Cast moves first, striking Justin’s wrist, driving him into the post. Another shot tears the ceiling. Dust falls. The chain of the lamp rattles once and stills.
“Down,” Vincent says, dragging me behind the easel. “Stay.”
Cast and Justin crash into the table. The duffel slides. Cash bursts open. Cast twists Justin’s wrist. Justin snarls, clawing at his face. Cast slams him into the post again. Air leaves Justin in a groan.
“Let it go.” Cast says.
Justin drives a knee into his thigh. Cast tightens his grip. The gun drops, clattering under the table.
Justin snatches a box cutter, flicks it open, and slashes. The blade grazes Cast’s side. Cast grunts, grabs his belt, and throws him down. The cutter spins into the drain.
“Vincent,” Cast says, eyes still on Justin. “Find her.”
“I have her,” Vincent answers from the shadows.
Justin rolls, scrabbling through scattered bills and melted snow. He dives under the table and grabs the gun. Cast reaches, misses by inches, and takes a punch to the jaw. He recovers fast—but too late.
Justin rises to one knee, muzzle aimed at Vincent.
Vincent raises his hands, steady, and steps in front of me. “Stop.”
Justin breathes hard. “You finally show your face when it’s about you.” Spit runs at the corner of his mouth. “Not when men lose everything. Only when the camera points at home.”
“It’s not how you think,” Vincent says.
“It’s exactly what I think.” Justin steadies the gun with both hands. “My father took orders for eighteen years. He got a slip and a handshake. He coughed himself to death in a rented room. Your company sent a letter. I burned it. I kept the envelope to remember your name.”
“I’m sorry about your father,” Vincent says. “But this won’t fix it.”
“You don’t get to say sorry,” Justin says. “You don’t get to keep breathing. You turned her work into something you could hang above a bar cart and call it taste.”
Cast circles left, weight on the balls of his feet, trying to cut the angle. Justin shifts with him, keeping the muzzle on Vincent. He flicks a glance at me, then back to Vincent.
“I told you I’d clean you out of her,” he says. “I will.”
I push the easel with my shoulder. It groans across the floor and throws a slice of canvas into Justin’s line of sight. He flinches and fires. The bullet tears through the edge of the painting and buries in the wall.
Cast crashes in. He clamps Justin’s wrist with both hands and leans in with his whole body. Bones grind. Justin screams through his teeth. The gun wobbles inches from Vincent’s chest.
Vincent draws. The motion is clean and close to his body. He fires once.
The sound cracks the room wide open. Justin’s body jerks. The gun falls. He sits back like the strength runs out of his frame and slides to the floor. His eyes look at the ceiling, then at nothing.
Silence floods in. A powder haze hangs low. The smell changes—burned metal, old paint, wet concrete.
Cast keeps his hands on Justin’s wrist for three beats, four, before he lets go. He kicks the gun under the table with the side of his boot. He crouches, puts two fingers under Justin’s jaw, waits. He stands, presses his palm against his side where the blade got him, breath steady.
Vincent lowers his pistol, sets the safety, and puts it on the workbench. His hands shake once. He stops them on the edge of the table. He looks at me.
I try to stand. My knee buckles. He crosses the space and catches me under the arms. The fabric of his coat is damp and cold. His chest is warm through his shirt.
“I’ve got you,” he says. His voice is rough.
Cast tears a clean rag from a nail, tosses it to Vincent, and pulls another for his side. Vincent wraps my bleeding wrist tight. Pressure steadies the sting.
“Hold this,” he says.
I hold. Blood seeps into the cloth and slows.
