You Have My Attention

Chapter 1

Bastien Montclaire

The world forgets to punish some people. That’s where I come in.

The hotel lounge thrums around me, jazz drifting through the air. Soft amber light bounces off polished mahogany and brass. Expensive whiskey fills cut crystal glasses, beads of sweat sliding down their sides.

In the corner, a woman laughs, all teeth and red lipstick. The man beside her wears a wedding band that catches the light as his hand creeps up her thigh. But this isn’t a place for wives. It’s where wedding vows go to die.

Shadows sink deep into a place like this. No one stares too long at what they can’t drink, smoke, or fuck.

I sit at the bar, posture loose, gaze steady. Calm, but never unaware. I watch everything.

Dark clothes, no logos, chosen to blend into the crowd. I want to avoid attention.

And yet, attention always comes my way.

Women notice me. It doesn’t matter how quiet I am or how little space I take up. They look. They linger. And they don’t understand how close they are to darkness without meaning to be.

The bartender polishes glasses until they gleam, a tired businessman loosens his tie, a woman scrolls for a text that won’t come. I watch without watching. A predator’s trick.

A cigarette rests between my fingers, unlit, familiar. I gave it up years ago but never really let it go.

There are a lot of things I’ve never let go.

The door opens, and humid air rushes in from the street, brushing the back of my neck. I know who it is without looking. I’ve kept an eye on the clock, and he’s right on time.

Grant Holloway. Mid-fifties. Pressed suit. Grief lives in the hollows behind his eyes, and in the deep lines that never fade. He’s a man stitched together by grief and vengeance.

He hesitates three steps in, and his eyes flicker toward the bar. He moves toward me and sits, leaving one empty seat between us, just as I instructed. Enough distance to appear as strangers, enough proximity to seal a deal intended to balance the scales.

Holloway sinks onto the barstool. The bartender drifts over, towel slung across one shoulder. “What can I get you?”

There’s a long pause before he speaks. “Macallan 18, if you have it. Neat.”

The bartender gives a small nod. “You've got it.”

Holloway keeps his eyes fixed on the bar, shoulders drawn tight. He’s holding himself together by sheer will. Poor bastard looks like he might come apart if he breathes too hard.

“I’ve been sober for eight years,” he says. “Seems longer tonight.”

“Eight years is something worth keeping. Don’t let tonight take it from you.”

He slides a small black bag off his shoulder and places it on the stool between us. “It’s all in there.”

I glance down. The bag’s half unzipped, neat stacks of cash visible inside. Half now, half later. That’s the deal.

On top is a photo of a beautiful girl, an angelic blonde with pale blue eyes. Her smile is sweet and innocent.

That girl didn’t know what kind of monster awaited her in the dark.

Beside the photo is a USB thumb drive. I’m certain it contains filth that doesn’t wash off.

Holloway clears his throat, jaw tight, but whatever he means to say dies before it leaves his mouth.

“Go on. Say the words out loud. It helps. Trust me.”

His voice scrapes out like broken glass. “I want him dead. No police. No trial. No mercy.”

I nod, rolling the cigarette between my fingers, looking down at the photo again. The girl’s eyes gleam up at me, alive on glossy paper, but gone in every way that counts.

“You’re sure this is what you want? Because after this is done, you don’t get to be the same man.”

His breath shudders. “The man I used to be died the day he murdered my little girl.”

The bartender returns and sets the Macallan in front of Holloway. “Want to start a tab?”

He pulls out his wallet, peels off a single bill, and drops it on the bar. “No tab. Just this. Keep the change.”

His hand grips the glass, fingers drumming a nervous rhythm against the cut crystal, but he doesn’t lift it. “She was my baby. Only eighteen years old.”

I don’t glance at him. Don’t need to. I know his pain.

“Her name was Lila. She was bright. God, that one was—” He cuts himself off, jaw tightening so hard his teeth click. “My girl had big dreams. She wanted to be an actress.”

I hear the gulp in his throat when he swallows. See the way his fingers clench into fists, then stretch out again, white-knuckled and shaking.

No tears. No begging. No pleas for me to tell him it’s going to be all right.

Good.

He doesn’t cry, and I’m grateful for that. I’ve never known what to do with men who break apart at the seams. I prefer grief that’s shaped into purpose.

“And then she got mixed up with him.” Holloway’s voice cracks at the edges. “Silas Rourke told her he could help her break into acting. Commercials, maybe film if she got lucky.”

He swallows hard. “She was elated, but it was all bullshit. He got her hooked on heroin and turned her into a prostitute. Kept her high so she couldn’t say no. To him, she was nothing more than a body he could sell.”

His voice drops to a whisper. “She overdosed on the shit he put in her veins. My daughter died alone in some sleazy motel room… with a sixty-year-old john on top of her.”

He swallows hard. “That’s the last thing she felt—his weight, not her father’s arms. Not love. Not safety. Him.”

I feel his rage—bitter, suffocating, a fire too heavy to carry. It’s why they all come to me.

He’s asking for the last thing he can do for his child.

Holloway’s voice cracks. “Silas Rourke runs everything—the parties, the girls, the clients, the drugs.”

I know.

I’ve known for a while.

Silas Rourke has been catching my attention for months. He’s a man whose money buys silence, whose lawyers clean blood off the floor before it dries. A monster wearing a man’s skin, too powerful for the courts, too insulated for the cops.

Holloway’s bottom lip quivers. “I should’ve seen it. I should’ve stopped her.”

His jaw clenches, his voice ragged. “What kind of father—”

I don’t answer because I’m not here for that.

Her photo sits on the stack of cash, eyes wide, smile frozen. Forever eighteen. Gone before she ever had a chance to live.

Something twists beneath my ribs. Not sorrow. Not sympathy. Something far more fucked.

This isn’t about the money. Never has been.

I glance up at the mirror behind the bar, and our eyes lock. His, glassy and desperate, cling to mine as if I’m the last thing holding him upright.

“You’ll do it?” he asks, the words soft as a breath.

I tap the unlit cigarette once on the bar. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

“This won’t make anything right. I’m aware of that. But it might let me breathe without choking on her name.”

“Peace is for people who don’t want to remember. Revenge is for those who can’t forget.”

Behind us, laughter swells from a corner booth, a woman’s giggle rising above the low hum. Ice clinks, glasses meet, jazz drifts. And beyond these few feet of dark wood and blood-stained intention, the world keeps turning.

Holloway scrubs a trembling hand over his mouth and chin. “How will you do it?”

I turn just enough for him to meet my eyes—cold, unflinching. “I choose the method by the weight of what they’ve done.” My mouth tightens with a flicker of something darker underneath. “The worse the sin, the blacker the end.”

“As it should be.”

He reaches for the Scotch, fingers curling around the glass, but it doesn’t make it to his lips. Halfway there, he stops. The tremor in his hand gives him away. Then he sets it down, untouched, and stands.

His voice slips out, rough and low, almost a whisper. “Thank you.”

I lift the cigarette, turning it once between my fingers. “Go home. Remember your angel the way she was, and I’ll be in touch.”

He gives a tight, broken nod and walks away.

Tonight, a man across town is already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.

Monsters like Silas Rourke survive because no one looks too hard. Money buys silence. Power buys obedience. People convince themselves girls like Lila Holloway were reckless, stupid, asking for it. And the system folds every time. Favors. Lawyers. Threats. It keeps them insulated and untouchable.

Until they meet me.

I pull the bag into my lap, thumb brushing the edge of the photo. I don’t look at the cash. I don’t need to. I slide the photo out, letting my eyes fall on her face. She reminds me of someone I think about a little less these days. Not because she matters less, but because it hurts too much.

The old rage stirs under my skin—not the burning kind, not the kind that eats you alive. No, this is colder. Older. Black, not red.

The scars on my hands itch. The ones I see, the ones I don’t.

Justice isn’t real. Vengeance is. And men like Grant Holloway—broken, desperate, drowning in guilt—need men like me.

Silas Rourke believes he’s invincible inside his empire of blood and drugs and working girls.

He’s wrong.

I’m coming for his throat.