7. Wendy
Wendy
The brass deadbolt clicks. Three metallic snaps.
Tyler walks through the back door of the Vinyl Vault, bringing the freezing night air and the scent of ozone with him.
The amber lamplight catches the violent angle of his jaw.
He doesn’t look like Tom from Portland right now.
He looks like a man who just mapped out a slaughter.
"Tuesday's schedule," he says. His voice is a low vibration straight into my marrow. "Nadia gave it up. Three hundred bucks."
A bargain for the operational breakdown of a Syndicate enforcer. I pick up the paper. The handwriting is sharp, hurried. Times, license plates, intersections. The corporate machinery of Crimson Hollow’s misery, reduced to bullet points.
Headlights wash over the front window. Not passing by. Stopping. The rumble of a diesel engine vibrates through the front display glass.
My stomach drops. The Tuesday Enforcer isn't due for days. This is something else.
Tyler’s posture changes. The focused predator vanishes, replaced by the slouching, slightly dense cousin from Portland. It makes my teeth grind. The transition is too flawless. He’s done this a thousand times.
Fists pound on the front glass. The CLOSED sign rattles against the pane.
"Open up, Wendy. We know you're in there."
The voice belongs to Wally. Low-level bookie. Chop shop regular. A bottom-feeder who usually stays on the south end of town. The Syndicate’s corporate administration must be tightening the screws, sending the grunts out for random compliance checks.
Tyler moves. He doesn't ask permission. He steps in front of me, his broad back a wall between me and the door. "Do we let them in, or do we handle it out there?" he asks, his voice barely a whisper. The Tom persona is just for show; the killer underneath is waiting for my command.
"If we don't open it, they'll break the glass," I whisper back. "And that glass is original. It costs more than my life."
I step around him. My hands shake, but I lock my knees. I turn the deadbolt on the front door and pull it open.
Three men. Wally ‘s in the middle, chewing a toothpick, flanked by two meatheads who look like they eat raw drywall for breakfast.
"Closed means closed, Wally," I say, crossing my arms.
He pushes past me. A shoulder-check that sends me stumbling.
A hand catches my elbow. Tyler. His grip is iron. He steadies me, his thumb pressing hard into the inside of my elbow. A silent anchor.
"Just doing an inventory check," Wally sneers, walking down the center aisle. His muddy boots track sludge over the pristine rugs. "Management wants to make sure all our local investments are thriving."
He drags his hand along a row of vintage 1970s rock. He doesn't just touch them. He shoves them. A dozen records spill out of the crate, the cardboard sleeves hitting the floorboards with a sickening clatter.
Heat crawls up my neck. My jaw locks. Those sleeves belonged to my mother. Every one, categorized by decade, by feel, by the emotional frequency they carry. I’ve spent years trapped in this town, breathing stale air, just to keep those records safe.
"Hey," Tyler says. He steps forward. The Tom persona is thick on his tongue—a little nasal, a little uncertain. "Take it easy on the merchandise, man. She’s got a system."
Wally stops. He turns, looking Tyler up and down. "You the cousin."
"Tom," Tyler says. He holds his ground, slumping his shoulders just enough to look non-threatening.
"Right. The cousin from Portland who suddenly needs a job at a dying record store." Wally spits his toothpick onto the floor. "Nobody visits Crimson Hollow. Management is curious about you, Tom."
"Just family helping family," Tyler says smoothly.
One of the meatheads grabs a crate of jazz records. He flips the crate upside down.
Fifty records hit the floor. The plastic casings crack. The sound is a gunshot in the quiet shop.
My vision goes red. I lunge forward.
Tyler catches me. He doesn't just hold me back; he wraps an immovable arm around my waist, pinning my back to his chest. He hauls me against his body, absorbing my forward momentum.
"Don't," he murmurs into my ear. His breath is hot. The command is final.
Wally steps up to us. He’s close enough that I smell stale beer and cheap tobacco. He stares at Tyler, trying to provoke a reaction. Trying to find the lie.
Tyler stares back. He plays the coward perfectly.
He shifts his weight, looks down, tightens his grip on me like a nervous civilian protecting his family.
But his chest—pressed flush against my spine—is still.
His pulse is a slow, rhythmic thud. A metronome of pure violence.
He isn't scared. He’s calculating how long it would take to snap all three of their necks.
"Stay out of the way, Tom," Wally says. He points a finger at my face. "Tuesday’s coming, Wendy. The lieutenant wants a twenty percent bump. Hazard pay. Consider this a friendly reminder of the new corporate tax bracket."
They turn around. They walk out. The door swings shut, the little brass bell violently jingling, mocking the devastation left in their wake.
The engine rumbles to life. The headlights sweep away into the dark.
Tyler drops his arm. The second his weight leaves my back, the cold rushes in.
I stare at the floor. The scattered records.
The cracked sleeves. The jazz section my mother used to play on Sunday mornings when the rain hit the front windows.
My throat tightens. The suffocating weight of Crimson Hollow presses down on my lungs.
There’s no way out. There’s never been a way out.
I’m going to die in this shop, drowning in my mother's ghost, handing over protection money until I bleed dry.
"Wendy."
I drop to my knees. I start gathering the records. My hands are numb. The cardboard’s bent. A 1964 pressing of Coltrane, the corner permanently creased.
"Wendy. Stop."
He crouches beside me. His calloused hands cover mine. The heat of his skin burns through the cold shock vibrating in my bones.
"They ruined it," I whisper. My voice cracks. I hate the sound of it. I hate the weakness. "It took her three years to track this one down. They just... they just dumped it like garbage."
Tyler takes the record from my trembling hands. He sets it gently on the counter. Then he grips my forearms and pulls me up.
He doesn't offer empty comfort. He doesn't tell me it's going to be okay. He looks at me, his dark eyes stripped of the "Tom" mask. There’s nothing but the killer underneath.
"They’re dead." His voice is flat. Final. "The man who signed that order. The man who collects the money. The men who just walked out that door. They’re all dead."
The unfiltered truth of it slams into my chest. The Ignition. That gravitational pull that anchors me to him. He isn't making a threat. He’s stating a fact.
"Tyler," I breathe, using his real name. The only true thing he’s given me.
His jaw tics. He hates the mess. He hates that they touched my things. He hates that he had to stand there and play the coward while they disrespected my sanctuary.
He turns away, marching through the beaded curtain into the back room.
I follow him.
The back room is dim, lit only by the thrifted lamp with the yellowed shade. The single mattress sits on the low wooden frame. Tyler’s digging under the mattress. He pulls out a manila envelope.
The envelope is stuffed with paper.
He walks back into the main shop. He clears a space on the oak counter, sweeping a stack of unsorted 45s out of the way. He rips the metal clasp open and dumps the contents onto the wood.
Passports. Driver's licenses. Stacked dossiers. Employee histories. Bank statements. Dozens of them.
"No more covers," Tyler says. He plants his hands flat on the counter, leaning over the scattered files. The muscles in his forearms jump. "You asked me who I was. I told you my name. It wasn't enough."
I step up to the counter. I look at the files.
A driver's license with his face, the name a fabricated stranger. An employment record for a long-haul trucking company out of Denver. Eighteen months of pay stubs.
Another license. An Albuquerque security consultant badge—a name I’ve never heard him use.
And the latest. The Portland cousin license. A phantom history, meticulously crafted, printed on thick government paper.
"The club hacker, Daniel, built these," Tyler says, his voice a low cadence of confession.
"He hands me an envelope. I memorize the history.
I become the man on the paper. I've run so many covers I don't even know what my own voice sounds like anymore.
The trucker liked country music. The security consultant drank his coffee with sugar. Tom is afraid of confrontation."
He looks up at me. The shadows under his eyes are bruised testaments to years of psychological isolation.
"Tyler drinks his coffee black," he says, stepping closer.
He crowds my space, the heat of his body radiating into the chill of the shop.
"Tyler is the sixth unpatched prospect of the Broken Halos Motorcycle Club. Tyler came to Crimson Hollow on a deep-cover infiltration mission from the club president, tasked with mapping the Syndicate’s administrative infrastructure so we can burn it to the ground. "
He points a thick finger at the files.
"Every piece of paper on this counter is a ghost. A lie. A man who never existed. I gave up everything. I gave up my life, my brothers, my own fucking face, just to blend into the wallpaper of this town."
His hand drops. His fingers trace the edge of the Coltrane record the Syndicate goons dropped.
"And then you walked up to me in the soft rock aisle," he murmurs, his voice dropping into a raspy register. "You grabbed my arm. You claimed me. And the whole operation burned."
I stare at the spread of fake lives. The weight of his trauma hits me in the chest. He’s been a ghost for years. Wandering through other people's lives, never keeping anything for himself. No attachments. No sanctuary. Just a go-bag and a new name.