My vision blooms with static. My eyes fill with the sick white pain of impact, a throb that pulses from cheekbone to temple, my teeth clacking together hard enough to taste blood on my tongue. I barely register the chair’s legs skidding on the tile.
The heat running from my cheek to my nose and then, suddenly, the slow warmth of blood sliding over my upper lip.
I suck air through my nose. That’s a mistake.
The sting explodes, multiplies, something raw and metallic filling my mouth.
My body convulses with a noise between a cough and a whimper.
I blink hard, try to focus through the haze, and when I do, Gabriel is already standing over me again, jaw set, eyes like a dead animal’s behind glass.
“Too slow,” he says. His voice is calm, but there’s a notched edge to it, something like boredom mixed with fury.
He turns, deliberate, and reaches behind him, he pulls out his gun. My lungs seize.
Black. Heavy. Familiar enough that my whole body goes cold.
For one awful second I think, this is it.
He sees it on my face. The fear. The bracing.
His mouth curves.
Then he lowers the gun.
“No,” he says softly. “Too easy.”
The relief is so sharp it almost feels like another injury.
He puts the gun away and pulls out a knife.
Smaller. Cleaner. Worse.
He brings it up slow, close enough that the point kisses just under my jaw, then drags lightly toward my cheek. Not cutting yet. Just letting me feel the edge.
I go still. By instinct.
“Are you still part of this syndicate?” he asks.
The knife slides lower. To my throat now.
“Or are you part of his?”
My heart is pounding so hard I can barely hear myself think.
I force the words out anyway. “Yours.”
His eyes stay on mine.
“I’m part of yours.”
He says nothing. So I keep going because silence feels like dying.
“We’re family,” I say. “We’re blood.”
His hand is sharp.
The hit comes with no warning, a sound like a gunshot in my skull and a high, ringing whine that drowns out everything else for a split second.
