Chapter 2 – Dario
I drag the body out of sight before the rats get bold.
There’s a ditch behind the third stack of crates. It reeks of mildew and piss. I leave him there, boots half out, blood still seeping through the dock boards.
The knife’s tucked away again. My cuffs are stained, dried dark. It doesn’t matter.
The warehouse breathes cold when I step inside. Jazz crackles from the busted radio in the corner. Horns and sax bleeding into static. Crates lean high along the walls—shipment leftovers, some sealed, some picked clean. A single bulb swings overhead, giving just enough light to see the dust cut across the room.
T-Bone doesn’t look up right away. He’s sitting on an overturned pallet, mouth full of sandwich, eyes fixed on the rusting metal door like he’s expecting it to answer for something.
“About damn time,” he mutters, chewing slow. “You get caught playing hero, or did you just stop to dance in the blood?”
“Corradino sent a tail.” I take the chair across from him. “One of his. Not subtle.”
T-Bone raises a brow. “Dead?”
“Yes.”
He grunts and flicks a crumb off his lap. “Of course.”
I say nothing. He leans back, sets the sandwich down, then eyes my shirt.
“You get hit?”
“No.”
“Then who’s the blood from?”
I take out the slip. Drop it on the table between us.
His fingers hover over it. “This the message?”
“Yeah.”
He lifts it, reads the type. His brow dips. “Red Thorn. Cute. And vague.”
“It was delivered this afternoon,” I say. “To a flower shop.”
He looks up, sharp now. “The girl.”
“She’s not with Corradino.”
“You sure?”
“She had no backup. No signal gear. She looked like she came from her shift.”
T-Bone folds his arms. “So what the hell was she doing on our dock?”
I don’t answer right away. I see her face again. That look—green eyes tracking every movement, wide but sharp. Blood at her feet, hair curling from the lake mist, too stubborn to fall apart.
“She didn’t scream,” I say. “Not once. She watched me slit a man’s throat and didn’t move until it was done.”
He whistles low. “And you think that’s a good sign?”
“It’s not nothing.”
“It’s a fucking problem.”
“She didn’t act like a plant. There was no hesitation, no code phrases. Nothing rehearsed.”
“She could still be a decoy.”
“Then why not run when he came at me?”
T-Bone shrugs. “Maybe she froze.”
“She didn’t.”
He studies me. His voice drops. “You’re reading too much into this.”
“She had the slip.”
“She was bait.”
“She didn’t know she was bait,” I snap.
That hangs between us.
T-Bone rubs his jaw, scrapes his thumb across a scar by his ear. “You get a name?”
“No.” I respond.
“Then she’s still a problem.”
I look at the blood drying under my nails. “She didn’t come armed,” I say. “She came curious.”
“That makes her more dangerous, not less.”
“She had no idea what she walked into.”
“Exactly,” he barks. “What kind of girl walks into a dock at night like it’s a coffee date?”
I sit back, heat rising under my skin. Not from anger. From the memory.
Her voice. Calm, even when she was cornered. She never asked for help. Never begged. She faced me like someone used to ghosts.
T-Bone watches me. “And that doesn’t set off any alarms in that slick head of yours?” he says.
I don’t look at him.
“It makes me wonder who she really is.”
The warehouse is too warm. Too still.
I step out the side door, boots crunching gravel as the wind blows across the pier. The mist rolls in from the lake, thick enough to smother the skyline. The moon hangs like a bruise above the water, swollen and dull behind cloud cover. I reach into my coat pocket, slide out a cigarette, and light it with a flick.
Smoke tastes like ash and regret.
My free hand presses to the railing. Rust dusts my fingertips.
I run the night back through my head, frame by frame.
She walks out of the fog, red slip in her coat. Looks me in the eye. Doesn’t flinch.
She doesn’t shout when the gun goes off.
Doesn’t scream when I cut a man’s throat right in front of her.
Only runs once I speak. Not before.
She touched the bloodstained paper before leaving. Like she needed proof that it all happened. Like she wasn’t scared of me—but of what I meant.
I drag on the cigarette. The smoke stings.
That’s not innocence. That’s something else.
I pull the burner from my inner pocket, thumb across the cracked screen. It takes seconds to type out the message.
Need ID on a woman. South Side florist. Black hair. Green eyes.
I send it to Cam Delaney—corrupt CPD, favors paid in blood and dollars. He won’t ask why. Never does.
T-Bone’s voice plays in my head: She’s a problem.
I exhale hard and stare out at the lake.
She reminds me of Massimo.
Not the look. The feeling.
The first time he walked into a deal thinking he had control—he didn’t even check the perimeter. Trusted the wrong guy. Gave him our route details like it was a handshake.
Two hours later, I’m holding his body together with my hands.
He looked up at me and said, Don’t let it end here.
But it did.
And I’ve been making sure no one else screws the math since.
Now this girl drops into the middle of a smuggling run like she’s stepping into a bookshop. No reason. No backup. No warning.
It doesn’t add up.
If she’s clean, I’ll walk away.
If she’s not, then I already let her see too much.
But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe I want her to be more than she is. Maybe that’s the real danger.
I stare out past the docks. Fog hangs thick over the water. The city’s edges vanish behind it.
My voice breaks the haze.
“What the hell are you, Red Thorn?”