My eyes aren’t tracking the movement on the screen. They drift, unfocused, pulled somewhere else. Every time I try to lock on a fighter’s stance, I see Katana in my head instead. The way she looked at me the last time I was close enough to touch her. The way she shoved me out like I ripped the floor out from under her.
I rake a hand down my face and lean back on the couch. Empty beer bottles line the table. The ashtray is a graveyard. My whole place reeks of smoke and bad nights, but I light another cigarette anyway. I don’t need it, but I light it. The smoke hitshard, scorching the back of my throat, then I take another drag. The smoke curls up to the ceiling where the paint is cracked.
I should’ve kept my mouth shut. But lies get people killed. I’ve shoveled enough dirt to know the weight of that truth.
The fight on the screen ends with my guy down, the ref calling it, and the other man lifting his gloves in victory. I don’t even remember watching the last round. Not that it matters. None of it does.
“Power’s a disease, fratello.”
The voice is soft. Steady. My spine locks. I don’t have to look to know it’s coming from the corner of the room where the shadows are the thickest.
Marc sits there the way he always does when I’m too tired to hold the ghosts back. Elbows on his knees, one sneaker turned out like he never could sit straight. Hair falling in his eyes. His mouth cocked like it’s holding back a joke he probably shouldn’t tell.
I cast a glance from the corner of my eye. If I look straight at him, he fades faster, and tonight I need him even more than usual.
“I know what power does.”
“Do you?” He tilts his chin toward the screen. “You can’t build an empire and not get eaten by it. Look at them. One by one, men turn to monsters when power gets its claws in.”
My chest tightens. He’s not wrong. Serrano. Vale. Every name that’s ever carried weight in this game. Even me.
“I’m not them,” I mutter, but the words feel brittle.
Marc’s ghost leans back, folding his arms. “Not yet. But you’ve got to decide. You keep building walls, you’ll rot inside them.”
I crush ash into the tray, watch the ember smear into gray. “I’m not going to turn into Serrano.”
“Good,” Marc says lightly. “You let someone in, maybe you’ve got a shot.”
I drag my hands down my face, anger and exhaustion grinding together. “You think it’s that easy? To let her in?”
Marc doesn’t move. “It’s the only thing that keeps the disease from taking over. Love, fratello. That’s the cure.”
The word hits like a body blow. Love. I’ve bled for men who never gave a damn, buried brothers who sold themselves to power. But Katana? She’s everything sharp, everything dangerous, and she’s real. When I let myself picture a world with her in it, it feels like something better than I ever thought I could have.
I push up off the couch, pacing, restless energy crawling under my skin. My laptop gives off a dull glow from the counter where I left it open hours ago, papers spread everywhere. My notes are a mess of addresses, half-legible names, dates, shell corps, a red-eyed snake drawn in the margin before I even knew my hand was doing it. Everything I’ve been digging up on Isadora Vale.
I tap the trackpad. The screen winks awake to a file I shouldn’t have but do, thanks to Sable. She was reluctant to let me in on anything more than she already had, but after a final warning to stay out of her way, it found its way into my inbox.
It only proves Vale’s roots run deep.
Vale’s face stares out from a gala photo, all bone-white smile and black dress, a hand on a mayor’s arm. On paper, Isadora Vale’s a philanthropist, the kind that cuts ribbons and shakes hands with the elite. Vale Logistics owns half of everything from New York City to Philadelphia. Underneath, the money moves like a tide that never stops. Clinics, shelters, churches. They look clean, but sooner or later I’ll connect the dots.
“You think that file will save you?” Marc asks. He’s at the window now, a shape cut out of the dark. Streetlight slipsthrough his chest like he’s smoke. “You think solving this will keep your soul clean?”
My jaw locks. “I think I have to do something.”
He smiles, smaller this time. “I hope you do.” His voice softens, the way it did the night he talked me out of a knife fight I would’ve lost. “But you have to let yourself live again too. Let yourself open up to love.”
There it is. He throws it at my feet every time. The thing I keep kicking away.
Katana’s face floats to the forefront of my mind. The way she looked at me, stunned I knew her real name, Maya. I love how it sounds on my tongue. The way her breath broke when I touched her. The way she kissed me like we were burning time we didn’t own.
I grip the counter until the laminate wants to shatter. “It isn’t simple.”
“It never is.” Marc’s grin goes lopsided. “Doesn’t mean you don’t have to choose.”
I rub my temples, staring down at the scattered notes, the scribbled connections that still don’t make sense. If Katana knew how close the fire was licking at her door, she’d never forgive me for keeping her in the dark. I had to tell her, even if it cost me everything.
