Chapter2

I shoved my hand into my jacket pocket, my fingertips brushing against the black satellite phone. Its metal casing was as cold as night-soaked ice. My thumb hovered over the fingerprint scanner for a heartbeat, then withdrew.

Not yet.

I followed them deeper into the neighborhood. A shattered fluorescent tube drifted in the gutter, the phosphor at its end emitting a ghostly green glow in the dark—like a nocturnal animal slowly closing its eye.

Milo tugged at the hem of Claire’s apron, skipping through puddles with "pew-pew" sound effects, acting like his toy shovel was blasting invisible monsters. Claire didn't look back, but the tension in her shoulders eased a fraction—as if someone had finally helped her set down a bundle of firewood she'd been carrying for far too long.

You never heard bird calls at night in the Seventh District of Forge Valley. There was only the low, constant drone of heavy rigs on the distant overpass—the exhausted heartbeat of the city.

I trailed two paces behind, shifting my weight off my left leg every dozen steps. Rainwater slick with grime dripped from a shattered gutter above, splashing against the back of my neck.

For five years, I had walked past landmine-cratered wells in the Yemeni desert, slinked beneath the decks of Somali smuggling ships, and waded through the sewers of Prague’s renovated old town. But none of those places felt like this—where every step made it feel like the asphalt was sinking beneath my boots.

A warped sheet-metal door stood at the end of the alley. Claire’s hands shook as she fumbled for her keys, dropping them into the muddy water.

I crouched to fish them out, wiped them clean on the hem of my shirt, and handed them back. Her fingertips brushed the back of my hand. They were ice-cold, like raw meat pulled straight from a freezer. Click. The lock turned twice.

The door pushed open into gloom. A bunk bed sat flush against the wall, its sheets washed to a faded white. A folding table was draped in a vinyl sunflower tablecloth that had bleached to a sickly yellow. A half-eaten plate of synthetic soy mash sat under an overturned bowl.

Milo kicked off his shoes and bolted inside barefoot. He scrambled up to the top bunk and fished a dog-eared picture book from under his pillow. The superhero on the cover had been scribbled over with a crooked red cape.

Claire stood frozen in the doorway. Her silhouette looked incredibly fragile under the harsh, pallid glare of the energy-saving bulb. The apron strings were tied in a dead knot at the small of her back, a frayed white cord dangling like a skinny tail.

I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.

The moment it clicked shut, her shoulders hitched. The sound of her sniffing was faint, as if terrified of being heard. She didn’t turn around. Instead, she leaned over the table, gripping the edge until her knuckles turned white.

"Five years," her voice was rough, like dragging across sandpaper. "Ethan, do you have any idea what five years means?"

I didn't answer. She wasn't asking me anyway. She was asking the walls, the faded tablecloth, this claustrophobic little room.

Milo lay on his stomach, flipping through his book without looking up. "Mom, I want cherry pie."

"I'll make you one tomorrow."

"What about the one we hid last—"

"That one went bad," Claire cut him off sharply. "I'll buy fresh ingredients tomorrow. We'll make a big one."

Milo pouted and buried his face back in the book.

I stood by the door. The sat-phone in my inner pocket pressed against the skin just below my collarbone, burning like a localized patch of dry ice.

Finally, I reached inside.

"Claire."

She turned around. Her eyes were bloodshot, but she had forced the tears back. As she stared at the unmarked, pitch-black phone in my hand, a flicker of bewilderment crossed her face.

"Pack your things tonight," I kept my voice low. "I'm moving you to a new place."

"Move? Move where?" She dropped her voice to a harsh whisper, the tail end of it trembling. "Do you have any idea how much money Voss dumps into the Seventh District? You beat up Paul. Tomorrow there’ll be a van full of guys coming for you. You—"

"I'll handle it." I looked down and powered up the device. My thumb swiped the sensor, and the screen flared to life with a ghostly blue glow.

There was no home screen, just a command line and cascading encrypted characters. I pulled up a secure channel and punched in a twelve-digit coordinate sequence.

The reply was instantaneous: "Ghost protocol lifted. Welcome back, Young Master."

I placed the phone face-down on the table.

"A car will be here to pick you up at 10:00 AM tomorrow. Take Milo and get to a safe place first."

Claire stared at me. Her lips parted, but all she managed to ask was, "What about you?"

My fingers brushed against something else in my inside pocket—a compact tactical pistol with the magazine detached. Palm-sized. Three custom rounds. Don't ask why there are only three. During that little "accident" five years ago, three was all I had left.

"I'm going to pay my respects to Voss. It's been five years. Old friends need to catch up."

The bulb outside the tin window flickered twice. On the top bunk, Milo rolled over, throwing the picture book over his face and mumbling something incoherent in his sleep.

I zipped my jacket all the way up, hiding the jagged scar that snaked from my collarbone down to my chest. Five years ago, in a subterranean parking garage in Manhattan, someone had pressed a pair of bolt cutters—torched red-hot for forty seconds—against my throat to ask me a question. I never answered. So, the scar stayed.

The hand that pulled the plug on my life support after that "accident" five years ago; the exact date and location behind every single scar on Claire’s back—I was going to settle those debts, one by one.

It rained all night in Forge Valley. The deluge hammered the tin roof, sounding like ten thousand pebbles tap-dancing all at once. Milo kicked off his blankets in the middle of the night. Claire got up to tuck him back in, her footsteps pausing for a brief second as she passed the plastic stool where I sat in the dark.

At 4:17 AM, I pushed open the sheet-metal door.

The rain in the alleyway had eased up, leaving the concrete slick and reflective. The roar of a truck engine echoed from the main street in the distance. The light behind the tinted second-floor window never flicked on.

I popped my collar against the chill and stepped out into the ink-blue, rain-swept mist.