Chapter Fourteen #2
He swung with his other hand. A hard left that caught Burial on the jaw and sent sparks across his vision. The scar split. Blood, warm and familiar, ran down his neck.
Burial absorbed the hit the way he absorbed everything—quietly, without drama—and drove forward.
They crashed against the fence. Chain-link bowed under their combined weight, the razor wire singing overhead.
Brossett was wiry, strong for his size, fighting with the focused desperation of a cornered animal.
His knee came up toward Burial's groin. Burial twisted, took the hit on his thigh, and pinned the enforcer's damaged hand against the fence.
Brossett screamed again. Louder this time.
"You used flowers," Burial said, his voice barely above a whisper despite the violence. "Built wreaths. Mounted them on gates and fences like calling cards."
He pressed the knife against Brossett's throat.
"You used her trade as your weapon because you wanted it to feel personal. Wanted her to know you'd studied her. Learned what she loved. Turned it against her."
The enforcer's breathing was ragged. Blood from his wrist dripped steadily onto the broken asphalt.
"You're a man who makes suffering into an art form," Burial continued. "Personal enforcement. Blowtorches. The kind of cruelty that takes time and attention and a specific interest in making sure people understand exactly why they're hurting."
He leaned closer.
"But you made a mistake. You came after a woman who pays attention the way you pay attention. Who studies the world around her because her work demands it. Who knows this neighborhood better than anyone because she's driven every street, walked every alley, delivered to every door."
The knife pressed deeper. Not cutting. Not yet. Just there, cold and certain.
"You thought your signature was clever. Flowers as threats. Beauty as violence." Burial's voice went flat. "But you used her language. And she translated it into a map that led me right to you."
Brossett tried to speak. The knife made it difficult.
"The van you burned. The wreaths you built. The businesses you torched." Burial pulled back just enough for the man to draw breath. "Was it worth it?"
"Raymond will—"
"Raymond is alone." The words came out soft and final. "His collector's dead. His operations man is dead. And now his personal enforcer is bleeding against a fence that a florist told me about because she noticed it while delivering sympathy flowers."
Brossett's eyes changed then. The calculation drained out of them, replaced by something rawer. Not quite fear. Understanding, maybe. The recognition of a man who'd made suffering into a career finally seeing the shape of his own ending.
"You ride rear guard," Brossett said.
"I ride last in every formation." Burial held his gaze. "Because the rear is where you catch the people who think they're not being followed."
The knife moved.
It was quick—quicker than Brossett deserved, quicker than the blowtorch work he'd done on other people's lives and property.
Burial wasn't a man who made suffering into art.
He was a man who handled the aftermath. Efficiently.
Completely. Without the theatrical cruelty that had defined the man now sliding down the chain-link fence.
Landry Brossett, Raymond Hebert's personal enforcer, died against a fence he didn't know existed, in an alley he thought was his escape, caught by a rear guard who'd been behind him the whole time.
Burial wiped his knife clean and sheathed it.
The alley was quiet. The quarter moon hung overhead, indifferent. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed toward the burning hardware store on Third—the last fire Brossett would ever set.
He pulled out his phone.
"It's done." Crossroad's voice was immediate, expectant.
"Brossett's down. South alley off Industrial, by the rail yard fence."
"Copy. Sending cleanup."
Burial looked at the body one more time. The duffel had fallen open during the fight, spilling its contents across the asphalt. A blowtorch. Wire cutters. Black ribbon. And white lilies, still fresh, already tied into the shape of a funeral wreath that would never be delivered.
He picked up one of the lilies. Turned it in his fingers. The petals were soft, perfect, chosen with care by a man who'd studied a florist well enough to use her own trade against her.
Burial dropped the lily on Brossett's chest.
Deepest sympathies.
He walked back through the alleys of Greenville's south side, following the route Diane had drawn on the back of a floral supply order. Every turn she'd marked. Every shortcut she'd mapped. Every shadow she'd identified from years of early-morning deliveries and late-night van runs.
Her territory. Her knowledge. Her map that had led him straight to the man who'd tried to destroy her.
The bike was where he'd left it. He kicked the engine to life and rode.
Raymond Hebert was alone now. No collector. No operations man. No personal enforcer. Twenty years of building a gambling empire, and in the span of two weeks the Destroyers had stripped it down to one man and whatever hired muscle he could scrape together.
The house was losing.
And the man who always rode last was heading home to a woman who'd drawn him a map to victory on the back of a flower order, because a florist who knows every alley in Greenville is more dangerous than any enforcer with a blowtorch.
He made the compound gates by three in the morning. The brothers on watch nodded him through. The lot was quiet, bikes lined up in their rows, the converted cotton gin dark except for a single light burning in the corner near the garage bays.
Her corner.
Burial parked and walked toward the light.
Diane was asleep at her workbench, her head pillowed on her arms, an unfinished arrangement of wildflowers still in her hand. She'd been waiting for him. Building flowers because her hands needed something to do while her mind ran the scenarios she couldn't control.
He stood there for a long moment, watching her breathe.
The woman who'd thrown a vase. Who'd mapped an enforcer's staging ground from delivery routes. Who'd put flowers in a motorcycle compound and taught a gravedigger that temporary things were worth building.
He lifted her gently, her head falling against his shoulder, a murmur escaping her lips that might have been his name.
"It's over," he said quietly. "Brossett's done."
She stirred against him, her eyes opening halfway. "You came back."
"I always come back."
"Through the back door?"
His mouth curved. "Where else?"
She smiled, sleepy and fierce, and let him carry her inside.
Raymond Hebert's operation had lost its last weapon. The collector, the coordinator, the enforcer—all of them gone, buried in the aftermath that the Tail Gunner handled best.
One man left. One last hand to play.
And the gravedigger who always watched the rear was already reading the ground.