Another shot, another body down.
The third man, the one with the birthmark, moves fast. He lunges for my father, hauling him back and dragging the blade across his throat in one brutal, practiced motion. It happens in an instant before I can take him down.
“No,” I yell. The word rips out of me uselessly.
My father’s body jerks once, a hard, reflexive movement, then goes slack in the chair.
I fire again.
The man with the birthmark must have known going for the kill would be his last act as a living man.
The bullet takes him low, tearing into his leg and dropping him with a scream that echoes off the walls. He claws at the concrete, dragging himself away, leaving a dark smear behind him, frantic and desperate.
I don’t slow down. I crash through the window, glassbiting into my knuckles as I hit the floor inside. The smell of blood, sweat, and gun powder slams into me all at once.
Two steps. That’s all it takes.
I plant my boot between his shoulder blades and put him face down on the dirty concrete. He wheezes, ribs giving under the pressure.
“Who sent you?” My voice is low, stripped bare of anything human.
He sobs, pain and terror tangling together. “Boudreaux,” he chokes. “Laurent Boudreaux.”
The name lands hard, louder than the gun ever could. I lift my foot off his back, and he turns slightly to look at me. I don’t give him time to say anything else. I fire once, ending it before the moment can stretch into something worse.
The sound is deafening in the enclosed space. The sharp crack ricochets off the concrete and steel before collapsing into itself. Then there’s nothing. No movement, no screaming. Just the hollow rush of silence flooding back in as I try to decide how to respond from here.
My attention drags back to the chair. Back to my father.
His head is tipped back now, the position all wrong for a man larger than life. One eye is completely swollen shut, the other half-lidded and unseeing.
Blood coats him, running freely down his neck and chest before dripping onto the concrete beneath him. It pools there, spreading outward in a slow, deliberate bloom, as if the floor itself is trying to claim what’s left of him.
I step closer. My legs are disconnected, unsteady in a way I’ve never known, as though my entire being hasn’t caught up to what my eyes just witnessed.
Each step is measured and careful, not because I’mafraid of what I’ll see, but because some part of me is still trying to negotiate with reality.
He doesn’t move.
I know before I reach him that the stillness is absolute and final. There’s nothing I can do to help him.
My chest locks, and my breath stalls. For a moment, I can’t draw in enough air, can’t make my lungs work the way they’re supposed to.
He’s gone.
And it isn’t just my father slumped in that chair, broken and bleeding in front of me. It’s Robert Stone. The man who built Stone Intermodal with his own hands and his own rules. The man who taught me how to read a room, how to survive in a world that doesn’t forgive weakness, and how to stand still under pressure and wait for the right moment to strike.
He was untouchable my entire life.
Now he’s gone, and the weight of that settles in my bones in a way that doesn’t seem real.
I crouch beside him. For a moment, my hand hovers, suspended in the air, and then I set it on his shoulder anyway.
The blood is already cooling beneath my palm, tacky against my skin. There’s no tension there. No resistance. Just dead weight.
I swallow hard and shift closer, easing his head forward so it’s no longer wrenched back. It seems like the least I can do.
Memories crowd in all at once. His voice is sharp and demanding. The weight of his expectations, the rare moments of approval that meant more than praise ever could, because they were earned. All of it burns through me in a flash as I realize I’ll never breathe the same air as him again.
