Chapter Five #2
The night swallowed Drew’s car whole as he sped away from the warehouse, the echoes of Kael’s voice still burning through him.
His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, the city’s neon bleeding past in streaks of color that barely registered.
He could still feel Kael’s stare on his skin—the shock, the fury, the ache of recognition that cut deeper than any wound.
He should’ve kept driving. He should’ve put a hundred miles between himself and Kael’s world. For Kael’s benefit and his own. Instead, his hands turned on autopilot, steering him back toward the shitty studio apartment that passed for home these days.
The drive blurred, but Kael’s face stayed sharp in his mind—those steady, ocean-dark eyes that had once looked at him like he was the only person left alive worth believing in. Drew swallowed hard, jaw tightening. Six years and it still hit like a punch.
Flashes came unbidden—Kael laughing in the half-light of a broken-down safehouse, his voice low and rough when he’d whispered Drew’s name for the first time. Forty-eight hours, that was all they’d had. Two nights that had burned so bright it left nothing but shadows behind.
“Stupid bastard,” Drew muttered, not sure if he meant Kael or himself. Probably both.
He pulled into the cracked asphalt lot behind the faded sign that said Seaview Apartments—which was ironic, considering there was no ocean within miles.
The place reeked of mildew and bad decisions.
The main door to the apartment building hung slightly off its hinges, the paint peeling like scabs. Home sweet hellhole.
He locked the keys in the car and left, walking toward the apartment. The air was heavy, the kind that made his skin prickle. He should’ve noticed that. Should’ve felt it—the shift. But Kael was still in his head, dragging ghosts through his bloodstream.
He didn’t see the shadow move until a gloved hand slammed a weighted sap—a small, leather-covered club filled with lead shot, built to stun with a single blow—into the back of his skull and the world folded up into white noise.
The van came out of nowhere. Tires screeched, door sliding open before his instincts could even catch up.
Hands—too many—grabbed him. He fought, snarling, twisting, managing to land a solid hit before that sap hit him a second time, slamming into the side of his skull. His knees buckled, the world tilting.
Someone jabbed a needle into his neck. A cold burn spread fast.
“Oh, come on,” Drew slurred, breath catching. “Kidnapped off the street and thrown into a white panel van and drug cliché? Are we really doing that? Feels very... 2000s spy movie.”
A voice near his ear chuckled, low and humorless. “You have a sarcastic mouth on you.”
He tried to smirk, but his tongue was heavy. “Yeah, and apparently you have a dramatic flair for overkill. What’s next, chloroform and an evil laugh?”
The needle hit harder now, the drug mixing with the pounding in his skull. He blinked, trying to focus. The men around him weren’t amateurs. Same combat boots, matching gear. No insignia. Just like the ghosts he’d been hunting.
The Directorate. He didn’t say it aloud. Couldn’t. But he knew. He’d been chasing their money trail for two years—so close to something that mattered.
“Where were you tonight?” one of them demanded. The voice was deep, filtered through a balaclava. “You vanished from your building. Cameras show nothing. How?”
Drew gave a weak laugh, head rolling back. “Trade secret. I’d tell you, but then you’d have to pay me consulting fees to tell you how I did it.”
A fist cracked across his face. His vision went white.
“Tell us the truth!” The handsy one who liked to throw a punch or three yelled.
Drew flinched. “You gave me truth serum! What kind of hokey shit is that?”
“We want to know about the Bratya,” another said.
“A group of men hit them tonight and moved like they knew what they were doing. Took out the leader, killed a shitload of boys on their payroll, and liberated one of their shipments.” He swallowed, voice flat.
“There were kids in the crates—product, they called them. You were there, weren’t you? Who were they and where are they now?”
He tasted blood, spat some of it on the van floor. “I don’t even know those Bratya guys. Let alone the ones that took them out. I sell pharmaceuticals, not secrets.”
“You think we’re stupid?”
He grinned crookedly. “Do I have to answer that? I mean the answer seems more than a little obvious to me, but then again, I did think perhaps you had a few brain cells to rub together. Guess I overshot.”
Another hit. Harder this time. He felt something loosen in his jaw.
He needed to stay in character—keep the mask. Just a small-time operator chasing a payday, the hustler trying to make a name. Nothing more.
“Check his background, again,” the leader snapped. “Call Vinnie. He vouched for him.”
This could work. Drew still had a shit load of evidence on Vinnie that showed him as the narc he was. He’d threatened him with it, and Vinnie had folded, and claimed to the underworld that he’d worked with and known Drew for years. Vinnie was his only way out of this.
A pause, then a muttered curse from the front of the van. “Vinnie’s dead. They found him yesterday. Dismembered, fingers removed, tongue cut out. He died hard. His crew figured out he was a narc.”
Fuck.
Drew’s lips twitched, the ghost of a smirk tugging through the blood. The move was pure defiance. “Well, shit. Poor bastard. Guess that makes me more of a lone wolf now, huh?”
“You’re funny,” the man sneered. “You won’t be pulling the laughs for long.”
They went quiet after that. The van’s engine thrummed low beneath them.
Drew’s head pounded in time with the bumps in the road.
But something wasn’t right. There were holes in the story they’d just read back to him—his own background.
Holes he sure as hell knew hadn’t been there thirty-six hours ago when he ran his own security sweep.
Whatever the fuck was going on here, it was obvious that someone did not want him to make it out of it.
“Wait,” one of the men muttered from the passenger seat, scrolling on a tablet. “That can’t be right. His file’s got gaps now—employer history missing six months here, credit record clean when it should’ve been dirty.”
Another leaned over his shoulder. “And that arrest in Miami two years ago—vanished. No court documents, no intake photo. Looks like someone’s scrubbed parts of his digital footprint.”
The leader turned toward Drew, eyes narrowing. “You must have built yourself a hell of a ghost file. Problem you’re facing now is, it’s falling apart. Somebody’s poking holes in your background.”
Drew forced a smirk through the blood on his lip, voice rough but steady. “Guess someone doesn’t want me on your radar. Maybe they’re smarter than you.”
The man sneered. “Definitely smarter than you, genius. This was deliberate. Someone on the inside’s editing you. Why would they do that, huh?”
Drew’s pulse kicked hard. He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Whoever had messed with his cover wanted him exposed—and he didn’t know why. He’d built that identity from the ground up. It was solid. Locked. So how the hell had someone tampered with it?
He forced himself to focus. But who—and why?
“You know,” one of them said after a minute, “we almost missed you just now. Only reason we got you in hand was because we happened to be leaving your apartment building when you pulled up. Lucky timing on our side.”
Drew huffed a laugh, his voice slow and slurred. “Yeah, luck’s a bitch that way.”
Another punch. This one split his lip.
He spat blood again, glaring up at the faceless silhouettes.
“You guys really need to invest in some creativity. All this violence—very passé. Maybe try a little creativity next time—something flashy, at least. A ritual, a curse, hell, even interpretive dance would be a step up. I’d rate that at least an eight for effort and possibly a nine for originality. ”
A boot caught his ribs. “Smart mouth.”
“Best feature I’ve got,” he managed, breath hitching.
The serum was working fast now. His mind was floating, clarity slipping like water through his fingers. He needed to anchor himself. Stay alert. Think. There were techniques—ways to confuse truth serums, to stay coherent but unhelpful.
When the question came again—about the Bratya hit, about how he’d known—it was easy to let instinct take over.
“Maybe I was there. Maybe I wasn’t,” he mumbled, half-smiling. “Night’s kind of a blur. Lotta bullets, lotta vodka.”
“Answer properly,” the leader snapped.
“I am. Just depends on your definition of properly.”
Another hit. His head slammed against metal. Pain flashed white-hot. He focused on that—it kept him from slipping under.
“Where did you go after you left the apartment?”
He laughed again, hollow and mocking. “Straight to hell, buddy, but there was a slice of Hawaiian heaven there, too. You ever been to Hawaii? You should visit sometime.”
That earned him a blow hard enough to make his vision swim. He could feel the cuffs cutting into his wrists, the heat of adrenaline fighting the drug. He didn’t have much time.
Think. Move. Act.
When the next wave of dizziness hit, he shifted his weight, testing the angle of his thumb against the metal cuffs. Dislocation was going to hurt like hell—but pain was better than death.
The van swerved, slowing. They were getting ready to move him again.
Perfect.
He twisted sharply. A dull snap. Fire exploded through his hand, bringing clarity of thinking and the cuff slid loose.
He didn’t wait.
He lunged sideways, elbow slamming into the nearest man’s throat. The second turned, gun half-raised, but Drew drove a knee up and yanked the weapon away, sending it clattering under a seat. Chaos erupted.
He threw himself toward the back doors, shoulder first. The hinges screamed, metal buckling. A shout, the scrape of boots, but he was already through, the night air slicing cold against his face.
The ground came up fast.
He hit asphalt hard, the impact jolting through every nerve. His head smacked the road. Stars burst behind his eyes.
Somewhere behind him, tires squealed. Shouts. Gunfire. Red and blue lights flared in the distance—sirens wailing, getting closer.
He tried to crawl, but his limbs wouldn’t listen. The world tilted sideways, the drug pulling him under. Or it might have been the concussion he no doubt had...
The smell of burned rubber filled his lungs.
And the last thought that drifted through the fog before it all went dark was simple, raw, and unguarded.
I wish Kael were here.