“No.” I step forward. “You want to run to your father, or do you want to prove you don’t need him?”
I turn to face him full. “We handle it.”
Angelo hesitates before finally nodding.
“Alright,” he says quietly.
“Good, we come back later tonight. Then, we burn this shit to the ground.”
***
Screams echo in the dark.
Metal groans.
Smoke curls under the rafters.
Girls pour out the back, shepherded by two of my closest friends willing to help. Their eyes are wide, stunned. But they’re running.
The fire catches fast. This place was built to rot. Angelo stands beside me, sweat dripping from his neck, breathing hard. We watch the flames chew through the roof. And then he freezes. Seeing or hearing something I don’t.
“Wait—” he says. “Is someone still inside?”
I follow his gaze.
A figure. Half-hidden in smoke. Not moving.
“Shit,” I mutter. “Let’s go.”
The heat punches me in the chest the second we cross the threshold.
It’s wrong in here— too hot, too loud, too alive for a place that’s about to die. Smoke claws down my throat. My eyes sting, vision warping as the flames lick higher along the walls. The air tastes like burning oil and rot and something metallic underneath it all.
We move fast.
A shape slumped against the far wall catches Angelo’s eye first.
“There—” he starts.
I’m already following.
The body’s half-burned, clothes fused to skin, face ruined beyond recognition. Fire ate him unevenly, like it got bored halfway through. His chest is still. Too still.
But a tattoo I know well is half visible around his ruined skin.
Vartan Sarkisian. Head of the Armenian gang.
I crouch, close enough that the heat bites into my knees. My hand comes up automatically, shielding my eyes as I lean in.
That’s when I see it.
A hole.
Small. Perfect. Centered right between what used to be his eyebrows.
A gunshot.
Clean. Precise.
