“I’ll come by the studio,” I say. “Mid-morning.”
He hesitates.
“Bring Ben.”
“What?”
“I want to talk tobothof you.”
My stomach knots. “Why?”
“You’ll see.”
The line clicks off before I can ask anything else.
I walk backinto the living room. Jav’s still at the table, head bowed like the stim’s whispering secrets to him.
I don’t say anything.
I just look at him.
He looks up. Eyes tired.
“Everything okay?”
I nod.
Another lie.
But we’re neck-deep in those tonight, aren’t we?
He doesn’t push.
He just watches me walk away.
And I don’t stop him.
CHAPTER 28
JAV
The thing about power is—it doesn’t vanish when you walk away.
It lingers. Like gun oil on your hands. Like smoke in your hair. Like the kind of music you can’t unhear, no matter how many children’s songs you hum to drown it out.
I’m in the old Redscale quarter, standing in the backroom of a noodle joint that hasn’t seen a real health inspection since the first Galactic Treaty. The air’s heavy with spice, grease, and secrets.
My armor’s still stashed under my coat, ribs aching from the last mission. I’m pretending it doesn’t hurt.
Around the table sit four men and one woman—all old contacts, all Redscale to the bone. They’re watching me like I’m a ghost that doesn’t know it’s dead yet.
“You’re losing your edge,” says Kesh, the eldest. He’s got scales that look burnished in the low light and a voice like gravel. “You let the Nine take your accountant and you send aquietteam to fetch him? No message? No retaliation? You used to understand leverage, boy.”
Boy.
That used to sting.
Now it just makes me tired.
