“How old are you?”
“F-fourteen.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“My mom… I needed money, I?—”
“Jesus,” I snarled, holding the man to my face and staring into terrified eyes—just a kid. I shoved my free hand into my pocket, yanked out the emergency cash I always had, well over a hundred if not more, then stuffed it in the kid’s shirt.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” he begged.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t hurt kids.” He fell to the ground and crab-walked back. “Run!” When he didn’tmove at first, I took a step forward, and he was up on his feet instantly. “Fuck off,” I snarled, “Make better choices!”
He sprinted away, not looking back. Good.
In seconds, I was in the kitchen of 193 Maple Lane South, finding piles of pizza boxes, ashtrays spilling over, a couple of needles on one side. I’d cased the place long enough to put it at the top of my burn list. There were four men inside, wearing cuts, not making meth with precision and dedication, but throwing shit into containers, cutting it with poisons, selling it low. They were lucky the whole lot hadn’t gone up already.
Don’t worry, guys, I’ve got this.
I had four dead bad guys, one skull bashed in, three shot with guy one’s gun—not as pretty as a knife—but less likely to be investigated. The kitchen backed onto the garage, and the whole structure was trash—drywall, grease, old plywood. I slipped on gloves, then picked the lock before dropping a half-can of denatured alcohol in the corner. I dumped accelerant across the counter and tossed in the bottle of heat gel I’d modified. It hit hard and combusted on contact with oxygen—the perfect flash. I grabbed one of the lab’s spare gas canisters, cracked the valve, and left it by the stove.
By the time I crossed the street, it was ready to blow.
I ducked into the abandoned duplex, found my cameras—five of them, all mounted on cheap magnetic backs—and began collecting them until only the one pointed squarely at the front of the house remained.
When the explosion came, it was perfect.
A silent bloom of flame in the dark, beautiful in black and white. The building swallowed itself. I watched it all through the lens.
When the sirens grew close, I took the final camera, slid it into my bag, and returned to the apartment I shared with Rio. When I got upstairs, Rio was waiting, arms crossed, hoodie slung over one shoulder as if he hadn’t moved since getting home after getting rid of Mitchell.
“Did Enzo get back to Robbie, okay?” I asked, as if this were any regular night.
“Yes. Jamie, what did you do?” he asked.
At first, I said nothing, only pulled my laptop from the bag, powered it up, and opened the footage. I turned the screen so he could see, and I hit play.
The image flickered. The house. Then the flash. Then fire—wild, bright, silent.
“They were on the burn list, right?” he asked as ifit would be any other way. I didn’t burn shit for the sake of it.
“At the top,” I said, annoyed that Rio had interrupted the show and was questioning me.
“Did youneedthat second burn, J?” he murmured, pressing a hand to my shoulder. “You promised me you wouldn’t escalate to more than one at a time.” There was something raw in his voice, as if he’d already played out this conversation in his head too many times. I caught the flicker of fear in his eyes—not fear of me, but of what might come next if I didn’t stop. Of how far I’d push this, before the fire took something we couldn’t get back.
I shook him off, threw him a wide grin. “I never break my promises, asshole. Killing that Mitchell guy was for Robbie, I needed something for me, so it only counts as one.”
Rio didn’t smile back. His mouth was tight, eyes still locked on the screen. His jaw twitched once, and he blocked the view. “Jamie, this isn’t a game; two in one night is escalating.” His voice shook slightly, and he ran a hand through his hair, pacing two tight steps before stopping to face me again. His jaw was clenched, and he wasn’t just angry. He was scared. The desperation and fear in his eyes stopped me cold. “I saw you with Mitchell tonight— youenjoyed it. Jesus, I saw your expression when he died?—”
“He hurt Robbie. He touched my family,” I snarled, my voice raw and rising. “Are you telling me you don’t enjoy getting in the ring and fucking someone over?”
“Jamie—”
“Don’t tell me how I should feel about what we did, or what I needed after!” I stepped forward, fists clenched at my sides to stop the anger inside me from exploding. “You think I don’t know how far I’ve gone? You think I don’t carry that? So don’t stand there and act like I’m broken for feeling this. For needing something to burn.”
“I’m not, but fuck, Jamie… swear to me you can stop. I can’t watch you lose yourself again—not after Stockton, not after what you did to that motel. I held your hand while you shook and begged me not to let you burn like that ever again.Pleasedon’t make me watch it happen twice.
I shoved past him and hit play again, pretending I hadn’t heard. But the tension in the room didn’t fade. It thickened, coiled between us like smoke that wouldn’t clear.
