After midnight. Somewhere between silence and hell.
The phone rang.
Phoenix answered it on the first buzz — not because he was expecting it, but because we never ignored unknown numbers after dark. Not in this life.
He didn't say much. Didn't have to. I could tell by the way his shoulders dropped, how his jaw clenched just once. How he went still. Too still.
I sat at the kitchen table, oiling the blade of Robin's favorite knife. It was stupid. Pointless. He always forgot to take care of his gear, and I always cleaned up after him. I had a half-smile on my face when I looked up.
That smile died fast.
Phoenix hung up.
I stood. "Who was it?"
He didn't meet my eyes. "They found him."
The world stopped spinning.
"Alive?" The word barely made it past my lips.
Phoenix looked at me.
That was answer enough.
I don't remember getting in the car. Just the feeling — heavy, full-body dread, like a second skin sewn into my muscles. My stomach was lead. My throat? Empty.
Phoenix drove with both hands locked on the wheel like it was the only thing keeping him from shattering.
Neither of us spoke.
What was there to say?
The coroner's office was washed in pale, humming fluorescence. The kind that never blinks. Never sleeps. The receptionist pointed to the hallway.
"Room three."
I hated the way she said it. So calm. Like it wasn't a warzone in there.
The metal door creaked open.
The second I stepped inside, something cracked open in me.
Robin looked small.
He'd always had this presence — too loud, too golden, too alive. Even when he was sleeping, he took up space. Energy. Light.
But now?
Now he looked like a ghost in the shape of a boy.
Pale lips. Broken nose. Bruised ribs. Dried blood flaked across his neck like rust. And his hands — God, his hands. One was mangled, fingers twisted unnaturally. The other... was curled into a fist.
Like he fought until the end.
Like he didn't go quietly.
I didn't cry.
I couldn't.
The grief was there — loud and jagged in my chest — but it couldn't get out. Couldn't find the exit wound. So it stayed in my throat, hot and choking, making it hard to breathe.
Phoenix stood like a statue at the door. His breathing wasn't steady. Not like mine.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to grab Robin and shake him and make him wake up. Tell him he wasn't allowed to die before I told him everything. Before I made things right. Before I—
"I'm sorry," I whispered, fingers brushing the edge of the sheet.
Phoenix finally moved.
He didn't come closer to Robin — he came toward me. Put a hand on my shoulder. Tight. Too tight.
"We're going to kill them."
It wasn't a promise. It was prophecy.
I nodded once.
But the damage was already done.
The boy on that table wasn't just my brother — he was the part of me I didn't know I needed until it was gone. He was the last person who ever believed I could be soft.
And now he was cold.
And I would never forgive myself for not protecting him.
⸻
The memory doesn't fade. It never does.
I don't let myself cry. I don't let myself do anything.
Grief is a luxury. Emotion is a liability. And I was trained from birth to survive both.
But inside me?
It's still there.
The guilt — sharp and cruel, whispering you should've stopped him from going alone.
The rage — colder now, but still rooted in every bone like frostbite.
And the sorrow... the kind that makes the world feel paper-thin.
I'd give anything to see Robin's stupid grin again.
To hear him argue with Crow.
To listen to him ramble about chemistry and the way fire behaves like a person.
But I don't get those things.
I get flashbacks.
I get silence.
I get blood under my nails and a cold bed in the middle of a mansion that reeks of charm and menace.
I get Alejandro.
And right now, I don't know whether I want to kill him or bury my head in his chest and scream until I vanish.
Because the worst part?
He's the only one who looks at me like he sees the graveyard I'm hiding inside.
The stairs creak beneath my feet as I descend, but I don't bother trying to be quiet.
Let him hear me coming.
If he wants to play music at this hour — Elvis, of all things — he can deal with the consequences.
The vinyl hums softly from the corner of the living room, a slow, sentimental track oozing from the speakers like cheap perfume. "Can't Help Falling in Love." Figures.
Of course Alejandro would be the kind of man who mistakes pain for romance.
I round the corner and find him stretched out across the sofa, one leg propped lazily over the other, glass of dark liquor in hand, sleeves rolled up. There's blood dried along the cuff — not enough to raise suspicion, just enough to make a statement.
He doesn't look up.
"You always this dramatic," I mutter, "or is this a special performance just for me?"
Alejandro glances at me with that irritating half-smile, all slow poison and amusement. "You wound me, Raven."
"I'm starting to think you like it."
"I like most things," he says, taking a sip. "But pain? That's earned."
I ignore the bait and make my way toward the liquor cabinet. I'm not thirsty, but my hands need something to do. I pour just enough to taste. Burned caramel and oak smoke.
"Still not a fan of Elvis, I take it," he says casually, as if we're discussing weather.
"I'd rather be stabbed than listen to him whisper about love like it's a fucking fairy tale."
Alejandro raises an eyebrow. "Interesting definition of musical critique."
"He always sounded like he was trying to seduce a corpse," I add, settling into the opposite chair. "Give me Johnny Cash any day. At least when he sang about fire, you believed he'd actually been in it."
"Man in Black," Alejandro muses. "Let me guess. You like Hurt."
I look him dead in the eye. "I like Delia's Gone."
That gets a pause. He studies me for a moment — like he's recalibrating.
"Dark taste for a woman who hides her knives behind her teeth."
"No," I say, voice calm. "I keep my knives in plain sight. The rest of you just pretend not to see them."
His smirk falters slightly, eyes narrowing. "You ever smile, Raven?"
"Not for men who quote Elvis and kill people before breakfast."
He chuckles, but there's something else under it. An edge.
"You think I'm heartless."
"No," I murmur, sipping the drink. "I think you're scared to feel anything that might make you human."
Alejandro's jaw clenches, just slightly. Then he leans forward, elbows on his knees.
"You know what I think?" he asks.
"Please, enlighten me."
"I think you're scared too. Not of death. Not of blood. But of what you'd do if you ever let yourself feel grief."
I go still.
He's close now. Too close.
"You're full of ghosts, Raven. You wear them like armor."
I set my glass down hard enough to crack the surface beneath it. "Don't talk about my brother."
"I wasn't," he says. "Not yet."
We stare at each other across the room, the silence thick with unspoken things. The vinyl crackles again as the song ends, fading into the pop and hiss of dead wax.
"I saw what that flashback did to you," he says softly. "You came down here because it's safer to sit across from a killer than in a room alone with your own mind."
I don't answer. I don't blink.
Because he's not wrong.
Alejandro stands, walks over to the record player, and — to my surprise — removes the Elvis vinyl. He slides it back into its sleeve, then pulls out another. Drops the needle.
A low, familiar rasp spills into the room.
Johnny Cash. The Man Comes Around.
He glances back at me. "Better?"
My throat tightens, but I nod once. "Barely."
He sits back down, quieter now.
"I didn't expect you to be like this," he says after a moment.
"Good."
"No," he continues. "I expected you to be cold. Tactical. Detached. But you're something else entirely."
I stare at him. "And what's that?"
"Angry," he says, "but honest. Dangerous, but not cruel. You kill for purpose, not pleasure."
"I kill for justice."
"There's no such thing."
"Robin thought there was," I snap.
Alejandro pauses. Then: "Yeah. And look where it got him."
The silence that follows is nuclear.
I rise from the chair, heart thudding, fists clenched. "Don't you dare use his name to score a fucking point."
"I'm not," Alejandro says evenly. "I'm reminding you what we're fighting for. Viper didn't just kill your brother. He broke him first. And if you're going to face him, you need to be sharper than this."
"I'm ready."
"No," he says. "You're distracted. By grief. By loyalty. By rage. You want to kill Viper so badly you're willing to bleed for it. But bleeding isn't the same as winning, Raven."
I stand there, shaking, jaw clenched so tight it hurts.
Then he says, softly: "I don't want you to die trying to prove you were enough."
And just like that, the room turns fragile.
I drop my gaze, breath shallow.
The song shifts to Hurt now — the original Nine Inch Nails version, covered by Cash with aching finality. The lyrics cut too deep, too sharp. And for the first time in what feels like days, I sit again.
"I don't know who I am without him," I whisper.
Alejandro says nothing. Just watches me with a look that isn't pity, but something colder. Understanding.
"I never gave myself time to mourn," I admit. "Not once. I buried him and picked up a gun."
Alejandro nods, slow and solemn. "And now you're realizing the weight of both."
I hate that he's right.
I hate that this room feels like a confession booth.
And I hate even more that the only person here to witness it... is him.
The air in the estate is too still.
No music this time. No Elvis humming through the halls. Just silence, thick and untouched, like even the house itself is holding its breath.
I sit on the edge of the bed, boots laced, jacket thrown over my shoulder, waiting for the moment I have to see him again. The sun's bleeding in through the slats in the blinds, softening the marble in gold — but there's no warmth to it.
Not after last night.
Not after the things I said.
And didn't say.
Alejandro's voice drifts up faintly from downstairs, low and authoritative, speaking in Spanish to someone on the phone. I catch only fragments — "packages," "delivery," "clean up the mess." His tone is calm, but there's that underlying steel again. The kind that doesn't bend. The kind that breaks you quietly.
I make my way down the steps, each one a beat against the hush.
He's in the foyer, already dressed — black slacks, charcoal vest, sleeves rolled, no tie. Just sharp enough to kill in, just casual enough to pretend it was never planned. He looks up as I approach, eyes tracking me without a word.
"You sleep?" he asks.
I brush past him, heading toward the door. "You don't need small talk, Alejandro."
He chuckles behind me. "Who said I was making small talk?"
Outside, the air's colder than I expect. The kind that wakes you up whether you want it or not. His car waits in the gravel circle — the sleek, black one, polished enough to reflect every ugly thing we hide behind.
We get in. Silence stretches again as he starts the engine and pulls onto the road. It's only after a few minutes of quiet that he finally speaks.
"You ever think about leaving it all behind?"
I snort. "You practicing your clichés today?"
"I'm serious."
"No, I don't think about leaving. People like me don't leave. We get buried in the things we started."
Alejandro nods, tapping the wheel with two fingers. "Figures."
"Why?"
"Because you're still trying to carry the whole weight of it," he says. "Like maybe if you hold it long enough, something will make sense."
I don't answer.
He doesn't need me to.
The road curves around the edge of the old industrial district, and the skyline sharpens with broken cranes and empty railcars. The city looks like it's trying to rot before it gets paved over again.
"You ever think about what you'd be if you weren't made into this?" he asks after a while.
"A ghost," I say without hesitation. "Someone quieter. Someone gone."
"That why you like Johnny Cash?"
I look at him sideways. "What is your obsession with my playlist?"
He shrugs. "You hissed at me the first time I played Elvis. Kind of stuck with me."
"Cash didn't pretend," I say. "He didn't try to clean it up. He bled in his music."
Alejandro glances at me with something close to curiosity. "And Elvis?"
"Elvis was a dream."
He lets that hang for a moment. "You hate dreams?"
"I don't trust them."
He laughs. It's quiet. Not mocking this time. More like... respect.
"Good," he says. "Because where we're going, there's no room for dreams."
We pull up outside the club just before opening. It's still dark inside — all velvet and mirrored walls and the faint smell of liquor soaked into decades of carpet. The staff scatters at Alejandro's entrance, nodding, moving quickly, eyes down. He's already commanding the space before a word leaves his mouth.
I follow.
He doesn't stop until we reach the back room — the one with the leather chairs and bulletproof glass.
"Wait here," he says.
I raise an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because what's about to happen doesn't need two witnesses."
"Tough," I say. "I'm not here to be sheltered."
He studies me for a beat... then nods.
"Fine. But don't flinch."
He opens the side door.
A man is dragged in by two others — scrawny, sweat-soaked, eyes wild. Maybe late twenties. Maybe older. Hard to tell through the bruises already blooming across his jaw.
Alejandro steps forward and folds his sleeves up to his elbows.
"I gave you one job," he says, voice smooth as a razor.
"I—I didn't mean—"
"You had one fucking job." He cuts across the man's stammer. "Take the shipment, hold it, and wait. What did you do instead?"
The man swallows hard. "I panicked—there were cops—"
"There weren't."
"I swear—"
"Don't lie to me." His tone doesn't rise. It drops. A quiet fall that makes the room colder.
"I—I lost the crate, but it wasn't the product. It wasn't the important stuff—"
Alejandro doesn't hit him.
Not at first.
He walks over to the table in the corner and picks up a gun — small, sleek, customized.
The man whimpers.
"No more fuck-ups," Alejandro says calmly. "No more chances."
"I'll do better—I swear—please, just—"
One shot.
Straight to the knee.
The man screams.
I don't move.
Alejandro walks forward and crouches beside him, almost gentle.
"Shh," he says. "Breathe. You've got ten seconds before I end it. Use it wisely."
"Please—please don't—"
He fires again.
The man slumps.
Blood pooling fast.
Alejandro stands, flicks the safety back on, and turns toward me.
His face is blank.
Not triumphant. Not angry.
Just done.
"Clean it," he tells the guards.
They nod and drag the body away like garbage.
I hold his eyes.
"You always kill your employees?"
He shrugs. "Only the useless ones."
There's no apology in his tone. No remorse.
And somehow... I don't feel the way I thought I would.
Not disgust.
Not anger.
Just something cold. Familiar.
Like home.
He walks past me, brushing my arm lightly with his as he exits.
"You coming, Raven?" he calls over his shoulder.
don't answer right away.
The blood is still warm on the floor. The echo of the gunshots hasn't faded yet — not from the walls, not from my head. My boots are rooted for one breath. Two.
Then I move.
Not because I trust him.
Not because I agree.
But because I've already crossed the line.
And the only thing left now is to keep walking.
So I follow.
Out of the room.
Into the dark.
Into whatever comes next.