Chapter 20 Talon’s Past
Nobody answers when I knock on Rhea’s door.
I should be glad. I told her to take her things and go. Maybe that’s why.
But the lock isn’t right.
I feel it the moment I shoulder the door.
I’ve done enough breaking and entering to know.
The deadbolt’s turned, sure, but the wood around the strike plate is flaked and soft, like someone worried it with a screwdriver.
The security chain dangles, one end still anchored to the jamb, the other bent and swinging loose.
A crescent of drywall dust lies on the floor beneath it.
I step inside, and the place breathes cold at me.
I look around.
She didn’t take her coat. The grey one’s still hooked by the door.
Her shoes are a mess. One boot is by the mat, the other half under the radiator, as if it skidded there.
The rug’s rucked near the threshold. There are scuffs on the wood: a dark, curved streak that looks too much like rubber for my liking.
Something’s wrong.
My heart skips. My fingertips prickle.
I wish she’d just left. It’d be easier that way, if she’d just thrown it all to the wolves, shod herself, and skipped town.
But my gut’s giving me a different answer, and I know it’s right. She didn’t leave. She was taken.
And if she was taken, it’s because of one of two names that make my skin crawl.
Fisher or Rey.
I was on a job with one of them not an hour ago. What are the chances he used it as cover to send his boys after my girl, just to teach me a lesson about loyalty?
Fuck.
Heat climbs my spine. My hands go cold.
There’s still a knock’s worth of energy in me for the neighbor across the hall. I leave Rhea’s door open and cross to his. No answer on the first knock. Or the second. On the third, I ball my fist and slam it flat against the wood.
“Open up,” I call. “Maintenance.”
Silence. Then a shuffle and a stop.
I don’t have time for this. Still, I put on a face. Chances are people cooperate easier this way.
“C’mon, man. I just need a minute. Pipe check. Upstairs complained about a leak.”
The peephole darkens. The chain scrapes. The door opens three inches. A face like old stucco peers out: patchy beard, broken capillaries spidering across the nose. Not really a face that screams friendly, helpful neighbor.
“Wasn’t no leak,” he says.
“Then you’ll get a gold star.” I grin too wide. “Quick look and I’m out of your hair.”
He starts to close the door. I wedge my palm in the gap.
“Hey. Did you hear anything across the hall? From Rhea’s place?”
He blinks slow. “I don’t know no Rhea.”
“That so.” I tilt my head toward the apartment behind me. “Red-haired bartender. Lives there.”
His gaze skates past me and then away too fast. He shrugs. “Wasn’t home.”
“Right.” I laugh, friendly. “Listen, man. I had a day. If someone came by, I’d love to send them a fruit basket for the lovely visit.” I fish my hand into my pocket; two twenties and a crumpled ten find my fingers. I fold the bills. “Help me help you ignore me, alright?”
He looks at the money.
“Ain’t seen nothing.”
Not enough, then. I won’t give this fucker the money from the deal. Rhea wanted me to go easy on the kid with no cash, and I did.
“Not even a delivery? Guy with a clipboard? Landlord?” I ask.
“Nope.” His jaw sets. He tries to push the door.
Something pretty fucking delicate snaps under my ribs, and I’m not talking about my wound here. I inhale once, long. Keep the curve of my mouth where it is.
“Shame,” I say. “I could swear somebody came over.”
And then, without warning, I drive my shoulder into the door. The chain rips from the jamb; the neighbor stumbles back on his heels. I step in and heel him in the sternum. He collapses onto a peeled faux-leather recliner.
“Hey—hey!” he yelps, trying to rise.
I plant him down by the throat. My voice stays all chirpy, like we’re sharing blueberry pancakes and I’m the coolest guy in the world. “Try again. Who came to her apartment?”
His eyes skitter. He tries to be belligerent. “You can’t—this is—illegal.”
“Yeah.” My voice is flat. “We crossed that line. Map’s gone forever. Answer me.”
“Get outta my—” His hand flashes for something under the side table.
I catch his wrist mid-dive and twist. Tendons snap under my fingers. He gasps, shock and anger mixing, and whatever was under the table stays there.
“You’re going to want to stop,” I tell him.
He spits. It splashes my cheek. I wipe it on my sleeve and smile like he told a joke.
“Okay,” I say, soft.
I break his wrist.
In my defense, I didn’t mean to resort to violence. The guy practically forced me. I was here, trying to be polite. Hell, I’d have even checked his pipes later if he’d saved me the time. I know a thing or two about hydraulics.
But no. Here we are. His mouth opens on a square of sound that doesn’t come out for a beat, then floods the room, all high and animal.
“Who came?” I ask again. “Describe them.”
“Fuck—fuck—ah—” He curls around the pain. “I don’t know—nobody—”
I hit him in the ear with an open palm. Hard enough to make his inner world tilt until the truth starts sliding toward me.
“I don’t want to do this,” I tell him, and two seconds ago, that would’ve been honest. “But I’m worse at waiting than you are at lying.”
“I ain’t—lying,” he wheezes.
I hook the broken wrist over the arm of the chair, pin it there with my thigh. His other hand claws for leverage; I take it gently, place it on his knee, and lean forward until my forehead touches his.
“Listen to me. The woman across the hall? She’s a nice lady.
Someone broke her chain. Left her coat. Left one boot.
Scuffs on the floor. If I go back in and find so much as a hair that isn’t hers, I’ll come back here and break every bone in your body until you start remembering faces.
Should we do that? Because you’re not giving me any better ways to spend my time. ”
He tries to look away. I make his world only my face and pain. The part of me that imitates light goes quiet. There’s no light here.
“You’re Fisher’s…” he pants. “Or Rey’s?”
“Wrong ideology.” I take that thing from under the table—a box cutter—and flick it open. “I’m her friend. For the next ten minutes, that’s all I am.”
“Okay—okay!” He sucks air through his teeth, eyes rolling. “Two guys. One big, one wiry. Black jackets with yellow piping—Rey’s people, yeah, but… I didn’t say that. I didn’t—”
“You just did.” My mouth goes neutral. “Faces.”
“Beanie on the big one. Nose like it got broke and never healed right. Other had a scar up his neck, like a rope—thin, white. They had a duffel. Heard a thump. She… she said, ‘Don’t touch me.’ I heard it. I turned up the TV.”
“License plate?” I ask, though I know it’s a reach.
“I don’t—there ain’t—my window don’t face—”
Whatever.
I let him go.
“You did good,” I tell him. “Next time the TV’s loud? Turn it down and call someone.” I stand, scanning the room. There are cheap attempts at comfort everywhere. A calendar with naked women. A ceramic ashtray shaped like lips.
He’s not the best neighbor for a single girl in her twenties. Maybe if I were her boyfriend, I’d have done something about it. But I said it right.
I’m her friend.
That’s all I’ll ever be.
“You tell anyone I was here,” I add, “and the next person who knocks is worse.”
He nods so hard his face wobbles.
I cross the hall. Pull my phone. Dial Fisher.
I hate that my thumb knows his number by reflex. Especially now.
“Yeah,” he answers.
“I’m going to raid some of Rey’s boys. If I succeed, you’ll never see me again. If I fail, I’ve got a request.”
A pause. Then a low laugh, humorless. “You call to tell me you’re about to defect and then ask for a favor. You’re dumber than your hair color, kid.”
“I’m not defecting.”
“You just said—”
“I said you won’t see me again. That ain’t defection. That’s a fact.”
“We sent a message tonight,” he says. “You were there. That’s enough. Why the fuck do you want to escalate this? The shipment fire hurt them.”
I stare at the ceiling. Fisher will never get it. All he cares about is turf and power.
Fuck all that.
“If I fail,” I say, calm, “and they find me in a ditch or a river or a burnt-out car, give me a funeral. That’s my request. Not the crew bonfire and whiskey, not the boys pissing in the flames and getting high.
A real one. Put me in a box and put that box in the ground with my name spelled right.
Can you do that? My grandmother believed in funerals.
Said the body deserved a goodbye because it did the carrying.
I want to honor that, and you’re the only person I can ask. ”
He’s quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is a rasp. “You don’t get to ask me that and hang up.”
“I just did.”
“Talon.” He grinds my name. “We sent a message tonight.”
I hit end. Then I move. Before I change my mind.
I don’t love this girl. Not really. But I’ll be damned if she pays for the way I’m built. I’ve got enough ghosts in my head already. I don’t need her joining the bunch.
I leave the flat, take the stairs two at a time, and step into the evening. The cold bites hard, wind carrying a tang of river salt that settles on my boots. I cut through the street and down the back stairs to the alley where I parked my ride.
I need a lead.
Two guys… One big with a bad nose, one wiry with a rope scar.
Where do Rey’s boys stage their snatch-and-grabs?
Can’t be any of their main spots. Too obvious.
I search my brain for anything I ever heard about Rey’s boys and their kidnappings. There’s the shut-down bowling alley on Marrow they like to take people to. Then the mattress warehouse. And that old boxing gym on Ash—“closed for renovations” three years ago.
If it’s not one of those, I’ve got no fucking clue.
I start up the car and head for the bowling alley. The moment I cross the border, a chill runs down my spine. For years, coming here meant I might die. I learned to fear this place like second nature.