The city never slept—merely switched one nightmare for another.
I was standing in my office window, watching the swath of red and blue lights flickering off the rain-soaked street below. Sirens wailed in the distance, chasing ghosts. My entire body vibrated like a live cable. The tension wasn't escalating—it was worming its way into my body.
Nash was on me like rot on meat.
He stormed in earlier, breathing fire, his voice sharp enough to cut glass.
"Arrest him, Kane. We have motive. We have a suspect. Wrap it up."
His eyes were more expressive than his lips would ever be. He was not only impatient—scared. But not of me. Not of Mirell. Of something else. Something greater than the two of us.
"I'm not putting a ribbon on this for headlines," I said to him.
He gritted his teeth. "Do your job."
Then he went outside, leaving the door open like a challenge.
Outside, reporters swarmed like flies on a corpse. Reporters yelled sensational headlines without fact, weaving a narrative intended to stoke the city's basest instincts. Sylvie's name was also starting to crop up in stories too—deep background sources, insider rumors. She was over her head. Too deep.
And I was short of space to move around.
Down in the morgue, it was colder than it ought to have been. Sterile. Quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you take notice.
Dr. Poe leaned over the examination table, still gloved, dark eyes fixed on the body as if she could hypnotize it into speaking. I walked in, and she did not look up.
"You were correct," she said, her tone low. "It was a trap."
I accompanied her. "Walk me through it again."
She indicated the torso. "Entry wound, downward trajectory—taller assailant, perhaps standing over him. But the pattern of blood is telling us something different. The spatters are arcing. they're irregular. Some of them are from the wound. Some were set up."
"Placed," I echoed. "As in manually applied?"
She nodded. "Wiped, pooled, even flicked in areas. It's unnatural. And look at this." She raised a gloved hand, pointed to pale bruising below the clavicle. "Ligature marks again. This time fresher. Like he was bound, then let go before the final act."
I backed away, pounding heart. "Someone wanted him found like that."
She froze, something unreadable passing across her face.
"Here, what is it?" I asked.
"I came close to not including this in the report," she spoke slowly. "There's a residue—synthetic fiber, latex mix. Doesn't belong anywhere on his clothing. It's from a glove, perhaps. Professional-grade, though. Same type used in clean rooms or surgical theaters."
"Why hide that?"
She pulled off her gloves, scowled at me. "Because if somebody puts gloves on that way, they weren't trying to keep DNA from entering. They were trying to keep anything from entering."
Clean. Controlled. Precise.
This wasn't a success.
It was a performance.
And someone wanted an audience.
Sylvie stood outside the morgue when I arrived, pacing with the fidgeting of a caged animal. She was dressed in her issue wear—leather jacket, notebook, and the steel-cutting gaze.
"I know you're in deep," she said. "And I know you're trying to keep me out."
"Because you don't know how to remain alive when you're digging like this."
She went on. "Langston met with Darius Wolfe's attorney. Six times in two months. Off-the-record meetings. I collected parking tickets, security reports. Your unit did not catch them."
I cursed under my breath. "Sylvie—"
"I'm not the enemy, Kane. But if you continue to stonewall me, someone else will find me. And they won't ask questions."
My phone rang before I could answer. No ID. Just a name.
Jax.
I found him at the edge of the Narrows behind a crumbling chapel, a cigarette shaking in his hand. Jax never seemed to be afraid—until now.
"You traveled alone?" he inquired.
"I always do."
He handed me a folded piece of paper. "I shouldn't even have this. But it's moving fast. Too fast."
I opened it. An address. Industrial district. No label. No name.
"What is this?"
"Storage facility. Clean on the books. Dirty underneath. Wolfe's men used to use it—until someone else bought it two weeks ago."
"Who?"
He shook his head. "That's the point. I don't know. It's hidden behind so many shell corporations, even I can't penetrate it. But somebody's using it now. I heard rumors—new players. Stealthy, deliberate, deadly."
"This connected to Langston?"
Jax discarded his cigarette and looked at me like a man half buried.
"I don't know who's in command, Kane. But I do know this: you're not going in alone anymore. And whoever is responsible? They don't ask questions. They demand compliance."
I went to the address.
Empty on the outside. Steel doors, no cameras. Silence of things that are forgotten.
But when I stepped close, I smelled it—cleaning fluid. Industrial. Recent.
I placed my ear against the door.
Nothing.
And that's when it struck me.
This was not just a storage space. This was a cleanup space.
Somebody was covering their tracks—trails, bodies, whatever connected them to Langston.
And they were doing it now.
I stepped back, my heart pounding. A red glow pulsed behind the door—sensor-activated. Someone had just come through here.
The sky had already gone gray when I returned to my apartment. My hands would not stop shaking. Not out of fear. Out of clarity.
This case wasn't unraveling.
It was being suffocated.
By power. By fear. By something greater than I could perceive.
And Nash? He was not attempting to shut it down because it was easy.
He was closing it because someone ordered him to.
Now I wasn't merely researching.
I was walking on a string stretched between truth and silence. And out there, somewhere, the next cut was waiting.