Epilogue #2
Tonight should be lighter. I rarely get a stolen hour in a bar with most of my brothers. But it isn’t, because we have a shit ton of shipments coming in over the next few weeks, and everything has to run like a well-oiled machine or we’re all fucked.
My phone buzzes against the table, cutting through the haze. The number on the screen is blocked.
I typically don’t answer “Unknown Number.” But something makes me press the green button tonight.
“Yeah?” My tone is flat and neutral.
At first, there’s only static. It’s just enough to put me on edge. A low, distorted voice cuts through the static. “701 Poydras. Come alone. Now.”
The line clicks dead.
I stare at the phone as the hairs on my neck rise. I know the location. It’s an abandoned warehouse that we own but lease to Gulf Meridian Imports, a smaller logistics company that occasionally runs shipments through us.
“Everything good?” Wells’s voice cuts through, casual, but his eyes are sharp.
I slip the phone into my pocket, schooling my expression and down the rest of my drink.
“Yeah,” I lie, standing. “Just a quick thing to check out.”
Wells raises a brow, but I don’t offer more. Whatever this is, no need to pull everyone in unless it’s really something.
“Back soon,” I say over my shoulder as I walk out.
My hand is already in my pocket by the time I reach my car. I check my watch. It's almost midnight. I'll be back before anyone even notices I'm gone.
Whoever called knew how to find me. That narrows the list fast.
The street is still. It’s the kind of quiet that’s all wrong, like the city’s holding its breath.
A few cars sit parked along the side of the road with clouded windows from the night’s uncharacteristic chill. Behind me, the faint notes of a brass band fade away, the saxophone lingering a second longer before disappearing between the buildings.
The silence that follows is almost too loud.
Fog rolls off the river, clinging low to the cracked asphalt around my tires. Dank, brisk air seeps through the cracked window.
I ease the car to the curb and kill the headlights, letting the darkness shroud me. For a second, I just sit there, scanning the dead street. The only sound is the low mechanical whir as I roll the window up.
Who the fuck called me, and why the secrecy?
The warehouses rise on either side of me, blank and quiet, their windows dark. No traffic, no movement, nothing that looks like trouble at first glance.
I reach down and check my boot out of habit, the familiar weight exactly where it should be. My security team insists on it, but I would carry it even if they didn’t. This city doesn’t reward people who assume they’re untouchable.
I step out of the car and pause long enough to take in the block. A streetlight hums somewhere down the way, throwing a weak, muted patch onto cracked pavement.
Other than that thin, electric buzz, there’s nothing. No voices. No traffic. Not even the scrape of someone rummaging through trash. The silence seems deliberate.
The warehouse the caller mentioned sits about a hundred and fifty feet ahead, squat and heavy against the night. This one was never meant to be pretty. It’s an overflow site, barely used, the kind of place that only wakes up when something goes wrong.
Time has worn it down. The windows are punched out like missing teeth, the metal siding warped in more places than it’s straight, and the paint is long gone.
Nothing about it belongs among the lit streets a block over.
Whoever dragged me out here better have a goddamn good reason.
I slip my Sig Sauer from its holster in my boot and tuck it into the back of my waistband. The metal is cold against my skin as I start toward the building.
A thin thread of yellow light leaks from one of the front windows, barely strong enough to touch the ground. It hangs there, uncertain, as if even it knows it doesn’t belong here.
As I edge closer, it becomes clear the source isn’t near the entrance. Whatever’s lit is buried deeper inside, so I move to the back of the building on the riverside.
I walk across overgrown weeds seeping out of cracks in the cement and climbing the unkempt walls.
I push the eeriness aside and brush off the prickling at the back of my neck. As I round the corner of the building, the wall gives way and a low, muffled sound slips through the air. It’s barely there, more breath than voice.
I stop short, my chest tightening before I can place why. Something about it is familiar.
I stay still for a beat longer to take a deep breath, then check the weight at my back again, more out of instinct than necessity. I know it’s there and cocked and ready.
The night is quiet enough that the faint crunch of gravel under my next step is amplified. I move toward the noise slowly and deliberately, careful not to announce my arrival until I know what I’m walking into.
Cold air fills my lungs, carrying the smell of oil and rust. And underneath it, the unmistakable tang of fresh blood permeates the night.
I don’t need to see anything yet to know what’s happening. Someone is being worked over. The only questions are who and why.
A stronger spill of light seeps out ahead, leaking through a broken window near the back of the warehouse. This is where it’s happening. Against the dark, it stands out as a beacon.
As I close the distance, the sounds sharpen. I can make out strained breaths, a wet cough, and a raw, scraping noise.
My hand curls, ready. This is the part where I stop asking why and start dealing with what’s in front of me.
I reach the window and stop just short of it. Another sound slips out just as I get there. It’s low and guttural, and thick with pain. I freeze and listen.
Then a sharp crack echoes inside the building, followed by a strangled gasp that makes my jaw tighten.
I press my back to the concrete wall, keeping myself out of sight. Years of security briefings and worst-case planning kick in. They’re the kind that come with running a company where laws bend, and problems get handled with money, pressure, or warnings delivered by the right people.
This is not how it usually looks, but I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to solve a problem.
I lean my head in just enough to see the room.
Inside, the space is lit by a single overhead bulb swinging from a frayed wire. The light is dirty and uneven, stuttering and shifting, casting long shadows across the cement floor.
Three men stand in a loose circle, their backs to the window. Between them, a fourth figure is strapped to a chair. He is mostly blocked from view, but I can tell enough. He is still breathing. Barely.
He’s slumped forward as blood drips steadily from his body, dark against the pale concrete beneath him.
My focus narrows.
What was once a white button-down shirt is now torn open, soaked through, and heavy with red. The fabric clings where it shouldn’t, stuck with blood.
One of the men shifts, lifting his arm. A wire flashes, settles at the man’s throat, then snaps tight as it’s wrenched backward, the chair scraping as his body jerks against the pull.
The sound that follows isn’t a scream so much as a broken noise torn out of a throat that’s already had too much taken from it. The man in the chair jerks weakly against his restraints.
Inside the warehouse, the men move with unhurried precision. One steps in, strikes, then steps back. Another takes his place.
Their posture is loose and practiced, like this is routine.
I stay pressed to the wall, forcing myself to catalog what I’m seeing even as my stomach tightens. Nothing about these men rings familiar. Why am I here?
My breathing stays even. I track the rise and fall of their shoulders, the spacing between them, the way they trade places without speaking. There’s no wasted movement or hesitation from these men.
One of the men has a distinct birthmark on his neck, and something about him tugs at my memory. I’ve seen his face before on the labor side of the port. Other than that, nothing stands out.
I focus on the man in the chair. His head hangs forward, chin dropped to his chest, face lost to shadow and blood. Whatever he looks like underneath it all is impossible to tell from this angle.
A low, tired sound slips out of him, more breath than voice, strained and wet. The chair creaks beneath the weight of it as he shifts weakly, barely clinging to consciousness.
Something about it tugs at me anyway. Familiar, close enough to scrape. I can’t place it yet.
The men keep circling, dragging it out, savoring every moment of their cruelty. Their fists swing hard and deliberately, each blow landing with a sickening thud.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, the word slipping out before I can stop it. “Let the poor bastard die already.”
I’ve been present for enough consequences to know the difference between leverage and cruelty. Whoever that man is, he’s gone. They’re not trying to break him for information. They’re breaking him for sport.
Pressure tightens low in my gut.
I glance back toward the edge of the building, weighing the risk of calling for backup, but I know there’s no time. Whatever this is, it’s happening now, and they meant for me to see it.
The knife in one man’s hand catches the dim light as it slices through the prisoner’s shoulder, fabric and skin giving way. The man barely flinches, too far gone to give them the satisfaction.
The one with the birthmark grips the captive’s chin and jerks his head back, forcing his face into the light.
The angle is wrong at first. It’s just a partial profile, but enough to register bone structure when, before, he was just a blood-covered blob. Then I realize it’s a jaw I’ve seen across conference tables, a mouth I’ve watched tighten before making decisions that shifted entire contracts.
A mouth I’ve known my entire life.
Almost instantly, the air in my lungs escapes, and it’s like I can’t breathe for a moment.