Chapter Six - Simon
The city is loud tonight—sirens somewhere far off, traffic weaving through the avenues below my windows—but from my office, the world feels muted, distant. Reinforced glass softens the noise to a faint hum. It should be calming. It isn’t.
I sit at my desk with the lights low, the room washed in the dim glow of a single lamp. The file in front of me is thick: photographs, coded transcripts, shipment logs, intercepted messages. All of it leads back to one name.
Rafael Cortez.
There are men in this world I dislike. Men I tolerate. Men I erase without thought.
And then there are men like Rafael—arrogant, sloppy, territorial in a way that reeks of insecurity.
He started this war months ago when he tried forcing a shipment through my city without permission.
A mistake, one I corrected swiftly. One of his men—the one he called a brother—died during the cleanup.
Since then, the tension has been simmering, waiting for a spark.
The body in the alley three nights ago was a spark.
I flip through another page of the file, my pen tapping once against the desk.
The dead man’s name was Hector Ruiz. Small-time courier for Rafael, but ambitious, reckless, and stupid enough to try expanding his routes through my blocks.
He wasn’t worth sparing. He also wasn’t worth the trouble his death will stir.
I trace a red line on the map pinned to the wall. The cartel’s activity has been creeping closer—too close. Rafael thinks New York is vulnerable because it’s large. He forgets the city is mine down to the bricks.
I lean back, studying the network diagram sprawled across my desk. Arrows, names, locations, time stamps. Every piece is part of a puzzle Rafael doesn’t realize he’s losing.
One of his suppliers in Queens has been skimming product. A courier in Brooklyn is sleeping with the wrong woman. A lieutenant in Harlem owes money to a rival.
Three of his stash houses rotate guards every eight hours: predictable, sloppy, exploitable.
Weaknesses everywhere.
I begin marking the newest intel, fitting it into place like teeth in a gear.
Every move Rafael makes ripples across the city in small, measurable ways.
The shipments he reroutes. The calls he makes after midnight.
The sudden silence from certain safe houses.
He’s preparing a strike. I can feel it like pressure in the air before a storm.
He thinks he’s circling me.
He doesn’t understand I’ve been narrowing the noose around him for weeks.
I click the pen and make another note: Increase surveillance on 49th. Unknown driver seen twice. Possible scout. Then another: Cross-reference phone logs from last 24 hours. And another: Tail new runner operating near West End—possible Cortez recruit.
A knock sounds against the office door. Quiet. Respectful. I don’t look up.
“Come in.”
Viktor steps inside, holding a tablet already open to the latest report. He sets it beside the file. “Intercepted another communication. They’re moving product through the river docks again.”
“Which pier?”
“Nine.”
I nod, barely shifting. “How many guards?”
“Four tonight. Routine rotation.”
I allow myself a slow breath. “Anything unusual?”
“Not yet, but they’re spooked. Rafael’s sending new men. Fresh faces.”
“Desperate faces,” I correct.
Viktor inclines his head. He knows I’m right.
I dismiss him with a gesture, and he leaves as quietly as he came.
Once the door closes, I return to the wall of screens on the opposite side of the room.
They show live feeds: street corners, warehouse entrances, building rooftops, and underground garages.
My men sweep through the footage in real time, tagging suspicious cars, tracking new faces, logging time stamps.
I watch all of it myself. Not because I don’t trust my men, but because obsession is more reliable than loyalty.
My gaze drifts to a particular feed—Pier Nine. A wide-angle camera captures the docks from an old metal pole.
Four armed guards stand near a stack of containers, their patterns tight but predictable. One smokes. One texts. One checks the waterline every thirty seconds like clockwork.
All of them are weaker links than they realize.
My men in an unmarked van sit three blocks away, observing, relaying updates as each guard shifts positions. I listen to the faint chatter through the earpiece resting on my desk.
“Rotation complete.”
“No new vehicles.”
“Runner heading east—appears nervous.”
“Possible stash under the tarp near the forklift.”
I catalog every piece of information, mapping it inward, refining the diagram in my mind.
The clock on my desk ticks past midnight, but I don’t feel the hours. My focus stays sharp, my mind calculating the ripple effects of every minor shift in their behavior.
Rafael will retaliate soon. He’ll think he’s being strategic, but he’ll be wrong.
As I mark another notation—anticipated delivery Thursday; prepare intercept—my thoughts drift, uninvited, toward something else. Someone else.
Eden.
I clench my pen for a moment before forcing my hand to relax.
She has nothing to do with this. She shouldn’t even cross my mind while I’m dealing with threats that could unravel empires.
Yet she lingers in the background of every thought, like a shadow stitched into the corners of my vision. Her face when she turned in the alley. The tremor in her voice when she lied to me. The softness she showed that stranger at the café.
Unwelcome distractions. Unnecessary complications.
Beneath those labels, a truth pushes upward. Something in me is pulling toward her. A thread tightening slowly, quietly, with every day she stays alive.
I push Eden from my thoughts and return to the screens. I zoom in on one guard’s face—the twitch in his jaw, the tiredness in his eyes. Stress fractures. Rafael’s empire already cracking.
“Keep pressure on them,” I murmur to myself. “Let them break before they realize they’ve been bent.”
The earpiece crackles with an update. Another movement on the docks. Another ripple I expected.
I take a slow breath and steady myself in the dim light of my office, the city humming just beyond the windows. The game continues, and I’m already three moves ahead.
Rafael Cortez is preparing for war.
I’ve already begun writing how it ends.
I’m still mulling it all over when the creak of the office door distracts me.
Ardaleon enters without knocking, which means it’s important. My younger brother moves like a shadow: silent, sharp-eyed, and too smart for his age. He closes the door behind him and drops a thin folder onto my desk.
“They’re targeting one of your legitimate fronts,” he says. “Rafael’s men. They’re planning to hit the freight office on Fourteenth.”
I flip the folder open. Surveillance stills, intercepted messages, time stamps. The freight office is clean—one of the oldest businesses in our network, untouched by anything illegal. Hitting it isn’t about product. It’s about pride. A strike aimed at reputation. A declaration.
Rafael wants to provoke me.
Ardaleon moves to my side, leaning over the desk. “They’ve been scouting for days. Same car circling. Same man pretending to check package drop-offs every morning. They want you to react.”
“They want a war,” I correct. “They’re too stupid to understand they’re already losing one.”
He huffs a quiet laugh. “So what’s the move?”
I study the map pinned on the wall—every line, every intersection, every territory marked in ink. The freight office sits at a key point. If Rafael hits it, he’ll think he’s dealt a humiliating blow. He doesn’t realize humiliation is a weapon I wield better than anyone.
I tap my finger on a name in the folder. Andres Molina—one of Rafael’s key operatives. Loyal. Brutal. Ambitious enough to overreach. He’s been gaining influence inside the cartel.
If he dies on my terms—publicly enough to be unmistakable, quietly enough to avoid police involvement—it won’t just slow Rafael down. It’ll topple the internal hierarchy. Create paranoia. Force Rafael to suspect his own people. Distract him. Weaken him.
“Remove Molina,” I say.
Ardaleon’s mouth lifts in a sharp, approving smile. “How do you want it done?”
“Make it precise,” I answer. “Send a message, not a spectacle.”
He nods. “Two birds, one stone. We defend the front, and we cripple their chain of command.”
I sit back, letting the plan solidify. My mind moves through each layer—who to send, how to stage it, how to keep my name out of it while letting Rafael know exactly who pulled the strings. Control is my currency. Retaliation is my signature.
Ardaleon crosses his arms, studying the board of names and lines behind me. “You’re playing this like a chess match.”
“It is one.”
“And Rafael’s still stuck on checkers.”
“He’s impulsive. Emotional. It makes him loud.” I mark another point on the map. “We’re not loud.”
“No,” Ardaleon agrees. “We’re effective.”
Silence settles for a moment as we refine the logistics. Routes. Timing. Cover stories. Disposal.
My thoughts run fast, each conclusion snapping cleanly into place. I don’t miss details. I don’t leave room for chance. I built my empire by turning unpredictability into a weapon I alone control.
Ardaleon glances at me sideways. I know that look. Curious. A question brewing.
“Speaking of unpredictability…” he starts, “I heard something interesting.”
I don’t look up. “What?”
“A girl.” His tone is casual, but his eyes sharpen. “Someone witnessed Hector’s execution.”
My reaction is subtle, nothing more than a pause in my pen. Ardaleon notices anyway.
“And,” he continues, “you let her go?”
A grin pulls at my mouth before I stop it. Small. involuntary. Irritating even to feel forming.
Eden.
I haven’t spoken her name since the alley, but the thought of her slips through the cracks in my composure. Not weakness—just something unexpected. Something with teeth.
“I didn’t let her go,” I say.
Ardaleon raises a brow. “No?”
“I’m watching her. Constantly.”
His eyes brighten with interest, amusement, suspicion—he’s not sure which angle to take. “Why let her live at all?”
I close the file softly and turn in my chair, facing him fully. “She hasn’t done anything unusual.”
“Yet.”
“Exactly.” I rest my palms on the armrests, posture relaxed but intent. “If she runs to the police, I’ll know. If she tries to talk, I’ll know. If she steps a single inch outside her routine, I’ll know.”
He studies me carefully. “What will you do if she does?”
I meet his gaze without flinching. “Then I’ll take her.”
“Alive?” he asks, half teasing, half serious.
“Yes.”
His brows rise slightly. “Since when do witnesses get to breathe this long?”
I don’t answer immediately.
The truth is something I’m still circling myself. Something I’m not ready to give shape to. Eden is a variable I should have eliminated the moment she stepped back into the light that night.
Instead, I’ve done the opposite—woven her into my surveillance, folded her into the edges of my routines, tracked her steps with more attention than I’ve given to some enemies.
She’s not a threat, but she’s also not irrelevant either.
She’s soft in ways this city isn’t allowed to be. Sharp in ways she doesn’t recognize in herself. And every day I watch her, the thread between us pulls tighter.
Ardaleon leans against the wall, arms folded. “You’re distracted.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he counters, grinning slightly. “You’re thinking about her right now.”
He’s right. I hate that he’s right. I hate how easily the thought of her curls through my mind—her wary eyes, her steady breath in the alley, the tremor in her voice when she said my name.
I ignore his smile. “Focus on Molina. That’s our priority.”
“For now,” he says under his breath.
I stand, collecting my coat, preparing to head downstairs to finalize orders. “When you’ve finished assigning teams, send Viktor to me.”
Ardaleon pushes off the wall. “What about the girl?”
“She hasn’t moved out of line,” I repeat. “She stays alive.”
“If she does step out of line?”
A slow heat unfurls beneath my ribs. Something dark, something dangerously close to possession.
“Then she becomes mine to deal with.”
Ardaleon watches me a moment longer, eyes narrowing slightly, as if he sees something forming in the shadows between my words.
“Careful, Brother,” he says quietly. “You’re letting her under your skin.”
I don’t bother denying it, because even when I turn away from the maps… even when Rafael’s impending war claws for my attention, my thoughts still drift toward Eden.