Chapter 13 – Viviana
The rooftop smells like burned plastic and scorched metal. Ash skates across the corrugated tin in soft hisses as the wind shifts, dragging smoke up from the yard below. I crouch at the edge, fingers tight on the wire coiled in my palm. Not for grip. For control. The metal is cold, but steady. Unlike my pulse.
Beside me, Dario rests one elbow on his bent knee, watching the flicker of firelight dancing across the skeleton of the warehouse. A stack of crates smolders on the cracked asphalt below—Corradino’s shipment, or what’s left of it. His contact had barely turned his back before we torched the drop. Message sent. Fire speaks louder than warnings.
I catch Dario studying me again.
He doesn’t say anything. But I can feel the question stretching between us.
“I’m fine,” I murmur before he can ask. “Still breathing.”
He nods. Doesn’t look convinced.
“They’re late,” I add.
“They’re always late. That one—” he points toward the far alley beyond the fence—“Raff Delano. Runner. Been with Caldera since he was seventeen. Thinks he’s untouchable.”
“He deliver messages?”
“Sometimes drugs. Sometimes girls.”
I look at the smoldering crate again, at the way the flames twist orange around broken metal. “And now he delivers a warning.”
Dario glances sideways. “You sure you want it to be you?”
“I already said yes.”
“That was back there,” he says, motioning vaguely toward the street behind us. “Before the flames. Before the quiet settled in. This—” he taps a finger lightly against the rusted rail, “this part doesn’t wait for second thoughts.”
I meet his gaze. “That’s why I’m doing it.”
He holds my stare a second longer, like he’s reading between my ribs.
“Then I’m just here to clean up,” he says finally. “You sure you don’t want a gun?”
I shake my head. “Guns make noise.”
“You’re not worried about getting close?”
“I’m counting on it.”
He chuckles, barely audible, but there’s no amusement in it. “You scare me more every day.”
I let that hang.
The wind cuts through my coat. I don’t flinch.
From below, embers crackle. A plank of charred wood snaps inward with a muted thud. The only other sound is our breathing and the hum of the city muffled by distance.
Dario shifts again. “Why scissors?”
“They’re mine,” I say. “I’ve used them longer than I’ve ever held a weapon. Every florist learns pressure and precision. Cuts that hold. Stems bleed if you do it right.”
He blinks slowly, then looks down at my hand. “You always talk like that?”
“Only when I’m about to cut something.”
I wait.
We both do.
The stillness presses in. Minutes pass. Ash drifts. Somewhere, a horn blares two short notes from far down the highway.
Dario glances at his watch. “He’ll take the north corridor,” he says. “He always does. Loops behind the burned-out delivery trucks and comes through the gate. Walks like he owns the ground. He doesn’t look up.”
“Good.”
“I’ll follow east, give you cover.”
“No,” I say. “You stay here.”
He frowns.
“If you come in behind me, it’ll draw his eye. If I go alone, he sees a girl. Not a threat.”
He doesn’t argue. Just watches me a second longer, then asks, “Do you want him alive?”
I don’t look at him when I answer. “No.”
I unfold the scissors in my palm. They snap open with a soft bite, blades catching a stray glint of rooftop light. I wind the wire tighter around my other hand, looping it twice. Then I rise.
Dario speaks low. “Say the word, I’ll end it.”
“I already did,” I say, and walk toward the edge.
Smoke swirls around the burning crates like it’s alive—dancing, hungry, drifting between broken beams and twisted shadows. The stench of charred wood clings to my skin, mixing with sweat and the copper scent of nerves. Somewhere behind me, Dario waits. But he isn’t my focus now.
He said the runner’s name is Raff. Small-time courier, known to Caldera. Talks fast, runs faster. Corradino trusts him just enough to let him live. Which means I can’t.
The steel wire coils around my fingers as I move, knees bent, back low, boots quiet against gravel. I keep to the darker edge of the lot, where the smoke thickens and light barely reaches.
Raff walks like he owns the yard. Loose shoulders. Hoodie half-zipped. Head down, earbuds in. He kicks at a stone and mutters something to himself—probably about what he’s carrying. Probably about where he’s going.
I step behind a crate, wait. One beat. Two.
He passes.
I step out.
The wire tightens around his throat before he makes a sound. He stumbles back into me. I brace, digging my heels in, arms straining to hold him steady. He jerks, claws at his neck. I keep my stance, elbows locked. He thrashes harder.
His shoulder slams into my chin. My vision flashes white.
I don’t loosen.
He elbows me in the ribs. My breath catches.
Still, I don’t let go.
He’s taller. Stronger. He surges back, trying to throw me off.
I let him pull us both down.
We hit the dirt hard. My knee scrapes against gravel, but the fall lets me shift—lets me move faster.
With one hand still on the wire, I reach into my coat. Fingers close around the scissors.
I don’t think. I plunge the blade into his neck.
Once. Again.
Blood spurts in a hot burst across my hand.
He jerks violently—then stills.
I freeze. The scissors still in my grip. His body heavy, unmoving.
The smoke billows again. A gust shifts it toward me. I don’t move.
He gurgles once, faint. Then stops.
I roll off him and sit, breathing hard.
The blood sticks to my palms, sticky and warm. It seeps into the grooves of my fingerprints, into the fabric of my sleeve. My chest rises and falls in hard, quick bursts.
But I’m not crying. I’m not screaming.
I’m... still.
Across the yard, a board creaks.
Dario steps out of the shadows like he’s been there all along. He doesn't speak. He just stands there, gaze steady on the corpse at my feet.
I don’t look up at him.
I stare at the body. My chest tightens, not from guilt—something else. A pressure deep inside, coiled like smoke behind my ribs.
He walks closer. Slowly. His boots crunch against gravel and ash.
He stops beside me, eyes tracing the blood on my hands, the wire still looped around my wrist, the red stain spreading into the dirt.
My fingers won’t uncurl from the wire. Not right away. Blood isn’t even warm anymore. Just sticky. Just wrong.
I expect him to say something. Maybe even reach down.
He doesn’t.
I push to my feet.
Still, he says nothing.
His stare deepens—not in fear. Not even anger.
It’s recognition.
Like he’s looking at a version of me he hadn’t seen until now.
Like he’s seeing me without the glass between us.
I step over the body. My boot scrapes the blood as I move past it.
Dario doesn’t follow right away. I hear him behind me, watching.
Eventually, he does.
We walk in silence through the maze of crates and ash. Around us, the fire crackles low, feeding on what’s left of the shipment. Flames lick the edge of metal drums, casting flickering light across our path.
My fingers twitch as I walk. Still tingling from the force I used. My legs ache, but I keep moving.
“Do you regret it?” he asks.
“No.”
“You were calm.”
“I had to be.”
He doesn’t reply.
I pause near the perimeter of the yard. The chain-link fence hums in the wind. A gust catches my scarf, whipping it behind me like a torn ribbon.
“I knew he was going to hurt us,” I say. “That’s all it took.”
He studies me.
I let him.
Dario’s eyes narrow a little. “You scare me.”
“I scare myself.”
We keep walking.
The warehouse looms behind us now, smoke trailing into the night like a signal. But there’s no cavalry. No sirens. Just the two of us. Blood and soot and footsteps fading into asphalt.
He glances at me again. “That was your second.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t panic.”
“I planned.”
He’s quiet.
I look at him fully then. “Are you going to say it changes me?”
“No,” he replies. “I think it shows who you’ve always been. You just didn’t know yet.”
I take that in. Let it sit.
And then I nod.
Because he’s right.