Prologue Nick
Prologue: Nick
The man tied to the chair is already half broken. Sweat drips off his face in fat drops. His nose is crooked now—my work—and blood worms down over his lips to his chin. His legs shake so hard, the metal legs of the chair scrape against the concrete.
The sound grates. Nails on bone.
I feel nothing.
“Last chance,” I say.
No need to shout. Noise is for amateurs and cowards. Quiet is what sits under your skin, makes your heart misfire. Men are smart enough to hear death in a calm voice.
He spits blood onto the floor, barely missing my boot. Tries to glare up at me through one swollen eye.
“Go to hell.”
I sigh, long and slow. Not dramatic. Just bored.
This should have been over ten minutes ago.
I curl my fingers around his jaw, thumb braced under one cheekbone, the rest of my hand on the other. Squeeze until I feel bone flex under the pressure.
His breath stutters. Pain flashes in his good eye, quick and bright.
“Names,” I tell him. “Or I start taking pieces.”
He believes me. They always do when I touch them like this, when they see there’s nothing in my face, nothing in my eyes. No bluff. No anger.
Just a man doing a job.
His throat works. He opens his mouth…
The door explodes inward. Wood and cheap metal slam into the wall. Gunfire rips through the room, the sound hitting my chest like a physical blow.
I shove the prisoner sideways and reach for my gun.
The first bullet hits before my fingers close around the grip. Center mass. Clean shot. Hot and deep, like someone drove a steel rod through my ribs and left it there, humming.
I hit the wall. The impact knocks another breath out of me that I don’t have to spare.
Everything narrows to a few simple orders.
Move. Return fire. Kill.
Three shooters. Maybe four. Hard to count when your blood is busy pouring out onto the floor.
I lift the gun. Aim. Squeeze.
One drops. Then another. Good center shots. Years of training don’t disappear just because you’re dying.
The third round catches me low in the side, tearing through muscle. My leg buckles. The gun slips from my hand and clatters uselessly away.
I go down. Cold concrete bites into my back. The burn in my chest turns liquid, spreading under my shirt, soaking into the waistband of my pants. Warm. Sticky.
Too fast.
Voices blur together. Shouts, curses, the high note of panic. The man in the chair is yelling. Someone else is, too. Could be me. Doesn’t matter.
I try to sit up. Nothing happens.
I try again. My arm twitches, then drops like it’s not attached to me anymore.
The shooters move past me. They don’t even bother finishing the job. They grab the prisoner, half-drag, half-carry him out over broken glass and splinters. One steps on my hand on the way. I don’t feel it.
Cowards .
Fine. Run. Live a few more hours. Someone will put you back in a chair for me later. Or they won’t. Not my problem now.
I press my palm to the hole in my chest. It sinks in deeper than it should. Comes away slick, fingers shining dark.
My vision flickers. Gray eats at the edges.
Footsteps. Not heavy. Not careful. No weight shift, no combat pattern. Sneakers, maybe. Soft soles. Civilian.
Perfect. Just what this clusterfuck needed. An audience.
Hands grab my shoulders and roll me onto my back. I let them. Gravity wins, anyway.
There’s a sharp inhale. “Jesus Christ,” a voice mutters.
High. Shaken. Not one of ours. Not one of theirs, either. Too clean.
“Hey! Hey, can you hear me? Stay with me!”
They slap at my cheek. Useless. I’d kill them for touching me if I could make my arm cooperate.
They call 911. I can make out the words through the pounding in my ears.
“Shot in the chest… he’s bleeding everywhere… warehouse on… no, I don’t know, he just… hurry!”
Their hands press down on the wound. Both of them, full weight. Pain flares white hot, tearing a sound out of my throat I don’t recognize.
Good. It means I’m still here.
For now.
But the edges of the world keep softening. The ceiling, the broken light, the ragged hole where the door used to be. All of it swims.
Sirens start up in the distance. Closer. Closer.
I close my eyes for a second. Just a second.
It turns ugly and bright after that.
Flashing red and blue outside the shattered doorway.
Paramedics leaning over me, cutting the rest of my shirt off, hands moving fast. Voices barking numbers, throwing jargon back and forth.
“Pressure’s tanking…”
“Need another line…”
“Possible tension…”
“On three…”
They lift me. The movement sends knives of fire through my chest. I swallow a groan and taste blood.
The gurney rattles. The ceiling blurs past. They shove me into the ambulance. Someone slaps a mask over my face. The plastic smells like chemical breath and rubber.
I drift.
Come back.
Drift again.
The ride is flashing lights and bumping wheels and hands on my body, pushing drugs into my veins, holding pressure on holes that should have killed me already.
By the time they wheel me into the hospital, I’m floating outside myself, watching the scene like it belongs to someone else.
Then…
Her .
She leans over me, and everything snaps back into focus.
Gray eyes. Not soft. Focused. Sharp. Calm in a way most men with guns in their hands aren’t.
Auburn hair pulled back, a few strands stuck to her cheek with sweat. Mask hanging loose around her neck until she pulls it up.
She smells like lavender. Not the cloying kind. Clean. Quiet. Completely wrong in a place that smells like antiseptic and old fear.
“GSW to the abdomen,” someone says near my head. “Pressure in the gutter. One line. We need another.”
“Get me a sixteen,” she says, voice steady, already gloved up. “And open wide on the fluids. Come on, big guy, stay with me.”
Big guy. Cute.
Her hands hit my arm, firm and sure. No hesitation. No flinch at the blood. Fingers pressing, searching, finding what they want. Needle in. Tape. Efficient.
“Second line in. Wide open,” she calls. Professional, clipped.
But when she looks down at me, there’s something else in her face. Not pity. Not fear.
Something like…promise.
“Sir,” she says, leaning closer. Her voice drops, the edge smoothing out. “You’re at County. You’ve been shot. We’re working on you, okay? I need you to stay with me.”
Her eyes are all I can see. Gray with little flecks of darker color around the pupils. There’s a small line between her brows, like she’s concentrating hard.
They look… familiar.
I hold onto them. Onto her voice. Onto the way lavender cuts through blood and metal and rot in my nose.
My lungs burn. Every breath is broken glass. My heart is a hammer gone wild in my chest. The room tilts, shifts, spins.
I claw past the pain for enough air to force words out.
“Don’t…”
My throat is sand and razorblades. The sound that comes out of me is ugly.
Her fingers tighten around my wrist, like she knows what I’m fighting for.
“I’ve got you,” she says. “Come on. Talk to me.”
“… let me… die.”
The darkness comes fast after that.
Her eyes are the last thing I see.
Lavender, the last thing I smell.
Everything else—pain, noise, blood—drops away.
Then there’s nothing at all.