When Isaiah walks out later, shirt rumpled, Aria’s lipstick smudged across his throat like a mark of ownership, he doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t have to. I just nod, with quiet approval. “She’s got fire.”
“She always did,” he mutters.
And beneath the ash of this broken empire, I feel something dangerous flicker back to life.
Hope.
The next week, I’m back in the chair, stitched and aching, watching the coastlines of this empire shift beneath me. Not literally, but damn if it doesn’t feel that way
We’ve got pressure from every side. Cartels testing borders, cops sniffing too close, bodies to bury, and business runningthinner than the skin on my shoulder. The room smells like sweat, smoke, and bleach. Blood never really scrubs out, no matter how hard you try.
That’s when Isaiah walks in with two kids. "Got someone you should meet," he says.
I grunt. "Thought I told you I was off the clock."
"You’re never off," he says, and he’s right. The kid’s been watching too long.
The first one steps in, tall and stone-faced. Knuckles scraped raw. Hoodie two sizes too small. Eyes scanning everything like he's memorizing the exits.
“This is Erik Morrison,” Isaiah tells me. “Goes by Crusher.”
"That so?" I ask, eyes narrowing. "You look like you've been crushed more than you crushed anything."
He doesn’t flinch. Just shrugs. "Still standing."
I like him already.
Isaiah crosses his arms. “He’s been volunteering at the shelter. A few days ago, cartel clowns did a drive-by. Erik got three kids behind cover, took a bullet to the shoulder, and still walked the youngest home.”
I stare at the kid. “No fear?”
“Didn’t think,” Erik mutters. “Just moved.”
I nod slowly. That’s the difference between dead men and survivors. Instinct.
He walks over to the rec room corner, sees one of the old chairs broken at the leg. Without a word, he kneels and starts fixing it with the quiet focus of a bomb tech.
Isaiah leans in, voice low. “I think he’s one of us. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
I don’t argue. Just make a mental note to keep Crusher close. He’s the kind you want beside you when bullets start singing.
Then the other one walks in.
Aiden Reed.
All elbows and fury in a threadbare jacket. He doesn’t talk. He dissects the room with his cold, calculating eyes. That kind of intensity doesn’t come from nowhere.
He sits in the corner at the community meeting we have later that night to talk to the citizens we swore to protect. Aiden doesn’t speak once. Just listens, jots notes in this ratty little journal like he’s building a case file.
Afterward, I corner Isaiah. “What’s his story?”
“Older brother was murdered. DA covered it up, blamed gang bullshit. Aiden’s been digging. Got names, court records, timestamps.”
I frown. “You sure he’s not a narc?”
“He’s too angry,” Isaiah says. “And too smart. That kind of grief’s a blade. Either he turns it inward… or we teach him how to aim it.”
