This stretch of Cleveland always feels like a throat clearing. Like the city spits you out before the outskirts swallow you. I’ve done this drive a hundred times, but tonight my nerves have teeth.
My prosthetic aches under the skin, phantom pain crawling behind the socket like memory wants out. The ache isn’t physical. Not really.
It’s the kind that settles in the bone when your body remembers something your mind keeps trying to bury. Every blast site does this to me—turns the phantom pain into a living thing, tugging, pulsing, reminding.
I hate that it still has the power to move me. I hate that the past still reaches forward like it owns a piece of me.
“Fuck!” I roar, letting it all out. My rage. My fear. My fucking… whatever the third thing I’m feeling is.
When my phone keeps buzzing in the cupholder, I want to hurl it the fuck out of the window. It’s Vito’s name flashing each time. I already know he wants my ETA.
My blood runs hot as I recall the text he sent me. A small blast at the building at Ironvale Depot. What the fuck constitutes a small blast? Every time someone uses the word small about explosives, they’re lying. Either to themselves or to me.
The outline of Ironvale Depot rises ahead—a stretch of dead warehouses strangled by weeds and silence. Only one working light cuts through the fog, pulsing red like a warning.
As I get closer, I see one of my trucks sitting crooked across the access road, hazard lights blinking like a heartbeat. Vito’s silhouette waits in the glare, hands in his pockets, posture too still.
Vito never stands still unless something’s wrong. The man vibrates like a live wire on any normal day, pacing, muttering, doing twelve things at once. Seeing him like this—rooted, rigid, waiting—hits harder than the text message did.
Men like him only freeze when the situation is bad enough to make movement pointless.
Gravel pops under my tires when I finally roll to a stop. I kill the engine and step outside. The air has a faint scorched bite, the kind that lingers after a fire’s been put out. Not choking, just enough to hit the back of my throat.
Vito moves to meet me as I’m halfway to the entrance. His shirt is half-unbuttoned, ash caught in the fine lines around his eyes. “It was just a small charge,” he says. “We’ve already put the fire out.”
“Show me,” I demand.
The doorway groans when I push past it. The metal is warped, bent like something had pressed against it with deliberate force. Precision. Intent. Whoever did this didn’t want a collapse. They wanted symbolism. That alone makes my jaw clench so hard the muscles crack.
Inside, my men move quietly, sweeping up loose plaster and charred wiring. They won’t meet my eye. Not because they fear me—they’ve seen worse from me—but because they know what blast sites do to my head. I hate that they know it.
The concrete around the blast is damp from where they hit it with extinguishers, a small wet halo marking the spot.
As I move closer, I see the fucking cursed circle. Waist-high, burned deep into the wall. Black as ink and perfectlysymmetrical. Not sprayed. Not drawn.Burned.Like the one from last year. The one that cost me good men and one eye.
I remember the sound more than the pain—the split-second scream of metal, the pressure wave turning the world white, the sensation of my face snapping sideways like it wasn’t mine. I remember the silence afterward.
Whoever left this symbol knows exactly what string they’re plucking in me.
The second thing I feel is the old pain behind my eye. Scar tissue tightens until it throbs with its own pulse as my mind takes me back to the explosion last year.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
Raven’s face flickers through my mind—too clear, too uninvited. I don’t want her anywhere near this shit. Not even when she’s just in my head.
“This wasn’t random,” Vito says quietly. “The charge was placed inside the junction box. Someone knew exactly where to hit without taking out the whole bay.”
I crouch, extend a gloved hand, stop just short of touching the ring. The air above it is still warm. “Are there any casualties?”
“One guard burned his arm. That’s it.”
“Then it’s a message.” My voice barely carries, but Vito hears it. I hate messages. They’re just threats dressed up as mystery.
Messages always mean the same thing; somebody wants a reaction. They want me rattled, diverted, off-balance. They want me to chase shadows instead of the truth. It worked last time. It sure as fuck won’t work now.
Vito nods once. “You think it’s connected to last year?”
“I think…” I begin to say, but then I stop myself and drag my fingers through the air just above the scorch line. “I think someone wants me to remember.” As if I could ever forget.
