The pizza is cold. The lighting’s bad—yellow-tinged and flickering slightly, like the overhead strip lights are waging war with themselves—and the seat of this booth squeaks every time I breathe. The booth’s vinyl sticks to my back with every shift, peeling away like old regrets.
The decor hasn’t changed since before my trial. Same cracked holoscreen playing sports replays in silence above the bar. Same dingy carpet that clings to the scent of fried oil and old cigar smoke like a crime scene clings to blood. I chose this place for nostalgia’s sake. Mistake.
Garkin’s across from me, hunched over like the world’s already crushed his spine. He’s picking anchovies off his slice with the grim precision of a bomb tech defusing a charge.
“You ever think maybe the League’s sniffin’ around ‘cause you’re playin’ schoolteacher instead of boss?” he says without looking up, flicking a fish onto the plate with disdain.
I drag a claw across the table, slow and deliberate. “No. I think they’re sniffing because our border ports are finally making profit again, and someone doesn’t like it.”
He leans back, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “They’re calling you soft, Jav.”
I meet his eyes without flinching. “Am I?”
He shuts up. The silence answers.
Still, he’s not wrong. There’s been chatter. My name gets spoken in lower tones now, not from fear, but from curiosity. As if I’ve become some kind of myth—half mobster, half preschool idol.
The problem is, I’m both.
League activity’s on the rise. Probes near our lanes. Territory tags sprayed in alley shadows. Rumors of a new faction leader with teeth. I can feel it—the press of change, the slow coil of war winding up behind velvet curtains.
But I won’t play their game.
Not yet.
I pull a datapad from my coat and slide it across to Garkin.
He glances down. Then blinks. “What the hell is this?”
“A proposal,” I say.
He squints at the screen. “A school event?”
“Kindness Week,” I say, like it’s a magic spell.
Garkin looks like I just asked him to juggle plasma grenades. “Boss. You were just talkin’ League assassins and now you wanna—what? Paint hand-turkeys and braid noodles?”
I smirk. “Close. But it’s about optics. You know how people forget what youdoand remember how youmade them feel?”
“No.”
“Well, they do. I host the event, I get press. I get press, I get legitimacy. I look like a reformed citizen—who also happens to still have muscle. People remember that.”
He mutters something creative under his breath. “You’re using sticker charts and glitter pens to scare off rival syndicates.”
“Exactly.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind.”
I lean forward. “They want a reason to see me as weak. I’m giving them a puzzle instead. Let them try to figure out why aRedscale is organizing a charity book drive and a compassion mural.”
Garkin eyes me warily. “And you think this is gonna impress Kairo?”
I don’t answer right away.
Because it’s not just about her.
It’s about Ben.
