The diner was small, tucked into the corner of a street forgotten by time. Old neon buzzed weakly above the door, red vinyl stools cracked and faded along the counter. A jukebox stood silent in the corner, abandoned. The air was thick with the scent of burnt coffee and stale grease, clinging to the cracked linoleum floors.
I sat in the furthest booth, hunched over a plate of waffles drowning in syrup. I hadn't ordered it that way. Didn't matter. When the waitress dropped it off without a word, I didn't argue. I dissected the meal with clinical precision.
The first bite hit harder than expected.
Warm, buttery. Real. The syrup pooled into the cracks like molten amber. After two years of chemical paste and nutrient slop, real food was almost a foreign substance. My hands trembled faintly. My throat tightened. For a moment, the idea of breaking down here, in this tired relic of a place, felt dangerously close.
I didn't. I ate.
Dolores, the waitress, rasped through the haze of grease and coffee, "You okay, hon?"
Her voice was roughened by years of cigarettes and shouting across kitchens. Her name tag, barely clinging to her blouse, read "Dolores."
I forced eye contact, controlled my breathing. "Yeah. Just hungry."
She nodded, poured coffee into a chipped brown mug, and shuffled off. No questions. No judgement. Just another soul riding out the slow death of this place.
Half an hour later, I sat back, staring at the cleaned plate like it might vanish if I blinked. Fullness was a forgotten sensation—painful but grounding.
Dolores wandered back. "That'll be $8.50, hon."
I already knew. I'd known since I walked in.
"I, uh..."
"You don't have it," she said, arms folding over her chest. Not angry. Just resigned.
"I can work it off," I said smoothly. "Wash dishes. Mop floors. Whatever you need. Just… Please don't call anyone."
Her sharp green eyes peeled back layers I thought I'd hidden. She weighed me—sizing up risk against instinct. After a long moment, she sighed.
"Sink's in the back. Move it."
I pushed up from the booth, legs unsteady but willing.
The kitchen was an oven of steam and old grease. Plates stacked high like a siege barricade, pots coated with years of regret. I rolled up the sleeves of my threadbare hoodie and plunged my hands into scalding water. Scrape. Scrub. Rinse. Stack.
A ritual of penance. Familiar. Reassuring in its own grim way.
Dolores stuck her head in halfway through. "Got a name, kid?"
"Lucas," I muttered without looking up.
"Well, Lucas," she said dryly, "you missed a spot."
I scrubbed harder, steam stinging my arms, fingers cracking inside soaked gloves.
Hours blurred into each other. The rhythm of labor became my heartbeat. Closing time loomed. The last few patrons shuffled out, leaving only silence and the slow drip of the broken faucet.
Dolores lingered at the door, arms folded.
"Alright, kid. That's it."
I wiped my hands on a frayed towel, flexing cracked knuckles, feeling each tendon like a rusted wire.
"Bathroom first?" I asked, voice neutral.
"Five minutes," she grunted.
The bathroom was a closet-sized box, stinking faintly of bleach and despair. I leaned over the cracked sink, studying my reflection. My face was thinner than I remembered—sharper around the edges, hollowed out by years underground. My eyes, though, hadn't changed. Still cold. Still watching.
This wasn't chance. I had chosen this place. I Chose it because I knew its bones.
These diners wore two faces. By day, they served truckers and factory rats. By night, they became something else—neutral ground for people who couldn't afford questions. A whisper network of the desperate, the dangerous, and the damned.
I had history here. Blood history. Years ago, I'd left a trail of it behind the dumpster after a deal gone sideways. Lou found me then. Patched me up. Molded me into something useful.
Now I was back to return the favor.
History didn't just repeat. It circled like a vulture.
I straightened my hoodie, tucked the ragged hospital bracelet deeper into my sleeve, and exhaled once, slow and even.
When I emerged, I was ready.
The diner buzzed with low conversation, forks scraping against chipped plates. Dolores wiped down the counter without looking up. She didn't want trouble. She could sense it coming anyway.
A skinny kid with darting eyes spotted me and shuffled over, wiping his palms on his apron.
"Hey, uh, Dolores said you need to—"
I cut him off mid-sentence with a right hook, sharp and clean. No warning. No hesitation.
The kid dropped like a sack of laundry, his knees buckling under him.
No one screamed. No one rushed to help. In places like this, self-preservation was stronger than curiosity.
I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him behind the counter with mechanical efficiency. He moaned once—soft, confused—then went still.
A plate of food steamed nearby, abandoned mid-bite. I snagged it, balancing it casually in one hand, and moved through the diner.
"Hey!" Dolores barked from behind the counter.
I flashed a thin smile over my shoulder, voice calm, measured. "Relax, Dolores. Just making a delivery."
My gaze had already shifted.
Locked onto her—the woman who sat alone in the back booth, precisely where Lou always held court.
Target acquired.
"Hey!" Dolores barked.
I flashed a calm, easy smile, setting the plate on an empty table. "Relax, Dolores. Just making a delivery."
My gaze shifted, narrowing like the lens of a camera locking onto a target.
She sat alone in the back booth—Lou's old throne—her posture loose but guarded, a coiled spring hidden beneath a façade of nonchalance.
Sharp cheekbones caught the dim light, throwing delicate shadows across her face. Her eyes—dark, alert—tracked every movement in the room without betraying effort. Blond hair tied into a tight, military ponytail, black leather jacket molded to her lean frame like a second skin. Every inch of her said readiness. Every breath screamed calculation.
I knew her type. Not her name—names were disposable here—but ambition like hers carved scars into every room it entered.
Dolores hesitated, dishcloth frozen in mid-swipe, glancing nervously between us.
"It's fine," the woman said, her voice cutting cleanly through the diner's low murmur, cool and composed. "Leave us."
Dolores muttered something about retiring early and disappeared through the kitchen doors without another word.
I moved, slow and measured, sliding into the booth opposite her. My body language open, but coiled—ready.
The man sitting beside her—a block of meat with a shaved head and fists big enough to break bone on reflex—shifted, flexing his knuckles as if itching for a reason.
I didn't look at him. I didn't need to.
He radiated violence like a bad perfume.
I met her gaze instead, calm, steady.
And waited.
Let them make the first mistake.
I leaned back slightly, voice calm, detached. "Hey, pretty lady," I said, tone sharp as broken glass. "Can I get your number, or is your boyfriend gonna start crying?"
The muscle beside her shifted, nostrils flaring. "Oi, punk, get lost before—"
I cut him off, a single finger jabbing into his chest, firm and deliberate. "Thunderclap? Brickhouse? No—Cement Head."
The chair screeched backward as he lunged.
I was already moving. Caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted hard until tendons popped, then slammed his face into the table. The impact rattled dishes, silverware, the cracked surface groaning under the force.
The woman didn't flinch. She calmly stirred her coffee, perfectly indifferent.
I yanked him upright briefly by the collar, showcasing the ruin of his nose—blood bubbling thick over his lips. "What?" I said, tone dry. "We're just having a chat."
Then I let him crumple to the floor like discarded trash.
Nobody moved. Nobody wanted to be noticed.
I grabbed a napkin, wiped my knuckles with mechanical efficiency, then slid back into the booth across from her, as if the last minute hadn't happened.
"He'll be fine," I said evenly. "Eventually."
She smiled, small and scalpel-sharp. "Always theatrical, huh?"
"Gotta keep up appearances," I murmured, spearing another bite of waffle with steady hands, the diner's wreckage forgotten around us.
"So," She hummed sippeing the coffee she had on hand, unbothered,, her fingers lazily tracing the rim of the chipped mug. "What brings a dead man to my table?"
I leaned back into the booth, movements deliberate, feigning ease. "Ghost business."
Her gaze sharpened—subtle, but there. Reading me like a chess board, measuring threats, counting exits.
"Rumor said you OD'd. Buried. Forgotten."
I gave a half-shrug. So that's what that bastard been telling people huh, he sure knew how to brush off people disappearing with that mouth of his. "Can't believe someone like you would trust lazy rumors like that."
"Apparently."
Her voice stayed even, but her posture shifted—a slight forward lean, a readiness coiling beneath that calm exterior. She wasn't curious. She was weighing me. Trying to decide if I was a weapon she could use or a bomb about to go off in her face.
Good.
I liked being underestimated almost as much as I liked being feared.
"Simple," I said, my tone flat, clinical. "A ghost wants revenge. On Lou."
Now I have her.
Her eyes sharpened further, glinting with something—calculation, interest, maybe a hunger she hadn't fed in a long time.
I let the silence stretch just long enough to feel the air between us tighten.
"And you," I added, dropping my voice to a low, even cadence, "look smart enough to want in."
For a moment, the diner seemed to fall away—just two predators circling the same scent of blood.
She leaned forward slowly, the corners of her mouth curling into a smile that showed teeth but no warmth.
"Maybe," she said, voice soft, dangerous. "Maybe not."
I smiled back, just as slow, just as cold. A reflection of the threat we both understood.
The opening moves had been played.
The game had begun.
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.