Chapter 10 – Silas - Needle in the Vein
I don't sleep.
I'm sure I could if I tried, but I just don't want to.
The minute my body stops moving, my mind loops back to her—to the smoke, to the flash of red across the concrete, to the way she looked at me like I'd broken something she didn't know she still had.
So I leave my apartment before the sun comes up.
Early morning. Not quite dawn, not quite night. The city feels hollowed out at this hour—empty storefronts, neon buzz still echoing off glass, delivery trucks groaning to life in alleyways. I walk with no destination, just movement, trying to outpace thoughts that stick like tar.
My phone buzzes once.
A text from a number I don't have saved: You up? Remi's. Corner booth. Order for two.
Naomi.
I delete the message and change direction.
Ten minutes later, I'm pushing through the door of Remi's Diner—a 24-hour place that caters to shift workers, insomniacs, and people who need cheap coffee and cheaper eggs at ungodly hours.
The bell above the door chimes. A waitress glances up from refilling salt shakers, nods once, then goes back to her work.
The place smells like burnt coffee and bacon grease. A man sits at the counter, hunched over a plate. Two paramedics occupy a booth near the window, their radio crackling softly between bites of toast.
And there, in the corner booth facing the door, is Naomi.
She's got a newspaper spread in front of her and a coffee mug steaming at her elbow. She's dressed down—jeans, a dark sweater, hair pulled back—looking like any other insomniac burning time before the real day starts.
I slide into the seat across from her.
She doesn't look up from the paper. "Rough night?"
"Couldn't sleep," I say, flagging down the waitress.
The waitress approaches, pen poised. "What can I get you?"
"Coffee. Black. And the breakfast special." I glance at Naomi. "You eating?"
She finally looks up, folding the paper. "Already ordered. Should be out soon."
The waitress nods and disappears.
Naomi takes a sip of her coffee, eyes tracking the room in that way trained agents do—casual but cataloguing everything. When she speaks again, her voice is low, just loud enough to reach me across the table.
"I've been reading about that warehouse incident. Supplier dispute, they're calling it."
Code. She's asking about the deal that went sideways.
"Complications happen," I say evenly. "Everyone walked away."
"Most everyone." She turns a page of the paper, though she's not really reading it. "Heard one of the guests had a rough time. Civilian caught in the wrong place."
Lydia. She's asking about Lydia.
My jaw tightens, but I keep my voice level. "Standard evacuation. Got her clear before it escalated further."
"Right." Naomi sets her mug down, the clink of ceramic deliberate. "Except witnesses say you were very hands-on with that particular evacuation. Protective, even."
I say nothing.
The waitress returns with my coffee and a plate of eggs and toast. Sets it down with a practiced smile before moving to the next table.
Naomi waits until she's out of earshot.
"Seems you're getting sloppy, Silas." Her voice is still conversational, but there's steel underneath. "Personal attachments in deep cover aren't just dangerous—they're terminal. If I'm noticing, others will too."
"She was in the line of fire," I say carefully. "Anyone would've done the same."
"But you're not anyone." She leans back, arms crossed. "You're supposed to be Drazen's newest acquisition. A man who doesn't flinch at blood and doesn't waste energy on civilians who aren't his problem."
She's right, and I hate it.
"So what?" I pick up my fork, pushing eggs around my plate to maintain the illusion of normalcy. "You want me to let collateral damage happen just to stay in character?"
"I want you to remember why you're there." Her eyes lock on mine. "You're not there to save people, Silas. You're there to bring down an operation. And if you start making choices based on who you want to protect instead of what the mission requires, you're compromised."
The word hangs between us like an accusation.
"She's not a liability," I say, quieter than I mean to.
Naomi's expression doesn't change, but something flickers in her eyes. "Then what is she?"
I don't answer.
She picks up her coffee again, takes another slow sip. "Drazen's paranoid. You know that. He's already testing you, watching for cracks. If he suspects you're soft on anyone in his orbit—especially her—he won't just cut you loose. He'll make an example."
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out cash, leaves it on the table beside her empty plate. Stands.
"Get it under control. Next check-in is in seventy-two hours. Don't make me track you down."
She walks past me toward the door, pausing only to call back over her shoulder, just loud enough for the waitress to hear: "Good seeing you, cousin. Tell your mom I said hi."
The bell chimes as she leaves.
I sit there for a long moment, staring at the plate in front of me. The eggs have gone cold at the edges, congealing into something unappetizing. The toast sits limp with butter that's hardened into waxy streaks.
But I force myself to eat anyway.
Not because I'm hungry, I'm not. But because walking out immediately after Naomi would look suspicious to anyone who might be watching. And because sitting here, chewing mechanically through breakfast I can't taste, is easier than going back out into the morning and facing what she just confirmed.
I'm compromised.
The eggs taste like cardboard. The coffee burns going down but doesn't wake me up. I eat half the plate, leave cash on the table—enough to cover both meals and a decent tip—and stand.
The waitress catches my eye as I head for the door. "Have a good one."
"You too," I manage.
The bell chimes again as I step outside.
The sun's starting to rise now, bleeding orange and pink across the skyline. The city's waking up—more cars on the street, a few early joggers passing by, someone hosing down the sidewalk in front of a bodega.
Normal people doing normal things.
And here I am, an undercover agent who just got read the riot act by his handler for caring too much about a woman who's supposed to be part of the case I'm building.
I shove my hands in my pockets and start walking.
No destination this time either. Just movement.
But no matter how far I go, I can't outrun the truth Naomi left sitting on that table between the coffee and the cold eggs:
If I don't get this under control, it's going to get one of us killed.
Maybe both.
When I finally return to my apartment, the halls are silent. The fluorescents buzz too loudly. My room smells like metal and old sweat. I shower with the lights off. Don’t bother drying off before I sit at the edge of the bed and stare at the wall like it owes me something.
My bruises from the warehouse are blooming now. Purple across my ribs. A scrape along my jaw.
The only part of me that doesn't hurt is the part that saw her.
I don't sleep.
I pull up the draft report instead. Read through it twice. Lydia's name is there, has to be, especially now after the meeting with Naomi. Leaving her out would raise more flags than including her. She was collateral. A bystander. Nothing in her actions suggests otherwise.
I type it clean: Lydia Carr, present as guest escort. No active participation. Evacuated without incident.
Three sentences that tell the truth without making her matter.
I hit send before I can second-guess it.
Then I head to the office—the one the Bureau built for me out of thin air, all clean glass and fabricated invoices.
My name on the door means nothing, but it's good cover.
I spend the whole day moving numbers that don't exist, approving shipments that will never arrive, pretending this is what normal looks like.
The day drags, a long stretch of edits and half-truths that all start to sound the same.
By late evening, I’m back at Dom’s place.
The club is quieter during the day: staff resetting the floor, security running new checks, bartenders restocking with the kind of efficiency that tells you they’ve cleaned up more than spilled drinks off these floors.
The doormen nod. The floor staff don’t look at me. That’s good. That’s how I like it.
One bartender behind the bar is restocking glass tumblers. His shirt sleeves are rolled to the elbows. His neck’s covered in faded burns. We’ve never spoken more than six words to each other.
He slides something across the polished bar without looking up.
A small coin. Heavy. Gunmetal gray with a serpent engraved on one side. The letter R stamped on the other.
No explanation.
He doesn’t meet my eyes.
He doesn’t have to.
I know what it means.
It's not a question. Not an invitation.
It's a summons.
Fight night.
I've heard about these before—whispers from regulars who've earned enough trust to witness what happens beneath Dom's polished club.
Underground fights that aren't on any schedule, aren't advertised, aren't spoken about except in careful code. Invitation-only events where Drazen's people settle disputes, test new acquisitions, or just indulge in violence for sport.
I knew it was coming eventually. Drazen's been circling me for weeks, measuring, testing.
This is another layer of the vetting process—not just whether I can hurt someone when ordered, but whether I can do it for entertainment.
Whether I have the stomach for the kind of brutality that doesn't serve a purpose beyond proving I belong.
I pocket the coin—heavy brass, warm from someone else's hand, stamped with a symbol I don't recognize but understand anyway—and leave the bar through the rear hallway.
Not toward the main floor where the music still pulses and bodies still move in carefully choreographed desire.
Not toward the staff exit or the loading dock.
Down.
When I reach the underground ring, the atmosphere shifts.