I’d lived this scene before—different cast, same script. You spot the threat, you scan for exits, you start weighing what it’ll cost to run. But I wasn’t the same kid anymore. I was a McKenzie now. I was married, for fuck’s sake. There was supposed to be a forcefield that came with that.
But the world didn’t give a shit.
The two men stopped just behind me. I felt the air shift, the way it does before a punch lands.
“Hey, Levi,” said one. “You got the time?”
I turned, slow, already forcing my face into that blank, nothing-to-see-here smile. “Almost one-thirty. You lost?”
The guy grinned, showing a row of bad teeth. The other one edged around, blocking the path back to the market. My heart thumped hard, the tattoo on my wrist pulsing in time.
“Nah,” the first man said. “We’re exactly where we need to be.”
He reached for my arm.
I jerked away, but not fast enough—his fingers closed around my wrist, the grip tight enough to bruise. I tried to twist, butthe other guy caught my shoulder, shoving me up against the bed of the truck. The edge dug into my ribs, hard enough to pop something.
“Come on, man,” I hissed. “We don’t have to—”
They ignored me. The first man twisted my arm behind my back, wrenching it up high. I gasped, the pain sharp and immediate. The second man patted me down, searching for a phone. He found it, yanked it from my pocket, and tossed it into the weeds.
“Just take the money,” I said, hoping to God they’d listen. “It’s in the pouch. I don’t care. Just take it—”
The man holding me leaned in, his breath hot and sour. “We’re not here for the cash.”
Then I saw the third man.
He stepped out from behind the half-collapsed shed at the end of the lot. He wore a suit, like someone playing dress-up at a funeral, and sunglasses too dark for the weak sun. He moved slow, hands in his pockets, like he had all the time in the world.
I knew him. I knew the set of his jaw, the weird precision of his walk. I’d seen him once before, standing behind Gloria at the diner, a ghost of a threat who’d left before Knox could clock him.
He stopped a few feet away and took off his sunglasses.
“Hello, Levi,” he said.
My mouth went dry. I knew this voice, too—calm, cold, never angry because it never needed to be. It was the kind of voice that didn’t care about getting caught.
“You got the wrong guy,” I managed, trying to shift my weight, but the men holding me only pressed harder.
“No,” said the man in the suit. “We’ve got exactly the right one.”
He took a step closer. I could see the pores on his nose, the way his lips peeled back over perfect teeth. “You know why you’re here?”
I shook my head, even though the answer pulsed behind my eyes.
He shrugged, then glanced at the men holding me. “Bring him.”
They marched me away from the truck, across the gravel, toward the thin strip of woods that bordered the lot. I tried to dig my heels in, but one of them rabbit-punched me in the kidney, dropping me to my knees. Gravel bit through the denim, shredding my skin.
“Please,” I said. It came out hoarse, pathetic. “Don’t—”
“Shut up,” the second man said, hauling me back to my feet.
They dragged me into the shade, past a line of dumpsters, out of sight from the market. The man in the suit followed, not even watching his step. I stumbled, desperate, but couldn’t shake free. My mind spun through every possible way out, every trick I’d ever used, but these men knew the game. They knew it better than I did.
At the end of the alley, they threw me up against a mossy brick wall. The world tunnelled down: me, the men, the distant echo of the market, now useless as a lifeline.
The suit man knelt in front of me, eye to eye. “Gloria says hi,” he said.
