Chapter 13
The metal door of Foundation clangs shut behind me, cutting off the throbbing bass that’s pounded through my body for the last eight hours.
Gabriel had held to his agreement to stay away, and I hadn’t realized how much I had come to expect his presence to break up my nights.
No one had tried to approach me during work, either, even when I made sure to create opportunities where I was alone. Not that I thought someone would try to take me inside the crowded club. Too many variables. Not if they want me alive.
Shadows fill the alley, my motorcycle a dark silhouette where there had been a spill of lamplight when I parked at the start of my shift.
I take two steps forward, keys jingling in my palm, when the hair at my nape rises.
My muscles tense, a reflex born from years of looking over my shoulder. The cold night air prickles my skin, carrying the stench of garbage and old grease from the kitchen vents. High walls rise on either side, narrowing toward the street and muffling the noise of the city.
I continue walking, keeping my pace even while my senses strain for any disruption in the stillness. A bottle crunches beneath my boot, the sound too loud in the confined space. I slide my keys between my fingers, the metal cool and reassuring.
The footsteps come, too quick to be another employee leaving, too confident to be a drunk who wandered in.
I spin as a figure lunges from the darkness, a flash of metal in his hand catching the dim security light.
I sidestep, grab his wrist, and use his momentum to slam him face-first into the brick wall.
His cheek scrapes against the rough surface with a wet sound, and the object he held clatters to the ground near our feet.
Too easy.
“Who sent you?” I growl into his ear, twisting his arm up between his shoulder blades until he gasps.
The man tries to kick backward, aiming for my knee. I shift to the side, avoiding the blow, and drive his face harder into the bricks, smearing blood across the red surface.
My boot bumps a fallen taser. So, he did plan to take me alive.
I twist his arm, bone cracking with a wet crunch, and he howls, the sound echoing in the narrow passage.
I release his broken arm to grab his throat, spinning him around and lifting until the tips of his shoes scrape the ground. Blood drips from his nose and forehead, and his eyes bulge as my fingers squeeze.
“Why me?” I demand, easing the pressure enough for him to speak.
He coughs, spittle flecking his chin. “Request… for you…”
My blood freezes in my veins. Request. Not hit. Not contract. Request. Like I’m merchandise to be collected. Property to be acquired. The same way the guard spoke about me in juvie, picking me out of a lineup of kids no one would miss.
A switch flips inside me, rage going cold, and my grip changes, fingers seeking the precise points along his neck. With one sharp twist, it’s over. His body goes limp, head lolling at an unnatural angle.
I lower him to the ground, the movement as gentle as tucking a child into bed.
Silence follows. The man stares up at the narrow strip of night sky between the buildings, eyes already clouding over. I check his pockets, finding no wallet, no phone, no identification. Professional.
“You were supposed to keep him alive,” Orien says as he joins me in the alley. “Now, how are we supposed to bleed him for information?”
“If you wanted him alive, you should have stepped him before he got to me,” I snap. “I thought you were supposed to be here for my protection.”
“I would have protected you if he’d gotten you with the taser.” Orien tsks as he stares at the blood on the wall. “Did you have to break his nose? Brick is a bitch to clean.”
“You can handle it.” I bend to study the dead man. Nondescript features, close-cropped hair, muscular build. Could have been anyone, worked for anyone.
Anyone who had put in a request for me.
I think back to what Micah had said. My name wasn’t on the list with the other Rockford mates. It had been a separate bounty. Because I was new to being attached to the Rockfords? Or because this request came from someone else?
I help Orien move the body to the trunk of his sedan and leave him to handle the rest, trusting him to erase all evidence this man ever existed.
As I walk to my motorcycle, I wipe blood from my hands onto my dark jeans. The engine roars to life, drowning out the pounding of my heart. I need answers, and I need them now.
But first, I need walls around me. Somewhere I can catch my breath without anyone else there to see me crash.
The stairwell to my apartment echoes with each footfall as I climb. Blood dries sticky between my fingers despite wiping them clean twice, a phantom sensation that won’t fade.
When I round the final landing, my keys already in hand, I freeze. Gabriel paces the narrow hallway outside my door, his shoulders rigid with tension I can see even from here.
He spins at the sound of my approach, relief washing over him before his eyes widen, fixating on my hands.
“Are you hurt?” He rushes forward, reaching toward me but stopping short of contact.
I can’t answer as the dead man’s final words keep spiraling through my mind.
Request for you.
It has to be linked to the threat against the Rockfords. Because if it’s not—
“Saint?”
Gabriel still hovers in front of me, his presence registering as another threat my brain can’t process when I’m already unraveling at the seams.
“Move.” I push past him to my door.
My hands shake as I fumble with the lock. The key scratches over the knob before finding purchase. Gabriel remains close behind me, his breath warm on the back of my neck, sending unwelcome shivers down my spine.
As I step into the apartment, my foot slides on a plain white envelope, unremarkable except for its placement inside my door, where no mail carrier would leave it.
My body goes cold, fingers stiff as I bend to pick it up. No name, no stamp, no markings of any kind. Someone placed this here while I was gone.
The paper tears under my fingers, the sound loud in the quiet apartment. I pull out a single photograph, and the ground drops out from under me.
A boy stares back at me with vacant eyes.
Sixteen years old, skin stretched too tight across jutting cheekbones, purple shadows staining the hollow beneath one eye.
Dark hair buzzed close to the scalp, revealing a half-healed cut near the temple.
My six-digit detention number stands out in stark black ink at the bottom.
The photo trembles in my hand, and my throat locks, breath catching hard enough that spots bloom at the edges of my vision.
This isn’t a public record. No one should have access to this.
Juvenile files are sealed, buried under layers of bureaucracy meant to protect the kids the system already chewed up and spat out.
I flip the photo over, and five words stare back at me, written in thick black marker.
I’ve missed you, Sammy boy.
The room drops away.
My knees weaken, pulse slamming so hard it hurts, and goose bumps rise all over my body as if his shadow just passed over me again.
He found me.
Not someone with access to records. Not someone who did research.
Someone who was there.
Someone who knew what happened after the doors locked and the cameras stopped recording. Someone who leaned close and whispered into my ear while holding my face to cold concrete.
I should have killed him.
I would have killed him if he hadn’t disappeared before my release. I’d let myself believe Rowan took care of it and just didn’t bother telling me. A stupid, comforting lie I never allowed myself to examine.
Because Rowan would have told me. He would have bragged.
Blood roars in my ears, drowning out the apartment, the city, everything except the pounding truth settling into my bones.
I’ve taken on a new name, stayed off social media, and become the closest thing to a ghost possible.
But he found me, anyway.
“Saint, what is it?”
Gabriel’s question breaks through the roaring in my head, distant and muffled as if he’s speaking underwater. I’d forgotten he was here, watching me fall apart over a photograph he can’t see.
He steps toward me, one hand outstretched, and in my trauma-wired brain, the movement registers as a threat.
I jerk backward, shoulder blades hitting the wall, the photo clutched tightly to my chest where he can’t see it. Not violent, not angry. No, it’s so much worse. It’s pure, unfiltered fear.
Gabriel freezes, hands lifted in confusion, palms facing me in the universal sign of peace. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I know that. Somewhere beneath the panic, I understand that Gabriel isn’t him. But knowledge can’t override the signals firing through my nervous system, can’t stop the cold sweat beading along my spine or the tremors that start in my fingertips and radiate up my arms.
The silence between us grows thick, heavy with questions I can’t answer and explanations I can’t give. How do I tell him that the man who hurt me as a child might be back? How do I explain the darkness that lives inside me, born in a concrete cell where no one cared when I screamed?
“Let me help you,” Gabriel tries again, like someone talking to a wounded animal. He doesn’t move closer, respecting the invisible barrier between us.
“I don’t need help.”
We both hear the lie, but some lies are necessary survival tools.
Gabriel studies me, his face unreadable in the shadows of my unlit apartment. His body shifts, weight transferring from one foot to the other. I tense, preparing for him to push, to demand answers I can’t give.
Instead, he steps back, putting more distance between us. “Okay.”
The single word carries layers of meaning. Okay, I’ll back off. Okay, I’ll respect your space. Okay, I’m still here when you’re ready.
I could tell him.
About the photo.
About the guard.
About the part of my past that never stopped haunting me.
And maybe if I do, he’ll realize I’m too much work, too broken, and he’ll finally leave me alone.