I nod, rolling the cigarette between my fingers, looking down at the photo again. The girl’s eyes gleam up at me, alive on glossy paper, but gone in every way that counts.
“You’re sure this is what you want? Because after this is done, you don’t get to be the same man.”
His breath shudders. “The man I used to be died the day he murdered my little girl.”
The bartender returns and sets the Macallan in front of Holloway. “Want to start a tab?”
He pulls out his wallet, peels off a single bill, and drops it on the bar. “No tab. Just this. Keep the change.”
His hand grips the glass, fingers drumming a nervous rhythm against the cut crystal, but he doesn’t lift it. “She was my baby. Only eighteen years old.”
I don’t glance at him. Don’t need to. I know his pain.
“Her name was Lila. She was bright. God, that one was—” He cuts himself off, jaw tightening so hard his teeth click. “My girl had big dreams. She wanted to be an actress.”
I hear the gulp in his throat when he swallows. See the way his fingers clench into fists, then stretch out again, white-knuckled and shaking.
No tears. No begging. No pleas for me to tell him it’s going to be all right.
Good.
He doesn’t cry, and I’m grateful for that. I’ve never known what to do with men who break apart at the seams. I prefer grief that’s shaped into purpose.
“And then she got mixed up withhim.” Holloway’s voice cracks at the edges. “Silas Rourke told her he could help her break into acting. Commercials, maybe film if she got lucky.”
He swallows hard. “She was elated, but it was all bullshit. He got her hooked on heroin and turned her into a prostitute. Kept her high so she couldn’t say no. To him, she was nothing more than a body he could sell.”
His voice drops to a whisper. “She overdosed on the shit he put in her veins. My daughter died alone in some sleazy motel room… with a sixty-year-old john on top of her.”
He swallows hard. “That’s the last thing she felt—his weight, not her father’s arms. Not love. Not safety.Him.”
I feel his rage—bitter, suffocating, a fire too heavy to carry. It’s why they all come to me.
He’s asking for the last thing he can do for his child.
Holloway’s voice cracks. “Silas Rourke runs everything—the parties, the girls, the clients, the drugs.”
I know.
I’ve known for a while.
Silas Rourke has been catching my attention for months. He’s a man whose money buys silence, whose lawyers clean blood off the floor before it dries. A monster wearing a man’s skin, too powerful for the courts, too insulated for the cops.
Holloway’s bottom lip quivers. “I should’ve seen it. I should’ve stopped her.”
His jaw clenches, his voice ragged. “What kind of father?—”
I don’t answer because I’m not here for that.
Her photo sits on the stack of cash, eyes wide, smile frozen. Forever eighteen. Gone before she ever had a chance to live.
Something twists beneath my ribs. Not sorrow. Not sympathy. Something far more fucked.
This isn’t about the money. Never has been.
I glance up at the mirror behind the bar, and our eyes lock. His, glassy and desperate, cling to mine as if I’m the last thing holding him upright.
“You’ll do it?” he asks, the words soft as a breath.
