I turn in time to see Rowan drive a knife into the first dealer’s chest, between ribs, angled up toward the heart. Textbook. The dealer’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. No sound comes out. His hands flutter uselessly at the knife handle, then drop to his sides.
Silence fills the apartment, broken only by our breathing and the basketball game still playing on the TV.
Rowan retrieves his knife, wiping the blade on the dealer’s shirt before sheathing it. “Check the back rooms.”
The apartment yields nothing of value, just a bathroom with black mold creeping across the ceiling and a bedroom with a mattress on the floor surrounded by fast food wrappers and dirty clothes.
When I return to the living room, Orien has already begun cleaning. He moves with practiced efficiency, bagging evidence, wiping surfaces. The dealers lie still on the floor, their blood spreading in dark pools that soak into the cheap carpet.
My hands tremble as the adrenaline catches up with me. The violence burns away the noise in my head, and each breath comes easier than the last, oxygen filling my lungs for the first time all day.
This is better than cutting. Here, in this moment, I exist in perfect clarity, with no past haunting me, and no future threatening me.
Just now. Just this.
Rowan appears at my side. “We good?”
“We’re good.”
We leave as we came, silent shadows passing through a building where no one asks questions. When I pull off the balaclava, the night air cools my flushed skin.
Back at the SUV, Orien loads the cleaning supplies into the trunk while Luca sits behind the wheel, engine idling. My bat, balaclava, and gloves go into a bag to be burned.
Rowan catches my eye before I return to my motorcycle. “Meet back at the lounge.”
I tug on my helmet and climb onto themotorcycle. The engine roars to life beneath me, vibrating up through my body in a way that extends the high of violence.
As I follow the SUV out of the crappy neighborhood, my muscles uncoil.
For now, the monsters are satisfied.
Despite having worn gloves, I scrub my hands in the bathroom at the back of the Blue Note. It serves as our decontamination chamber after nights like this. It’s private and practical, with a biohazard bin tucked beneath the sink for disposal of evidence.
My reflection hovers at the edge of my vision in the mirror above the sink, but I keep my head down. What stares back from the glass isn’t someone I need to see right now.
I dry my hands, the rough fabric of the towel abrading skin still sensitive from the harsh soap. In the metal locker attached to one wall, I pull out a new pair of jeans, a black T-shirt, and a hoodie. Clean clothes for after jobs, maintained by Ghost, who understands the necessity of keeping separate wardrobes for separate lives.
I peel the shirt from my back, the fabric stickingwhere sweat and blood have mingled. It lands in a plastic bag to be burned later. The jeans follow. I pull on fresh clothes smelling of generic laundry detergent, covering the evidence of tonight’s work layer by layer.
I exit the bathroom, moving through the narrow hallway into the lounge of the Blue Note. A saxophone moans through hidden speakers, the notes bending with a sorrow appropriate for the hour.
At almost one in the morning, the club holds only its most dedicated patrons. A couple huddles in the corner booth, heads bent close together over amber glasses. A woman sits alone at a high-top, red nails tapping in time with the music. Two men play chess near the back.
Rowan stands at the bar, his back to the room, shoulders relaxed after completing the job. Luca, who didn’t get his hands dirty tonight, sits at a stool beside him.
Ghost moves behind the counter, his mismatched eyes flicking up to acknowledge our approach before returning to his task. A bottle appears in his hand without being requested, amber liquid flowing into a tumbler. He slides the drink across the polished wood to stop at Rowan’s fingertips.
I claim the open stool to Rowan’s left, leaving oneempty between us as always. The wood feels solid beneath me, the cushion worn by years of occupation.
“Clean?” Rowan asks, not looking at me.
“Clean.” My body still hums with energy, muscles loose but alert.
Ghost sets a glass of water in front of me without asking. He knows my rituals. After a job, I drink water, then coffee, then whiskey, always in the same order. Condensation pools beneath the glass, and I trace the ring with my index finger, drawing slow, widening circles.
Orien enters from the back hallway, moving with fluid grace, dangerous despite his slim build. He slides onto a stool farther down the bar and lifts two fingers at Ghost, who pours him a vodka neat.
As he lifts the glass to his lips, the front door swings open, admitting a gust of cool night air that carries a familiar, expensive cologne. I stiffen before my brain registers why, instinct recognizing the intruder before conscious thought catches up.
