I remember.
The docks used to be the place I ran the numbers on—shell companies shipping cargo that wasn’t cargo, paperwork sliding through my hands until guns looked like produce and bodies like exports. I swore I’d never step foot there again.
But ten minutes later, I’m there.
The air stinks of brine and diesel, the black water slapping against the pylons like it’s chewing bone. Floodlights cut the dark into sterile slices, and standing in the middle of it all—Rafe.
He doesn’t bother with greetings. He just points to the table under the light. Stacks of papers. A sleek laptop. A black pen lay neatly across the top like a weapon.
“Sit,” he orders.
My jaw locks. “I told you?—”
“Sit, Dean.” His tone hardens, and two men step from the shadows behind him, both carrying the hardware that makes arguing stupid.
So I sit.
The paper smells of fresh ink, still warm from the printer. I skim the headers, bile rising when I see what they are. Realestate transfers. Corporate registrations. On the surface, clean. But I know the names—ghost companies, every one of them.
“Sign them,” Rafe says, lighting a cigarette. The glow cuts across his face, carving him into something inhuman. “File them in the system. Route the assets through the new accounts. Make it look like the whole city just decided to fall in love with me overnight.”
“And if I don’t?” My voice is quiet, but it trembles at the edge of rage.
He exhales a stream of smoke, slow and deliberate, before flicking the ash onto the table between us. “Then I send my men to that little apartment you think is invisible. The one across the hall.” He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t need to. His smile is pure blade. “She screams, Dean—I promise you that. And she screams loud.”
The pen is in my hand before I even know I’ve picked it up. My knuckles ache from the grip.
He watches me work, calm, detached, as if he’s just overseeing a routine. And maybe he is. For him, this isn’t personal—it’s business. But for me, every stroke of the pen feels like blood on my hands all over again.
The numbers blur as I type them in.
The signatures crawl like worms across the page.
Every keystroke is a chain snapping closed around my neck.
By the time I’m done, the files are sent, the papers signed, and the laptop closed with a soft click that sounds too final.
Rafe leans back, satisfied, blowing another slow drag of smoke into the night. “See? I knew you still had it in you.”
I want to break his jaw. Instead, I sit still, staring at the table, the rage burning so hot it feels cold.
He leans closer, his voice almost intimate now. “Get used to it. This is just the first taste. Tomorrow, I’ll have another job foryou. And the day after that. Until you remember that you were never clean, Dean. You were just hiding.”
He leaves me there with the papers, the smoke, and the stench of my own betrayal.
And when the docks finally empty and I’m left alone, I realise what he’s done.
He’s put me back in the game.
And this time, if I falter, he’ll take her as the prize.
The night doesn’t end when Rafe walks away.
It lingers, heavy and wet, like the stink of diesel seeping into my skin.
I stay on the docks long after his taillights vanish, staring at the water, daring myself to throw the signed contracts into the sea and follow them down. But I don’t. Because if I go under, she goes with me.
That’s how he set it up. A tether, a leash. My name is on every file, my fingerprints all over every keystroke. He doesn’t even need to touch her yet—not when he can keep me obedient with the promise that he could.
