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Krye leans in and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“You have silencer?” His voice is low. “Because⁠—”

“Don’t need one.” I shrug him off. Maybe too hard.

“Pan,” Krye says, and now he sounds stern, almost pissed.

“What?” I whirl on him. “What? Who cares? Why’s that even matter?”

“I care,” Krye says. “Believe it or not. At least a little, I care. And your friends⁠—”

My friends.

Is that what they are, the Lost Boys? They’re my crew, for sure. They have my back, have had my back, ever since I first kicked my way into Blue’s sadass excuse for sleeping quarters at that dog track.

Maybe they’re my friends. But I’m not really theirs.

I certainly haven’t been hers.

My body tightens with more cold fury.

“They don’t,” I say. But no, that’s not right. They do care, in spite of it all, in spite of fucking everything, and⁠—

“They shouldn’t,” I correct myself. “They just shouldn’t. This is…I have to do this.” My words are coming out all tense and bitter like I’m a goddamn teenager who got his PS5 taken away. “It’s mine. He’s⁠—”

I stop short. Said too much, way too fuckin’ much.

I take a long, deep breath through my nose, suddenly sweating despite the arctic temperature.

“He’s not worth it, Pan,” Krye says. “Take it from me, eh? Not worth risking⁠—”

“Risking what?” I cry. “My bright future that I’m throwing away? Please.” I scowl at him, hating him for saying that, for thinking that, about me. Me, of all fucking people. “I’m a petty criminal with a nice bike, an illegal squat, and a tenth-grade education, Krye. I’m a piece of shit, okay? I know it, they know it, you know it. Fuck, it’s the only reason you even know who I am, because I’m a piece of shit.” I stop a second, get some air in my lungs, let my head level out. “I was always gonna end up dead or in jail, Krye. It might as well be for a good goddamn cause. For once. For once in my life.”

And there. The truth.

I’ll kill him.

For her.

For all of them.

It’s not enough, but it’s something.

Now the basement’s quiet. Nothing but the buzzing of the fluorescents and the whoosh of cold air for a good thirty seconds.

“We have saying, in Albania, you know.”

Great. We’re doing this? I don’t care. I can barely fake sounding like I care.

“Oh yeah?” I lift the gun again. Try to get used to its weight, the feel.

Krye doesn’t seem to notice. “Mëson nga armiku, më shumë se nga miku,” he says. “You learn from enemy more than you learn from friend.”

The fuck is that supposed to mean? I think. Like me and Hook are fucking Batman and the Joker? Like he exists so I can see everything that I’m not, like I’m supposed to be all philosophical about this instead of doing what I want to do, what I should do, which is blast a slug through his brain and make him pay, make him suffer and pay for what he did to the woman I⁠—

No. Bullshit.

I lower the gun.