7
BURN NOTICE
CALLAHAN
My flat smelled like copper and rain when I dragged myself through the door in the small hours of the morning. Each breath made my ribs scream. My knuckles were split, blood dried in the creases of my fingers, the surveillance job having turned violent when my target noticed the tail. I'd taken hits I shouldn't have because I was too busy thinking about Dom to focus on the man trying to break my ribs.
I stripped methodically in the bathroom, peeling clothes away from bruises already blooming purple and black across my torso. My reflection in the mirror looked like someone else's problem — split lip, swelling under my left eye, the particular exhaustion that came from an adrenaline crash and the knowledge that I'd made mistakes I couldn't afford.
A first aid kit lived under the sink, well-stocked because this wasn't my first beating and wouldn't be my last. I cleaned my knuckles first, antiseptic burning in the cuts, each sting a reminder that distraction got you hurt in this line of work. Tape around my fingers to stabilise the swelling. An ice pack against my ribs, though I knew it wouldn't help much past the first hour.
I sat on the bathroom floor with my back against cool tile and let my mind do what it did best: replay everything with perfect clarity.
Dom. The alley. The way he'd crowded into my space with controlled violence radiating off him like heat, the way my hand had wrapped around his cock and felt him respond despite every attempt at restraint. The way I'd made him come because proving I could break his control had felt more important than maintaining my own professional distance.
I'd crossed another line there. A different kind. Worse, maybe, because it hadn't been strategic — it had been impulse wrapped in justification, desire wearing the mask of tactical advantage.
My memory gave it back in perfect detail. The exact rhythm of my strokes. The change in his breathing. The sound he'd made when release hit him, rough and desperate and absolutely devastating.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. About him. About the way his body had felt under my hands, the way his control had shattered, the way making him lose it had felt like victory and mistake in equal measure.
My phone buzzed from the floor beside me. A text from Derek, former colleague from my police days — one of the few who'd stayed in contact after I was forced out, and one of fewer still who believed my partner's death hadn't been an accident.
Someone's asking about you. Man with different-coloured eyes. Thought you should know.
My chest tightened. Someone was asking questions, and they knew enough to use my heterochromia as an identifier. That narrowed the list considerably.
Harrow. It had to be. I'd gotten too close at Eden, stayed too long, left too many traces. He'd noticed me even behind a mask, had recognised something familiar enough to start digging.
Or Dom. Except Dom already knew who I was — had followed me through London, had gotten my name through whatever resources Adrian's network afforded him. Dom asking questions made no sense unless he was gathering intelligence for someone else.
Unless he was working for Harrow.
The thought made my stomach turn, but I couldn't dismiss it. Couldn't afford to assume Dom was clean just because he'd let me walk away from that alley. Couldn't trust attraction or the memory of his body responding to mine when trust had gotten me burned before.
I needed information. Needed to understand what I was walking into before it became a trap I couldn't escape.
I needed Bishop.
A pubin Southwark that looked like every other tired establishment where men drank to forget. I found Bishop in the back corner at 11:34 a.m., at a table that gave him clear sight lines to both exits and me the uncomfortable awareness that I was about to ask for favours I couldn't repay easily.
He looked like a banker — suit, tie, an expensive watch, polish so deliberate it announced legitimate business to anyone who didn't know better. He'd been a fixer for twenty years, survived three regime changes in London's criminal infrastructure, and maintained neutrality through careful cultivation of value on all sides.
“Mercer.” He didn't stand, just gestured to the chair across from him. “You look terrible.”
“Bad night.”
“Or a good one, depending on perspective.” He sipped whisky that probably cost more than my rent. “What do you need?”
“Information on Harrow.”
Something shifted in his eyes — recognition, then warning — though his expression stayed perfectly flat. “That's a dangerous name to drop in my establishment.”
“I know. That's why I'm here instead of asking through official channels.”
“Official channels wouldn't help you anyway. Harrow's corruption isn't rumour, Cal. It's infrastructure.” He set his glass down carefully. “Judges, prosecutors, police, court clerks, charity boards, evidence custodians. He's built a machine that turns justice into commodity. You want to bring him down, you're not fighting a man. You're fighting a system.”
“Systems have weak points.”
