Chapter 4
The motorcycle engine cuts off beneath me, vibrations fading into the night air as I roll to a stop behind Rowan’s black SUV. Muffled rap music bleeds from a nearby apartment window, competing with the distant wail of sirens.
My boots crunch on broken glass from the shattered streetlight when I dismount, the sound too loud in the midnight quiet of this forgotten corner of Brickwell. Boards cover the bottom windows of the brick buildings, and the corner stores all guard their registers behind bulletproof glass.
The neighborhood pulses with memories. After I got out of juvie, Micah and I lived three blocks over in a studio apartment. Black mold crept up the walls, there were roaches in the kitchen, and it took us a year to scrape together enough money to leave.
I take off my helmet and jacket, stowing both in my saddlebag. In just my long-sleeved black shirt, I head for the SUV.
At my approach, Rowan steps out from behind the wheel, and the door closes with a soft click. Two more figures emerge from the back, Luca and Orien, their faces half-hidden in darkness.
“Right on time.” Rowan circles to the trunk, his shoes silent on the pavement. “Target’s on the second floor. Apartment 2D.”
I join them at the rear of the vehicle. Rowan pops the trunk with a key fob, revealing a neat array of tools organized in padded compartments. My fingers find a black balaclava, the fabric soft and worn from use.
“Two dealers.” Rowan hands Luca a pair of thin latex gloves. “They’ve been setting up shop half a block from Westside Elementary. Selling to kids.” He passes identical gloves to me. “They got two warnings and ignored both.”
The latex stretches over my skin and snaps into place at my wrists. Orien reaches past me for a Glock, checking the magazine before tucking it into his waistband. I pull the balaclava over my head, the world narrowing to the view through two eyeholes.
“No guns if we can avoid it,” Rowan cautions. “They’ll make cleanup a pain in the ass.”
I lift out a baseball bat, the familiar weapon settling into my hand like an extension of my arm.
“Luca, you’re on lookout and wheels.” Rowan distributes earpieces. “Orien handles cleanup. Saint and I deliver the message.” His teeth flash white in the darkness. “Clear?”
We all give an affirmative. No questions necessary.
Graffiti crawls up the sides of the five-story walkup. The front door hangs crooked on broken hinges, the lock busted years ago. Inside, the hallway reeks of urine and burnt spice, the walls stained yellow from decades of cigarette smoke.
The stairs creak under our feet as we climb to the second floor. A baby cries behind one door. A television blares behind another. No one peers out to investigate our footsteps.
In Brickwell, curiosity gets people killed.
Apartment 2D sits at the end of the hall. Bass thumps through the thin walls, which will make our lives easier. Laughing male voices rise and fall inside, unaware of the hell about to rain down on them.
Rowan positions himself to the right of the door, I take the left, and Orien hangs back, bag of cleaning supplies ready.
I lift a hand, fingers counting down.
Three…
Two…
One.
Rowan’s boot connects with the door below the lock. Wood splinters, the door crashes inward, and we pour through the opening.
The apartment opens into a narrow living room. Two men leap to their feet from a threadbare couch. A coffee table next to them holds scales, bags of white powder, and stacks of cash. The television in the corner plays a basketball game, the announcer’s voice rising in excitement over a slam dunk.
The first dealer lunges for a gun on the table. My bat whistles through the air, connecting with his wrist. Bone crunches, and his high-pitched, animal-like scream fills the air.
The second man barrels toward me. His shoulder catches me in the chest, driving me back against the wall. Picture frames rattle. Glass breaks. His fist grazes my jaw in a flash of pain that fails to incapacitate.
My knee comes up between us, finding the soft spot below his ribs. Air whooshes from his lungs. I twist, reversing our positions, and pin him with my forearm across his throat. His eyes bulge, pupils dilated from his own product.
Behind me, Rowan grapples with the first dealer. Bodies thud into furniture. A lamp topples. One of them grunts in pain.
The man under my arm claws at my face, his fingernails catching on the balaclava. I shift, and the bat finds the side of his head with a wet crack. His body goes slack, and I release him to slide down the wall.
I turn in time to see Rowan drive a knife into the first dealer’s chest, between ribs, angled up toward the heart. Textbook. The dealer’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. No sound comes out. His hands flutter uselessly at the knife handle, then drop to his sides.
Silence fills the apartment, broken only by our breathing and the basketball game still playing on the TV.
Rowan retrieves his knife, wiping the blade on the dealer’s shirt before sheathing it. “Check the back rooms.”
The apartment yields nothing of value, just a bathroom with black mold creeping across the ceiling and a bedroom with a mattress on the floor surrounded by fast food wrappers and dirty clothes.
When I return to the living room, Orien has already begun cleaning. He moves with practiced efficiency, bagging evidence, wiping surfaces. The dealers lie still on the floor, their blood spreading in dark pools that soak into the cheap carpet.
My hands tremble as the adrenaline catches up with me. The violence burns away the noise in my head, and each breath comes easier than the last, oxygen filling my lungs for the first time all day.
This is better than cutting. Here, in this moment, I exist in perfect clarity, with no past haunting me, and no future threatening me.
Just now. Just this.
Rowan appears at my side. “We good?”
“We’re good.”
We leave as we came, silent shadows passing through a building where no one asks questions. When I pull off the balaclava, the night air cools my flushed skin.
Back at the SUV, Orien loads the cleaning supplies into the trunk while Luca sits behind the wheel, engine idling. My bat, balaclava, and gloves go into a bag to be burned.
Rowan catches my eye before I return to my motorcycle. “Meet back at the lounge.”
I tug on my helmet and climb onto the motorcycle. The engine roars to life beneath me, vibrating up through my body in a way that extends the high of violence.
As I follow the SUV out of the crappy neighborhood, my muscles uncoil.
For now, the monsters are satisfied.
Despite having worn gloves, I scrub my hands in the bathroom at the back of the Blue Note. It serves as our decontamination chamber after nights like this. It’s private and practical, with a biohazard bin tucked beneath the sink for disposal of evidence.
My reflection hovers at the edge of my vision in the mirror above the sink, but I keep my head down. What stares back from the glass isn’t someone I need to see right now.
I dry my hands, the rough fabric of the towel abrading skin still sensitive from the harsh soap.
In the metal locker attached to one wall, I pull out a new pair of jeans, a black T-shirt, and a hoodie.
Clean clothes for after jobs, maintained by Ghost, who understands the necessity of keeping separate wardrobes for separate lives.
I peel the shirt from my back, the fabric sticking where sweat and blood have mingled. It lands in a plastic bag to be burned later. The jeans follow. I pull on fresh clothes smelling of generic laundry detergent, covering the evidence of tonight’s work layer by layer.
I exit the bathroom, moving through the narrow hallway into the lounge of the Blue Note. A saxophone moans through hidden speakers, the notes bending with a sorrow appropriate for the hour.
At almost one in the morning, the club holds only its most dedicated patrons. A couple huddles in the corner booth, heads bent close together over amber glasses. A woman sits alone at a high-top, red nails tapping in time with the music. Two men play chess near the back.
Rowan stands at the bar, his back to the room, shoulders relaxed after completing the job. Luca, who didn’t get his hands dirty tonight, sits at a stool beside him.
Ghost moves behind the counter, his mismatched eyes flicking up to acknowledge our approach before returning to his task. A bottle appears in his hand without being requested, amber liquid flowing into a tumbler. He slides the drink across the polished wood to stop at Rowan’s fingertips.
I claim the open stool to Rowan’s left, leaving one empty between us as always. The wood feels solid beneath me, the cushion worn by years of occupation.
“Clean?” Rowan asks, not looking at me.
“Clean.” My body still hums with energy, muscles loose but alert.
Ghost sets a glass of water in front of me without asking. He knows my rituals. After a job, I drink water, then coffee, then whiskey, always in the same order. Condensation pools beneath the glass, and I trace the ring with my index finger, drawing slow, widening circles.
Orien enters from the back hallway, moving with fluid grace, dangerous despite his slim build. He slides onto a stool farther down the bar and lifts two fingers at Ghost, who pours him a vodka neat.
As he lifts the glass to his lips, the front door swings open, admitting a gust of cool night air that carries a familiar, expensive cologne. I stiffen before my brain registers why, instinct recognizing the intruder before conscious thought catches up.
Gabriel stands in the doorway, golden-brown hair reflecting blue in the dim light. He scans the room with curious interest before settling on our group at the bar. Recognition flashes across his face when he spots me, his lips parting in surprise.
My lungs constrict, and my glass freezes halfway to my mouth. Time stretches thin between us, a rubber band pulled too tight.
Orien rises from his stool, breaking the moment. “Hey, are you here for a drink?”
Gabriel’s attention shifts from me to Orien. “Yes. I mean, no. I was sent here to meet with Orien—”
He stops, his confusion evident in the furrow of his brow and the slight tilt of his head.
The water in my glass ripples from the tremor in my hand. I set it down before anyone notices, but the damage is done. If Gabriel is here to meet with Orien, he already knows what kind of people I associate with.
The regular patrons sense the shift in atmosphere. The chess players pause, pieces hovering above the board, the woman with red nails sets down her drink, and the couple in the corner straightens, alert to potential trouble.
Gabriel stands out among them like a diamond in coal, his designer clothes marking him as an outsider.
Rowan’s body shifts, angling toward Gabriel, and his hand drops to his side, where a knife waits in a custom sheath.
“Mr. Rockford.” Ghost’s greeting breaks the tension. “Welcome to the Blue Note Lounge.”
Fuck, there’s no way to hustle him out the door now before everyone else recognizes him.
Gabriel steps further into the room, his movements cautious now, aware he’s entered territory where he doesn’t belong.
His eyes find mine again, and I register the shift as he reorients his perception of me.
I’m no longer Micah’s prickly best friend or the guy who works security at a mid-level club.
The jazz slips into a minor key, the notes clashing as my worlds collide, fracturing all of the careful walls that allow me to function.
“Saint?” In real time, Gabriel starts fitting the pieces together, assembling a picture I never wanted anyone to complete.
Luca’s hand settles on my shoulder in a silent question. Do we have a problem?
I can’t answer, caught between flight and fight, between the need to remove Gabriel from this space and the knowledge that he’s here for a reason tied to my best friend’s mate.
Gabriel steps forward, one hand lifting in a half-gesture of greeting.
Before he can close half the distance between us, Rowan shifts, his arm extending to block Gabriel’s path. “Hold up, rich boy. We don’t know you here.”
Gabriel freezes mid-step, hands lifting in surrender, but his body language transforms, spine straightening, chin lifting, palms open and visible. The posture of a man who understands hierarchy and danger without needing it explained.
“My apologies.” Gabriel directs the words to Rowan, but his eyes stay on me. “I didn’t expect to find a familiar face here.”
Familiar. The word scrapes my skin like sandpaper. The room shrinks around me, my pulse drowning out the saxophone’s low wail.
Some things can’t coexist without tearing each other apart.
The Blue Note is where I keep the truth from Micah. Here, I’m not security, muscle, or a best friend with a tragic past. Here, I break bones and wash blood from my knuckles without remorse. Here, I am the thing other men fear in the dark.
And Gabriel stands in the center of it all.
“You know him?” Rowan’s question contains more than curiosity. It carries the unspoken question of whether Gabriel poses a threat to our operation.
“We’ve met,” I manage, the understatement so vast it should crack the floor beneath my feet.
Rowan leans closer, his shoulder blocking Gabriel from view, so it’s just us, and no one else in the lounge matters. “You want him gone? I can make him gone.”
The offer hangs between us, a simple solution for a complicated situation. Rowan would remove Gabriel permanently, if necessary, on my word alone. The knowledge should be comforting. Instead, it sends ice through my veins.
“He’s here for Orien.” I struggle to organize thoughts that keep scattering. “And he’s Micah’s brother-in-law.”
Recognition flickers across Rowan’s face. He knows about Micah, even if Micah doesn’t know about him, and that’s the way I like it.
I keep the different parts of my life compartmentalized for survival, and now this billionaire Alpha has broken down those walls, bleeding the various pieces of me together.