Chapter Thirteen
Dagger
The warehouse feels wrong the second I walk into it.
Not the usual violent tension.
Usually when somebody gets dragged into one of our warehouses tied to a chair, the atmosphere’s obvious.
Fear. Rage. Shit, even retribution.
Everybody already knows how the night ends before I even walk through the door.
Violence hangs in the air waiting patiently to happen.
Tonight feels different.
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead casting sick white light across concrete floors stained with oil, old blood, and years of terrible decisions while half the crew stands around too quiet for my liking.
Reaper leans against one of the support beams smoking slowly, boots crossed at the ankles like he’s trying to look relaxed and failing miserably.
Knox stands farther back near the workbench cleaning beneath his nails with one of his knives while Saint sits on a crate pressing gauze against busted knuckles.
Nobody talks when me and Noir walk in.
Everybody just watches, the kind of quiet that feels loaded before anyone says a fucking word. Reaper stands near the center of the warehouse, smoke curling lazily from the cigarette between his fingers, while Knox and Saint hang back near the crates with their attention fixed on the metal chair.
And tied to that chair is Mikey.
Of course it’s fucking Mikey.
The same dumb bastard who sold Blair drugs outside her motel after I made it painfully clear that nobody in Severance Point was supposed to touch her. Not with product. Not with threats. Not with so much as a dirty fucking look.
He didn’t listen.
So I roughed him up for it.
A warning.
Apparently not a good enough one.
His face is already wrecked from whatever Reaper and Saint did before we got here, though some of the bruising is probably still mine.
His nose sits crooked, his lip’s split open, one eye swollen nearly shut beneath dark purple shadows while blood drips steadily from his chin onto the front of his gray hoodie.
Zip ties bite deep into his wrists behind the chair hard enough his fingers have started turning pale.
But the thing that catches my attention first isn’t the blood.
It’s the look on his face.
Confusion.
Real fucking confusion.
Not the kind of panic a guy wears when he gets caught doing exactly what he knows he shouldn’t have done. This is different. This is fear mixed with something messier, something that doesn’t sit right in my gut.
The second he sees me, terror rips across his features hard enough he almost jerks the chair sideways trying to sit straighter.
“Dagger—”
“What happened?” I ask flatly.
Reaper exhales smoke toward the ceiling before jerking his chin toward the nearby crate. “Saint found his phone on the ground outside.”
My eyes cut to the crate.
The cell sits there with the screen still lit, messages open like someone wanted them seen.
“Looked like it fell out of his pocket,” Reaper adds. “Screen was already unlocked. Texts right there.”
Knox picks it up and tosses it toward me one-handed.
I catch it automatically.
Mikey starts struggling immediately, chair legs scraping hard against the concrete. “That’s not mine.”
I look up slowly.
“The fuck did you just say?”
“It’s my phone, but those texts ain’t mine.” His voice cracks, frantic and messy, blood flashing against his teeth when he talks. “I swear to fucking god, it’s been missing all day. Somebody stole it outta my truck. I looked everywhere for it.”
Reaper snorts under his breath.
“Well thats fucking convenient for you ain’t it, Mikey,”
“I’m fucking serious!” Mikey jerks against the zip ties again, breathing too fast now. “I thought I lost it when I couldn’t find it in my truck. Someone had to of taken it. I didn’t send shit to Dante. I don’t even know Dante.”
Noir says nothing beside me.
Just watches him.
Cold.
Too still.
I glance down at the screen.
Mentions of Blair. Descriptions. Pictures of my apartment building.
Everything looks guilty as fuck.
But Mikey sounds terrified in a way that doesn’t feel practiced, and the longer I stare at him, the less this whole thing doesn’t add up.
Like somebody intentionally built a trail for us to follow.
Noir steps up beside me silently while I scroll farther through the messages. His shoulder brushes mine briefly while he reads over it too, expression unreadable beneath the warehouse lights.
The longer we stare at the screen, the harder Mikey starts shaking.
“I didn’t fucking send those, man. Dagger you gotta believe me. I know I fucked up before, but I haven’t done shit since.”
Nobody answers him.
I keep scrolling upward slower this time, rereading everything while something ugly curls low in my chest.
There’s too much detail here.
Too much organization.
Mikey’s a fucking idiot. One of my small-time dealers surviving off rave scraps and whatever pills he doesn’t sell himself. He’s reckless, loud, and stupid enough to think selling to Blair behind my back was worth the risk.
But this?
This feels smarter than him.
Too clean and calculated.
“I swear to fucking god,” Mikey says louder this time. “I don’t know where that shit came from.”
Reaper laughs quietly under his breath.
Mikey immediately jerks toward him hard enough the chair scrapes loudly across the concrete.
“I’m serious!”
There’s genuine panic in his voice now.
Not fake panic either.
The kind that cracks around the edges.
The kind that sounds real.
I slowly lift my eyes toward him.
“You expect me to believe somebody what?” I ask slowly. “Stole your phone to frame you?”
“I don’t know!” Mikey shakes his head violently enough blood flicks onto the floor. “Maybe!”
Noir takes the phone calmly from my hand, but I keep staring at Mikey.
Really staring.
Because something about this feels off in a way I can’t fully explain yet. The fear on his face isn’t clean enough to be guilt. It’s messy. Confused. Desperate. Like he’s trapped inside a story somebody else wrote for him, and he’s only just realizing he doesn’t know the ending.
Mikey notices me hesitating and latches onto it immediately.
“You know me,” he says quickly, voice cracking around the blood in his mouth. “I’m a dumb fuck, yeah, but I ain’t fucking suicidal.”
The warehouse goes quiet again.
Because he’s right.
Everybody in this city knows exactly what happens to people who betray me.
Mikey included.
I crouch slowly in front of him while his breathing turns ragged. Blood slides from his split lip every time he talks now, streaking dark down his chin and throat. His chest heaves violently while the zip ties dig deeper into his wrists every time he jerks against them.
“You know what happens if you’re lying to me?” I ask quietly.
He nods immediately, fear flashing across his face hard enough his expression almost twists apart.
“I know.”
“And you’re still sticking with this story.”
“Because it’s the fucking truth!”
His voice cracks halfway through the sentence.
That’s what finally unsettles me.
Because Mikey’s terrified.
But he’s terrified like somebody trapped in the wrong nightmare.
Not like somebody who got caught.
Noir lowers the phone beside me with a sharp exhale. “Fuck this.”
I glance up at him.
His expression is flat and cold. Irritated in a way that doesn’t match the room.
Everybody else is tense. Waiting, and watching to see where I land before they move.
Noir looks ready to end the conversation before it starts making too much sense.
“We don’t have time for this bullshit,” he says.
Mikey’s eyes cut to him, wild and bloodshot. “Because you know I’m telling the truth?”
Noir’s mouth twitches faintly. Not a smile, but a fucking warning.
“Careful.”
Mikey laughs once, ugly and broken, panic turning him reckless now that he thinks he’s found a crack in the room.
“Nah, fuck you.” His bloodshot eyes cut to Noir. “Fucking psycho. Wasn’t it you carving up half our crew a few months ago? Yeah.” He spits red onto the concrete. “That’s what I thought.”
The warehouse goes painfully still.
Noir’s face doesn’t change.
That’s somehow worse.
Then he exhales, almost bored.
“Fuck this.”
The gun is in his hand before I can move.
“Noir—”
The shot cracks through the warehouse.
Mikey’s head snaps back, the chair jerking hard beneath him before his body goes limp against the restraints.
Silence slams down.
Complete.
Heavy.
“Every second we stand here listening to this bullshit,” he says coldly, “Blair’s a sitting duck in that apartment.”
Smoke curls slowly from Noir’s pistol while Mikey hangs limp in the restraints with half his face missing.
Dead.
Just like that.
Even Reaper looks slightly thrown off.
I stand there staring at Mikey’s body for a second too long before my eyes cut back to Noir.
“What the fuck was that?”
Noir calmly tucks the pistol back into his waistband like he didn’t just splatter the only person in the room who was starting to sound believable.
“He was wasting time.”
“He could’ve been telling the truth.”
“Oh fuck that. The proof is right fucking there on his phone.”
“Proof that suddenly showed up after he said his phone was missing all day.”
Noir’s jaw tightens slightly, but his voice stays cold.
“And while we stand here debating whether the junkie dealer was actually being honest for the first time in his pathetic life, Blair’s sitting in your apartment with Dante’s men knowing exactly where she is.”
That lands hard and fucking ugly. Because as much as I hate the guy, he’s right.
Even if Mikey was telling the truth, the messages exist. Dante knows where Blair is. Somebody put all of it there, and whoever did it knows too fucking much.
Noir steps closer, eyes hard on mine.
“If Dante knows where she is, we don’t have time to play fucking detective.”
Something twists low in my stomach, because I don’t fucking know what the fuck to believe anymore.
Before I can answer, my phone suddenly vibrates violently in my pocket and I pull it out.
Everybody’s attention snaps toward me instantly.
Mina.
I answer immediately.