“What do you want?”
“A ‘hello’ would be nice,” he shot back. “But listen, I need your help.”
“You’ve got another lawyer,” I said flatly. “Use him.”
We’d been down this road too many times. Last month he’d dragged me into his mess with the Outfit—again. I’d never liked working for them, not even from a distance, but Remy had a way of turning every one of his problems into mine, and every single time, I said it’d be the last.
“You said that last time. I just cleaned up your mess in New York. I’m not eager to clean up another.”
“I know, Marco,” he said quickly, scrambling for his words. “But it’s different now. It’s important.”
With Remy, it was alwaysdifferent. It was always important. And it always ended the same way: me caught in the middle, left stitching things up before they fell apart completely. With the Callahans, the Romanos, and even the Clarkes.
“I can’t keep doing this, Remy,” I told him bluntly. “I’m done getting dragged into your problems with these people.”
He hesitated. “Please. I’m not asking because I want to. I’m asking because it’s you, Marco. It has to be you.”
“Where are you?” I finally asked, already hating myself for giving in.
“New York.”
Of course. It had to be New York. The one city I swore I wouldn’t set foot in again, especially after last month’s disaster. I hated the city. It wasn’t just the endless noise or the crush of bodies or how the city never seemed to sleep. It was the reflections—my own. They were everywhere. In windows, puddles, subway cars. No matter where I turned, I saw warped glimpses of a version of myself I couldn’t stand to face.
“Can you be here?” he asked carefully.
“Yeah,” I said despite myself. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
I wasn’t happy about it, but I never knew when to say no to Remy.
It had been that way since we were kids. Two boys crammed into a small room in a foster home that smelled like mildew and bad decisions. Remy had been smaller than me back then, with his wiry limbs and thick glasses. He still had a quick mouth that got him in trouble as often as it got him out of it.
We weren’t brothers—not really—but the title felt close enough when we’d spent years surviving the same house, dodging the same fists, and stealing the same stale bread from the kitchen after the others had gone to bed.
Remy had this way of making me feel like I belonged, like the world wasn’t so dark when he was around. He could talk his way through anything—even my walls.
And he got lucky.
I still remember the day the social worker came for him. She stood in the doorway of our room, clipboard in hand, talking about how some family had picked him out. A real family. One with money and soft beds and parents who weren’t in it for the checks. Remy had looked at me, his face caught somewhere between excitement and guilt, and for the first time since I’d known him, he didn’t have anything to say.
I told him I didn’t care. Told him to take the chance and run with it. But the truth was, it felt like he was leaving me behind.
Everyone always left me behind—I just didn’t think he would too. When he did, something in me cracked. I stopped talking as much. Stopped caring about whether I belonged anywhere.
By the time we saw each other again, years had passed. He’d been adopted into a family of lawyers, the kind of people who wore pressed suits and smiled with their teeth. He looked different, cleaner, but he still talked like the kid I’d known, full of fast words and faster excuses. We stayed in touch after that, but it was never the same.
I didn’t get rehomed. No one came for me. I aged out of the system and joined the military.
That was the thing about the military—it didn’t care who you were before you put on the uniform. It didn’t care if you were broken. And I was good at it. Too good.
I didn’t just serve; I went all the way. Special operations. Hostage rescues. The kind of work that turned men into ghosts. There was a part of me that liked it—liked the silence, the way everything boiled down to a single objective. No emotions, no distractions, just do the job and move on.
But nothing lasts forever. I blew out my knee a few years in. Remy got me into law. It was different, and I hated every second of it. I returned to the field once I’d healed, determined not to be trapped behind a desk. Then came the shoulder injury. That one finally sidelined me. It landed me on desk duty, pushing papers and filling out reports, while the rest of my team moved on without me.
Remy was the only one who didn’t look at me like I’d been benched. He called not long after, telling me about some legal trouble with one of his clients. Said he needed someone who could “handle things quietly.” I had no reason to say no.
So I said yes. And when that job was done, there was another. And another.
I didn’t like being a lawyer, especially not in New York. The city felt like a punch to the ribs every time I set foot in it—loud, crowded, and full of memories I didn’t want.
