20. Bram
twenty
Bram
When I got to the club, there he was, just standing there, out in the open, hands loose at his sides.
No lieutenants, no blacked-out Lincoln idling at the curb, not even a coyote or a mongrel for company.
Colonel had ditched the suit for a white shirt with the sleeves rolled, the kind of shirt that said wedding or funeral, but the cuffs were streaked brown where he’d wiped his hands, and his silver hair looked like he’d just woken up out of a ditch.
His Left hand was empty, the right hand holding a blade, nothing fancy.
Six inches, single-edged, probably something he’d taken off a dead enemy back in the old days and sharpened every week since.
I pulled up, engine rattling in the morning quiet, and let the bike idle while I read him. He didn’t move. Not even a blink. Just that long, level stare, like the whole lot was a chessboard, and he knew every piece that mattered was already in play.
I shut off the bike and swung my leg over.
My shirt stuck to my ribs, still damp at the bandage, crusted from where the stitches had already soaked through.
Every breath burned, but I didn’t give him that.
I peeled the shirt over my head and left it on the seat.
The sun caught the bruise spreading black around my side, the dressing beneath it gone from white to something almost rust.
Edge was outside, leaning against the door frame of the club.
He didn’t bother with a hello. He took a look at me, then a look at the old man, and then came down the steps slow, boots heavy on the wood.
He crossed the distance, handed me the knife I knew he’d been saving for something like this—bone handle, short and ugly, grip wrapped in old electrical tape—and then stepped away.
He didn’t wish me luck, didn’t clap me on the shoulder, didn’t make a joke.
That would have been disrespectful, to the moment and to the man I was about to fight.
I rolled the knife in my palm, and tested the edge. It had weight to it, balanced for close work, and I wondered, just for a second, if Edge had been waiting to give it to me since the first time we’d talked about finishing the Colonel face-to-face.
“Morning,” the Colonel said. His voice carried. You’d think he was asking for the paper and a cup of coffee. “I hear you’ve been busy.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit, Gerald.” His face fell slack. “It’s time for you to die. Put an end to everyone’s misery.”
“Your confidence is misguided, Bram.” He looked back. “You left my family behind?”
“They’ll be here soon enough. In time to see your ass lying on the ground, dead.”
I didn’t answer.
We started slow, two men on a line, measuring.
Gravel soft under the boots, enough give to make every shift matter.
I knew how he moved from old footage and a dozen years of running counter to his crew, but it’s one thing to read a man’s habits from after-action reports and another to see it live, ten feet away.
He circled to his right, leading with his weak side, blade back and tucked.
The stance of a man who’s spent half his life cutting people who never saw it coming.
The first pass was a feint. He flicked at my shoulder, drew back, tested the reach.
I didn’t bother blocking, just stepped outside and let him show his footwork.
He was good—better than I’d given him credit for, which is saying something.
He didn’t waste motion. Even the fake-outs looked accidental, like he was moving with the wind instead of against it.
Second pass, I closed. Got in low, tried to bull-rush him, but he pivoted and slipped the blade under my arm, tagging the bandage. I felt the slice, deep and cold, blood running fresh and hot down my side. He didn’t follow up. Just danced back two steps, knife up, calm as a surgeon.
“You’re slower than last time,” he said.
I grinned and spat in the dirt. “Still faster than you need.”
He didn’t smile. He lunged, arm snapping out with that old man speed, like the joints were spring-loaded.
I blocked with my forearm, caught the inside of his wrist, and the knife slipped past but not before catching my side again.
Not as deep, but it stung. I twisted his arm, tried to bring him in close for a throw, but he dropped his weight, and we locked up, chest to chest, both of us pushing for ground.
He broke the clinch with a headbutt—straight up into my nose, hard enough to starburst my vision.
I lost hold of his wrist for half a second, which was all he needed.
The knife came around, aimed at my ribs, and I barely got my own blade up in time to block it.
The two knives scraped, kissed at the edge, and I felt his arm tense. He wanted to end it on the next move.
“You ever think it would come to this?” I asked, voice flat through the blood pooling in my mouth.
He shrugged, like it was Sunday and he was missing his crossword. “Always knew you were the one.”
We circled again. The heat kept building, sun creeping up, the lot empty and silent. I could see Edge at the edge of my vision, arms folded, watching every second.
The next time we closed, I didn’t try to outthink him. I let him cut me. Small one, just below the ribs, but he put his whole body behind it. The pain was sharp, bright, but I used it to bring my own blade around and drive it through the meat of his thigh, just above the knee.
He went down on one leg, knife still in his hand, but I tackled him into the dirt.
He rolled us, got on top, tried for a finishing cut, but I had both hands on his wrist and twisted until I felt something give.
He grunted, not a yell, just the acknowledgment of pain, and let go of the knife rather than lose the hand.
I flung it behind me, got a knee into his chest, and hit him once, hard, with the butt of my own.
His head snapped back, blood running from his nose. He spat it onto his shirt, then looked up at me like nothing had changed.
“Well?” he said. “Do it.”
I raised the knife.
Before the knife could drop, I heard her.
“Bram.”
Not a scream. Not even a shout. Just my name, carried across the blacktop, sharper than any blade.
I turned, vision smeared with sweat and blood and saw her standing there at the lot’s edge.
She wore her old DA suit jacket over jeans, shirt torn open at the collar, hair wild, like she’d been driving all night and then just kept running on foot.
The gun was already in her hands, arms locked out, grip perfect, aimed dead center at my heart.
I saw the tremor in her jaw but not her arms. The gun didn’t move. I said, “Julie.”
The Colonel’s laugh was dry and metallic, like a can kicked down the gutter. “Of course,” he said, head tipped back in the gravel, eyes searching the cloudless sky. “That’s my girl.”
I stayed where I was, kneeling, knife still in my fist, knee on his chest. The smart move was to back away and let her have the shot.
The smart move was to disarm myself and make a show of it.
But I’d never been smart where she was concerned.
And she’d always known that, even when it made her furious enough to hate me.
She advanced, slow and careful, boots scraping the lot. I watched the line of the gun. Never wavered. Not once.
“You going to shoot me?” I asked her.
Her eyes didn’t leave mine. “If you kill him, I’ll kill you.”
The sun had come up high enough to throw a shadow behind me, long and crooked on the broken asphalt. It made the blood look black. My own or the Colonel’s, I couldn’t tell anymore.
He tried to buck me off, last surge of dying muscle, but I pressed him down and felt his ribs crack again. He made a sound that was almost a gasp, then started to laugh again, softer this time.
“You know what I told her, son?” he said, not looking at me. “Told her all her life, there’s no such thing as mercy. Just weakness dressed up for Sunday. She was the only one who listened.”
Julie shifted left, half a step, adjusting her line of sight. “Shut up.”
He smiled at her, blood all over his teeth. “What did I ever do but make you strong?”
She didn’t answer. The barrel stayed trained on me. It was personal, and it was practical.
A wind came through, scattering grit. A dog barked somewhere past the fence line, and then it was quiet again. The kind of silence that said the world was paying attention.
“Last chance, Bram,” Julie said.
I thought about it. About what I owed her, what I owed the men we’d buried because of the Colonel, the scar she’d wear forever if he kept breathing one more minute. I let the knife fall to the dirt, blade up. Opened both hands and leaned back, slow, thinking once again I’d let Millie down.
“Fine,” I said. “It’s yours.”
She nodded. Not relief, just confirmation. She stalked forward, steps slow but even, gun pivoting down to the Colonel’s head. He stared up at her with the calm of a man who thought he’d already won. Maybe he had, in some universe where bloodlines meant more than the blood itself.
“You want to say it?” she asked him. Her voice was flat and heavy. “Say you’re sorry? Say you regret anything at all?”
He sucked in a ragged breath and started to speak, but she cut him off.
“You beat my mother until she couldn’t stand. You told me you’d kill her if I didn’t follow orders, every single time, like I was a dog. You threatened Emma, you made her watch—”
He tried to talk over her. “Julie—”
“You built me out of fear and then called it love. You put a badge in my hand so you’d own the law and the law would own me. Every year you told me I owed you, every year you made it true.”
The next words came short, clipped, one after the other.
“You murdered Bram’s wife. You left them to die in that house and then blamed it on the world being hard.”
Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop.
“You’re a monster.”
He said nothing, just watched her with the eyes of a man who wanted to argue but couldn’t figure out how.
“I could’ve shot you when I was twelve,” she said. “I should have. I’m sorry I waited.”
She cocked the hammer. The sound was surgical.
The Colonel smiled at her, a soft, pathetic thing, lips peeled back from broken teeth. “You’re still my daughter,” he said. “No matter what you do.”
She didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate.
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m going to do it right.”
She shot him in the face. The round entered just below the left eye, turned his skull to wet sand. He flopped once, spine arching up, and then settled.
I pushed myself up, felt the blood running under my ribs, and took a long breath that almost dropped me to my knees. I looked at her, the gun dangling loose in her hand, her eyes on the body, not me. There was nothing else to say.
She finally looked at me. Not a hint of triumph in her face. Just exhaustion and something that might have been peace, if you’d never seen what she looked like before.
She put the gun down, then dropped to a crouch and just stared at the corpse. She didn’t look away.