Chapter 16 – Dario
I shove through the door of Velvet Vice. Brass cuts sharp through the haze tonight. Bass thumps steady, like a pulse I can’t shake. Cigar smoke twists upward, staining the red and amber neon along the walls. Glasses clink somewhere in the swarm of bodies.
Wind screams outside, battering the brick windows. Inside, it’s hot, sour with sweat and a bite I don’t like. It’s not just smoke tonight—something’s off, like loyalty gone bad.
I roll my shoulders and act calm, but I’m not. This place smells wrong, and my skin still buzzes from her, from last night. I scan the room, eyes darting over the booths. Caldera affiliates litter the space—faces I know, hands I’ve gripped.
They used to nod my way, a quick sign of respect. Now their eyes slide past me, locked on their drinks or the women draped over them. My spine stiffens. Too many exits, too many backs turned.
I spot Marco at the bar. He’s alone, whiskey gleaming in a glass he hasn’t touched. Old-school Caldera, my handler back when I was green. His smile curves sharp, like he’s already seen my endgame.
Our eyes lock across the room. I lift my chin, bare minimum greeting. He raises his glass but doesn’t drink. A cold twist hits my gut—I’ve seen that look before.
It’s the shift from asset to liability. I’ve watched it play out—blood on concrete, trust cut out with a blade. Marco’s eyes say I’m there now, teetering on the drop.
I move through the crowd. My boots scrape the sticky floor, shoulders brushing strangers. I stop at the bar, just out of his reach—close enough to talk, far enough to dodge if he moves.
“Heard you’ve been making… creative choices lately,” Marco says. His voice slides smooth, edged with a cut.
I lean on the bar, elbows braced. “You mean surviving? Yeah. It’s a habit.”
He tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “Caldera doesn’t like habits. They like obedience.”
I watch him sip finally. The bartender pushes a bourbon my way—neat, amber. I don’t touch it, keep my fingers flat on the wood.
“Be careful, kid,” Marco says, setting his glass down. “Vultures don’t just pick at the dead. Sometimes they help make the corpse.”
The warning lands sharp, cold and heavy. I don’t flinch, just hold his gaze until he looks away first. He signals the bartender for another round, casual as hell.
I leave my drink untouched and push off the bar. My boots hit the floor hard. The crowd presses in, bodies swaying to the jazz, but I feel their eyes on me.
I weave through, scanning every face. A Caldera grunt in a corner booth shifts, his head angled my way. Another near the stage pretends to watch the band, but his hand rests too close to his hip.
My fists curl at my sides. They’re everywhere tonight, scattered like rats waiting for a signal. Marco’s stare sees into me without me turning—he’s measuring me, for a box or a bullet.
He knows something I don’t, or he’s betting I’ll crack first. I wipe my hands on my jeans. They’re steady, but my pulse isn’t, hammering fast under my skin.
I’ve survived worse—knife fights, ambushes, nights I shouldn’t have walked away from. This feels different, tighter, uglier. Tommy sits near the stage, nursing a beer—he used to tip me off when jobs went bad, but now he won’t meet my eyes.
Fuck. That’s three tonight who’ve turned cold. My chest tightens, paranoia sinking its teeth in deeper.
I push off the wall where I’ve stopped, boots firm on the floor. Marco’s talking to the bartender now, laughing low. The sound grates, like glass on stone, and I stop near a pillar, half-hidden.
The crowd swells, jazz climbing higher. Smoke stings my eyes, thick and bitter. A woman brushes past, her perfume cheap and sharp, her date flashing Caldera ink on his knuckles as he pulls her away.
My fingers twitch. I could slip out the back, vanish into the wind outside, but that’s not me anymore. Too much rides on this—Viviana, the docks, the plans we’ve carved into each other.
Marco knows it too. That’s why he’s here, why they’re all here. I catch his eye again across the room.
He lifts his glass, a mock toast. I don’t nod back this time, just stare, letting him see I’m not running. He sets the glass down, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and turns to the bartender like I’m nothing.
I’m not nothing—not to Caldera, not to him. I feel the shift, cold and pressing against my spine. They’re not just watching—they’re waiting for me to trip, to bleed, to give them a reason.
I straighten up and move toward the bar again. Marco glances my way, eyebrow lifting as I stop closer this time, right in his space.
“You got something to say?” I ask, voice low and edged. He smiles, thin and icy.
“Just watching the show, kid,” he says.
“There’s no show,” I reply, stepping in tighter.
“Not yet,” he says, sipping again. I lean in, close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath.
“Keep watching,” I tell him. “You’ll see how I end it.”
He laughs, short and dry. “Good luck with that.”
I step back and turn away. My heart pounds, but my hands stay steady as I move off.
The crowd sways, jazz filling the room. I feel their eyes—Marco’s, Tommy’s, every Caldera bastard here. They’re vultures, like he said, but I’m not a corpse yet.
I head for the back, shoulders squared. Need space, need to think this through.
The music swells, brass biting high. Smoke clouds my vision, but I keep moving, steady and sure.
They can watch all they want. I’ve got moves they don’t see coming yet.
I don’t sit at the bar again. I drift.
To a corner booth lit by nothing but the overhead glow of a busted red lamp. The table’s sticky. The cushion has a rip at the edge. It’s the kind of booth people forget you in. Exactly what I need.
The glass is already waiting.
Sweating on the table like it’s been there just long enough to look innocent. I didn’t order it.
The waitress left no name. Just a nod, and a slip of a smile. “Compliments of a friend.”
I stare at the drink. Whiskey. Amber. No ice. I used to drink it neat.
Back when I thought neat things stayed that way.
The jazz changes. A slide into darker brass, notes curling like a warning down my spine. The same song, but wrong now. Everything’s wrong now.
I keep my hands on the table, not near the glass.
A shadow glides into the booth across from me.
Rita.
Legs crossed, cigarette already between her fingers. Red lipstick, black coat, no preamble.
“You trust too easy these days,” she says, voice low and dry. Like the smoke she exhales before the words.
I don’t move. “You followed me?”
“No. I followed the man who left you that drink.”
My eyes flick to hers. Unblinking. “You see him?”
“Not anymore.” She nods toward the bar.
Marco’s gone.
So is the runner.
The booth turns colder than the whiskey.
I still don’t touch the glass.
“Don’t drink that,” she says, tapping her ash against the lip of her own glass. Not the poisoned one. Her own. “Unless you want your organs to shut down halfway through the brass solo.”
My fingers flex on the table. “How do you know?”
“I don’t,” she says. “But if you have to ask, it’s already not worth the risk.”
I lean back. Let it sink in.
I’d been watched walking in. Flanked while talking to Marco. And now, hunted by a ghost with a bottle.
Rita sees it in my face. The click of realization. The shift from suspicion to certainty.
She leans closer, her voice velvet and sharp.
“You were always going to be a problem, Dario. They just didn’t expect you to live long enough to become a threat.”
I tilt my head. “Why warn me?”
Her laugh is quiet. Pitying. “Because I still owe your brother. And because if you go down without knowing, it’s bad business.”
“Since when do you care about business?”
She taps her nail against her glass. “Since the day I realized Caldera doesn’t retire their soldiers. They just recycle their funerals.”
I glance at the glass again. A single bead of condensation trails down the side. That’s all it takes—a few drops of rot dressed in amber.
I don’t toss it. I don’t even nudge it.
I slide it aside with two fingers, like clearing a corpse from a crime scene.
Rita watches me, then lights another cigarette.
“You’re calm,” she says. “That’s new.”
“I’ve been expecting this.”
“Not from him.”
She means Marco.
I don’t answer. Just feel the way my chest tightens with something worse than betrayal.
Disappointment.
The kind that hurts a lot more than bullets.
I speak finally, voice low. “It’s war now.”
Rita nods, exhales. “It always was. You just weren’t the target yet.”
She leaves before I can respond. No farewell. No favor owed.
Just gone. Like a warning.
The jazz climbs again. The club forgets me. Or pretends to. Caldera’s eyes are back in their drinks. Their games. Their lies.
But I feel it now.
I’m not one of them.
I’m one of the dead men walking.