“Fire Chief Matthews.”He motioned toward the wreckage.“Call came in around three fifteen.Back section burned through before our trucks arrived.Crews kept flames from reaching the front.Main bar stands, though smoke and water damage run through the whole structure.”
“How did the fire start?”
A tightness formed around his jaw.“Too early for an official conclusion.Teams found multiple origin points and heavy accelerant patterns in the office area.No accident.”
Arson.Nobody needed to say the word.
Mercer’s shadow loomed over everything.
My fists tightened until nails cut skin.A direct strike against us.A message sent through destruction.He had escalated from threats to full assault and knew no consequences would follow.
“Anyone hurt?”I forced the question out.
“No.Building stood empty.Fortunate timing.”Matthews watched me the way a man watches someone who already knows who did it.“Enemies in your life?A rival?Someone who wanted this place gone?”
Mercer’s face flashed through memory.His threat on this same ground.His power.His rage.His willingness to burn down a life to prove control.
“Yeah,” I answered.“Enemies exist.”
Matthews nodded once.“Investigators will return in the morning.Police involvement starts then.Full cooperation recommended.”
My mouth tasted like ash.“Sure.”
The fire chief walked away to direct his team.Marci and I remained near the destruction.The blaze dropped to smoldering ruin.Smoke leaked from every corner of the back structure.The desk where I handled paperwork no longer existed.The small window I stared through during phone calls had become a hollow rectangle in a half-collapsed wall.
“This happened because of me,” Marci whispered.
I turned toward her.Pain carved a map across her face.“This happened because Mercer chose violence.His decision.Not yours.”
“He wanted to break you through me.”Her voice cracked.“Your bar.Your business.Every piece of your life.He destroyed everything you built because you protected me.”
“I would make the same choice again without hesitation.”
I reached for her.She stepped away, arms locked around her body, shutting down and shutting me out.
Words rose and died in my throat.Logic couldn’t stand against burned walls and rising smoke.Every argument faded under the weight of destruction right in front of us.
Two hours crawled past while crews soaked hotspots and pulled apart beams.Dawn claimed the sky in pale gray and pink.The front of the bar stood.The rear did not.The devastation stretched from one wall to the other.
Water dripped from half-melted rafters.Smoke settled into my clothes and hair.Every breath carried the bitterness of loss.
Power abused from behind a badge looked like this.A man protected from punishment torched someone else’s life and walked away untouched.
Marci stared at the ruin, silent and shaking.She withdrew farther into herself every minute.Calculations and fear built layer after layer behind her eyes.
She had already started planning her exit.
And I couldn’t find a single promise strong enough to stop her while my bar lay dead in front of us.
* * *
Marci
I watched Ace speak to the fire investigator from twenty feet away, his body held rigid by barely contained rage.Guilt settled over my shoulders like a physical weight.The fire came from James.Not my hands, not my match, yet every step leading here pointed straight back to me.Ace protected me.Ace stood between me and the man who claimed ownership over my entire life.James chose burning down Ace’s bar as punishment.
This marked the largest hit.Nothing about James ever stopped at property damage.His pattern always followed the same path.Pressure.Intimidation.Destruction.Then violence against anyone who cared about me.Violence against anyone I cared about.
A single thought squeezed my chest until breathing hurt.Ace would get hurt next.
