Are you going to do it or not?" the Mexican girl asked impatiently. Her accent was thick, the cigarette between her fingers nearly burnt to the filter. She shifted on one heel, bored and irritated. "You police are all talk. Just hurry up. I got other mouths to feed."
Adam scowled. "Feed yourself. I'm not interested."
Without another word, he turned and walked off into the night.
The girl shouted something in Spanish behind him—colorful and vicious—but Adam didn't care. He just wanted the city off his skin.
What Adam didn't know was that after he left, a pair of eyes had been watching.
In the shadows, two officers stood quietly—faces half-lit by streetlamps, the smoke from their cigarettes curling like ghosts in the air.
"Did you see that?" one said, tone cold.
"Didn't take the money. Didn't take the girl either," the older officer replied, narrowing his eyes. "He's not like us."
The younger one exhaled through his nose, voice low with disdain. "Doesn't matter. As long as he doesn't pull a Gordon and start preaching about justice, let him be."
The old one nodded. "Still... we should let Chief Loeb know."
Adam caught the last tram back to his side of Gotham.
It wasn't much of a home—just a crumbling third-floor flat above a boarded-up laundromat. The place had been advertised as "historically charming." In reality, that was real estate code for dilapidated, drafty, and possibly haunted.
The radiators hadn't worked in days, and the water pressure was a joke. The kitchen tiles peeled like scabs, and the pipes howled like wounded dogs every time someone flushed. But it was cheap. Barely.
Adam sighed as he pushed through the rusted front door, the hallway reeking of mildew and cat piss.
"Smells like retirement and death," he muttered.
The landlady—an old crone with sunken eyes and a temper like vinegar—stood in the stairwell like a gargoyle.
"Don't think I don't see you sneaking in late every night, Zhou—" she began.
"It's Adam," he corrected, not slowing his pace.
"I don't care if it's Elvis Presley," she snapped. "Just don't bring junkies or whores into my building. I caught one of them upstairs last week, turning tricks on the radiator! Do you hear me?"
Adam didn't answer. He climbed the creaking stairs, coat collar turned up, head pounding. Her voice faded behind him, still ranting about morality like she didn't rent to the deadbeat underworld of Gotham.
"I should've moved to Midtown..." he muttered bitterly. "Somewhere with working plumbing and neighbors who don't overdose in the hallway."
But just as he reached the top landing, a voice slithered out of the shadows behind him.
"Oh? Planning to escape to the Heart District, are we?"
Adam froze.
His fingers instinctively twitched toward his belt, where his badge and sidearm rested.
Then came the real blow.
"What about the money you owe Black Mask?"
His heart stopped.
Black Mask.
No name carried more weight in Gotham's underworld. Not Penguin. Not Falcone. Not even Two-Face. Black Mask was different. He wasn't a thug. He wasn't a mobster. He was an ideology wrapped in flesh and blood and pure sadism.
Adam turned slowly.
Three men emerged from the stairwell shadows, bald, built like prison walls, wearing gloves and ill intent. The tallest of them held a folder—worn, stained, and stamped with a red skull insignia.
"I don't owe anyone," Adam said flatly, eyes narrowing.
"You do now, Detective." The thug grinned, revealing a mouthful of gold teeth. "Seems the previous tenant—your body's last owner—ran up quite the tab. Four grand. And Black Mask doesn't forget. Or forgive."
Adam's breath caught.
His mind raced. Four thousand? For what? Gambling? Drugs? Weapons?
The files of Roman Sionis—Black Mask—flashed in his memory. Once a failed heir to Gotham's elite. Now a sadist with a black skull for a face. A man who tortured for fun and carved his enemies like roasts. Once, he'd force-fed a woman her own husband after losing a deal.
This wasn't just a debt. It was a noose.
"If you pay now, we'll call it square," the thug said, waving the file like a shopping receipt. "No hard feelings. We even forget you called him by his real name just now. Generous, huh?"
Adam wanted to scream.
This can't be happening.
I travel across worlds—fall into Gotham—and inherit someone else's freaking mob debt?
And not just any mobster—the most psychotic bastard Gotham ever produced.
"Four grand," Adam repeated, trying to stay calm.
"Cash. Today."
"I don't even have four dollars."
The thugs didn't laugh.
The tallest one just smiled.
"Then I guess we'll be seeing you again real soon, Detective."
They turned and vanished into the stairwell like mist, the folder still clutched in that thick, gloved hand.
Adam stood in the hallway, alone, fists clenched, jaw tight.
This wasn't just another random side quest.
This was Gotham, grinding him into dust.
He kicked the peeling door open to his apartment and slumped inside.
"No system. No superpower. Just debt, disease, and dirty floors," he muttered. "I've really hit the jackpot."
But as he sat down in the dark, hands trembling faintly, one thought burned through the fog:
If Roman Sionis really wants me dead...
...I'll need more than a badge to survive.
----
If you want to read more chapters, go on p@treOn.
p@treOn.com/MiniMine352