“You can handle it.” I bend to study the dead man. Nondescript features, close-cropped hair, muscular build. Could have been anyone, worked for anyone.
Anyone who had put in a request for me.
I think back to what Micah had said. My name wasn’t on the list with the other Rockford mates. It had been a separate bounty. Because I was new tobeing attached to the Rockfords? Or because this request came from someone else?
I help Orien move the body to the trunk of his sedan and leave him to handle the rest, trusting him to erase all evidence this man ever existed.
As I walk to my motorcycle, I wipe blood from my hands onto my dark jeans. The engine roars to life, drowning out the pounding of my heart. I need answers, and I need them now.
But first, I need walls around me. Somewhere I can catch my breath without anyone else there to see me crash.
The stairwell to my apartment echoes with each footfall as I climb. Blood dries sticky between my fingers despite wiping them clean twice, a phantom sensation that won’t fade.
When I round the final landing, my keys already in hand, I freeze. Gabriel paces the narrow hallway outside my door, his shoulders rigid with tension I can see even from here.
He spins at the sound of my approach, relief washing over him before his eyes widen, fixating on my hands.
“Are you hurt?” He rushes forward, reaching toward me but stopping short of contact.
I can’t answer as the dead man’s final words keep spiraling through my mind.
Request for you.
Ithasto be linked to the threat against the Rockfords. Because if it’s not?—
“Saint?”
Gabriel still hovers in front of me, his presence registering as another threat my brain can’t process when I’m already unraveling at the seams.
“Move.” I push past him to my door.
My hands shake as I fumble with the lock. The key scratches over the knob before finding purchase. Gabriel remains close behind me, his breath warm on the back of my neck, sending unwelcome shivers down my spine.
As I step into the apartment, my foot slides on a plain white envelope, unremarkable except for its placement inside my door, where no mail carrier would leave it.
My body goes cold, fingers stiff as I bend to pick it up. No name, no stamp, no markings of any kind. Someone placed this here while I was gone.
The paper tears under my fingers, the sound loud in the quiet apartment. I pull out a singlephotograph, and the ground drops out from under me.
A boy stares back at me with vacant eyes. Sixteen years old, skin stretched too tight across jutting cheekbones, purple shadows staining the hollow beneath one eye. Dark hair buzzed close to the scalp, revealing a half-healed cut near the temple. My six-digit detention number stands out in stark black ink at the bottom.
The photo trembles in my hand, and my throat locks, breath catching hard enough that spots bloom at the edges of my vision. This isn’t a public record. No one should have access to this. Juvenile files are sealed, buried under layers of bureaucracy meant to protect the kids the system already chewed up and spat out.
I flip the photo over, and five words stare back at me, written in thick black marker.
I’ve missed you, Sammy boy.
The room drops away.
My knees weaken, pulse slamming so hard it hurts, and goose bumps rise all over my body as if his shadow just passed over me again.
He found me.
Not someone with access to records. Not someone who did research.
Someone who was there.
Someone who knew what happened after the doors locked and the cameras stopped recording. Someone who leaned close and whispered into my ear while holding my face to cold concrete.
