Chapter 11 – Vespera
The bulb above me sways, creaking like a noose.
I don’t stop digging. My hands move with purpose, tearing through the crates like I’m clawing at secrets buried too deep.
The crates reek of damp wood and old rum, their scent sour and heavy, clinging to my skin. Each one stacked behind the last like a grave waiting for a name, silent but heavy with what they hide.
I tear open the third box. Dust clouds up, thick and choking, sticking to my throat. I cough once, the sound sharp in the quiet. Bite it back, forcing my lungs to steady. Wipe the grime from my hands, leaving streaks of gray across my knuckles.
Bottles clink inside, their glass dull under the flickering light.
Receipts flutter, yellowed and curling at the edges.
Mildewed ledgers are wrapped in plastic, their pages swollen from years of neglect.
And beneath them, wedged between two rusted tins, a black folder.
It sits heavy, out of place, like it’s been waiting for me.
Thick.
It’s bound in old leather, the strap warped and brittle, cracking under the basement’s damp.
I don’t hesitate. My fingers move fast, certain, driven by a need I can’t name.
I unfasten it and flip it open. The leather creaks, stiff, resisting like it knows what it’s giving up.
Documents spill across the table, a cascade of secrets in black and white.
Files, typed sheets, handwritten notes. Margins thick with codes, number strings that mean shipments, deals, lives. Names scrawled in ink, some crossed out, some circled.
My eyes scan fast, catching the rhythm, piecing together the pattern before I’m ready.
And then I stop.
Leon Moreau.
His name is circled.
Red ink.
Not fresh, but not faded either. It burns against the page, vivid, like blood frozen in motion.
The date beside it…my heart knows it before my eyes confirm it. A date etched into my soul, carved deep where I can’t touch.
March 9.
The night he died.
The same goddamn night, when the world cracked open and took him from me, leaving nothing but questions and ash.
I flip the page, my hands moving before I tell them to. There’s more. The next document lists four names, four deaths, all within a window of days. Mine is the only name not listed in red, untouched, alive.
Leon’s name is underlined. A deliberate mark, heavier than the rest.
There are initials beside it.
S.E.
The Elder.
Tiziano’s mentor. The man who shaped him, sharpened him into the blade he is now.
Not just a rumor. Not a ghost story traded in backroom whispers. Not shadows cast by paranoia over late-night drinks.
It was him.
My breath catches, then turns rough, scraping my throat raw. I exhale hard through my teeth and grip the table to keep from snapping the folder in half, my nails digging into the wood.
It wasn’t chance.
It wasn’t chaos.
It was a contract. A command, cold and calculated, signed in red ink and carried out in blood.
I run my fingers over the edge of the paper like that will change what’s printed there, like I can rewrite the truth with touch alone. The ink doesn’t smudge, doesn’t yield.
The basement presses in tighter. Every shadow leans, stretching across the walls like hands reaching for me.
The bulb above me swings harder now, wind howling overhead, rattling the vents with a storm’s impatient growl.
I stand too fast. The stool I was using topples behind me, clattering against the concrete, the sound jarring in the confined space.
My chest aches as if something were just shoved through the center, like a blade I didn’t see coming. My pulse hammers loudly in my ears, drowning out the wind.
The cards knew. Those damn tarot spreads I laughed off, the ones Leon used to read with a smirk, they saw this coming, saw the betrayal lurking in the dark.
And I didn’t listen. I pushed them aside, buried them under work, under survival, under Tiziano.
I swallow hard. My fingers tremble, just for a second, before I clench them into fists to stop it.
He’s in my blood. Tiziano, woven into every piece of me, every scar, every fight.
My loss. Leon’s death, the hole it left, the grief I’ve carried like a second skin.
My fucking bed. Tiziano’s touch, his heat, the way he fills the spaces Leon couldn’t, the way he’s become my anchor and my storm.
The folder lies open, its pages glaring up at me, unyielding. I want to burn it, tear it apart, but it wouldn’t change the truth. Leon’s death wasn’t random, wasn’t a casualty of the life we lived. It was ordered, planned, and executed by the man who made Tiziano what he is.
Tiziano didn’t pull the trigger, didn’t sign the contract, but he’s tied to it, bound to the Elder by blood and loyalty I can’t untangle.
My hands itch to move, to break something, to feel the splinter of wood or glass under my knuckles. Instead, I grip the table harder, the edge biting into my palms, grounding me in the pain.
The storm outside grows louder, wind slamming against the bar’s walls, rattling the crates like they’re trying to speak. The bulb swings wildly, shadows dancing, twisting into shapes that look too much like Leon’s face, then Tiziano’s, then nothing at all.
I force a breath, slow, deliberate, pulling myself back from the edge. The folder’s still there, its secrets spilled, and I can’t unsee them. But I’m not the woman I was when Leon died, not the one who broke and rebuilt herself in the aftermath.
I’m sharper now, forged in blood and fire, in the bayou’s jaws, in Tiziano’s orbit. This truth hurts, cuts deeper than I expected, but it doesn’t undo me.
The machete at my back feels heavier, Tiziano’s gift, a reminder of what we’ve built, what we’ve killed for. He’s not the Elder, not the hand that wrote Leon’s name in red, but he’s part of this world, this machine that chews up lives and spits out contracts.
I don’t know if he knew. If he suspected. If he’s carrying that guilt or just the weight of me.
The wind howls again, a low moan that vibrates through the concrete, and I feel the storm in my bones, in my teeth, urging me to move, to act. I let go of the table, my hands steady now, my trembling buried deep where it can’t touch me.
The folder stays open, a wound I’ll deal with later. For now, I’m alive, and that’s enough. I’ve faced worse than truth, worse than betrayal, and I’m still standing.
Tiziano is upstairs, probably pacing, waiting for me to come up, to face him. I don’t know what I’ll say, what I’ll ask, but I know it won’t be soft. Not with Leon’s name burning in my chest, not with the Elder’s initials carved into my mind.
The basement’s shadows settle, the bulb slowing its sway.
I step back, leaving the folder where it lies. The storm’s close now, its rumble a promise of chaos, but I’m ready.
For the truth.
For Tiziano.
For whatever breaks next.
I storm up the stairs, folder clutched in my hand. The leather burns against my palm, its weight heavier than steel.
My boots hit the wood hard, each step louder than the last, echoing through the empty stairwell. The basement door slams behind me, the sound sharp, final, like a gunshot in the quiet bar.
I don’t wait. There’s no room for hesitation, no space for doubt.
I don’t think. My mind’s a haze of red, Leon’s name blazing at the center.
Fury moves faster than thought, driving me forward, a current I can’t fight.
Tiziano stands behind the bar, a rag in one hand and a bottle in the other. He’s halfway through wiping down the counter, his movements steady and routine. Everything feels normal, as if the world hasn’t just split open beneath my feet.
I shatter it.
“You knew,” I say.
My voice doesn’t rise. It cuts, sharp and cold.
He turns slowly. Confused at first, his brow creasing as he sets the bottle down. Then cautious, his eyes narrowing, catching the storm in mine.
“Knew what?” he asks, his voice low and testing, as if he’s stepping on thin ice.
I throw the folder.
It skips across the bar like a stone over water, papers spilling and edges fluttering as they scatter. The red-ringed name lands face-up, Leon’s name glaring in the dim light, accusing.
“Leon,” I say, my voice steady but heavy, each syllable a weight. “Your mentor ordered it.”
He freezes, pausing his hand over the folder, fingers twitching as if afraid to touch it. Then he reaches for it, flipping it open with movements slow and deliberate, as though he can delay what’s coming.
His eyes scan the pages, quick, then slower, lingering on the circled name, the date, the initials. The color drains from his face, leaving him pale, almost ghostly. Shoulders drop an inch. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out right away, just a breath that catches.
“I didn’t know,” he says, voice rough, barely above a whisper. “Not then. I didn’t know then.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I snap, the words sharp, cutting deeper than I mean them to. “Not with his blood on your hands.”
He flinches, just a fraction, but I see it, the crack in his armor.
“I didn’t,” he starts, his voice steadier now, but I cut him off, my anger too raw to let him finish.
“You stood there while I buried him. You watched me break. And now you say you didn’t know?” My tone rises, despite myself, trembling with the grief I’ve carried too long.
“I wasn’t part of it. I didn’t see the list until weeks later,” he says, gripping the folder, knuckles white.
“Then why the hell is this hidden in my basement?” I shout, the words tearing free, echoing off the bar’s walls.
His silence answers me.
I see it in the twitch of his eye, in the way he grips the folder like it might bite him, like it’s a truth he can’t face any more than I can.
I don’t let him explain. There’s no room for his words, not now.
I move.
My fist connects with his cheek, the impact sharp and fast, a jolt that sings through my knuckles. The crack of skin against bone cuts through the quiet.
He stumbles back, hand flying to his face, catching himself against the counter. Blood blooms at the corner of his lip, a thin red line against his skin.
He doesn’t hit back.
He doesn’t even raise his arms. He keeps himself open, like he’s offering himself to my rage.
“Monster,” I say, the word spilling out, bitter and broken, carrying every piece of my hurt.
He meets my eyes. They’re hollow. Not cold. Not angry. Just empty, like something vital has drained out of him, leaving only echoes.
He clutches the folder tighter. The paper crumples in his grip, edges folding under the pressure of his fingers.
He steps back once, then again, each step deliberate, measured, pulling him further from me.
I stand in the center of the room, chest heaving, his body trembling with the force of what I’ve done, what I’ve said.
He doesn’t say a word. His silence is louder than any defense, heavier than my accusations.
He just turns…and walks out. Not fast, but not slow, either. His boots scuff the floor, a soft sound that cuts deeper than it should.
Gone before I can throw anything else, before I can find more words to wound him.
Gone before I can break more than what’s already cracked between us.
I stand alone, rage and grief bleeding together until I can’t tell them apart. The bar feels too big now, its shadows stretching across the walls, swallowing the space where he stood.
“Love doesn’t survive this,” I whisper, my voice barely audible, a truth I don’t want to hold. “But I do.”
And this time, he’s the one who runs.
The storm outside presses closer, wind rattling the windows, a low moan echoing the ache in my chest.
My boots are rooted to the floor, my hands still tightly closed, the folder lying open on the bar like a wound that won’t close. Leon’s name burns in my mind, circled in red, tied to Tiziano’s mentor, to the man who’s become my everything and my undoing.
The bar’s quiet now, save for the storm’s restless hum, but it’s not empty. It holds me, its walls bearing witness to the fight, to the crack that’s split us open. I feel Tiziano even now, his presence lingering, in the blood I drew, in the folder he couldn’t face.
My fist stings, the skin raw where it met his face, but it’s nothing compared to the hollow ache inside. I hit him because I had to, because the truth demanded something physical, something real. But it didn’t fix anything, didn’t erase Leon’s death or the Elder’s hand behind it.
I step to the bar, my fingers brushing the folder’s edge. The papers are crumpled where Tiziano gripped them, marked by his hands, just like I’m marked by him. I don’t read them again, don’t need to. The truth is in me now, sharp and unyielding, a blade I can’t pull out.
The neon sign outside flickers, casting red light across the counter, pooling around the folder like blood.
I imagine Tiziano’s face, the way it fell, the way he didn’t fight back.
He’s not the Elder, not the one who ordered Leon’s death, but he’s part of this world, this machine that chews up lives and spits out secrets.
I don’t know if he lied, if he knew more than he admitted. I don’t know if I can trust him again, if I ever fully did. But I know he’s out there now, carrying my fist’s mark, carrying the weight of my grief.
The storm growls louder, rain starting to patter against the windows, a soft hiss that promises more. I stand there, alone, the bar my only witness, and I feel the world shift under me, unsteady, ready to break.
I’m still here. Still breathing. Still fighting.
But love, lust or desire, whatever it was between us, it’s bleeding out, and I don’t know if I can stop it.
The folder stays where it is, open, accusing. I turn away, my boots heavy on the floor, and head toward the back, toward the dark, toward whatever comes next.