POV Owen
You forget what sunlight feels like after three weeks underground.
The warehouse reeks of diesel, sweat, and fear—smugglers, thieves, killers who’d sell their own lungs if Silas paid in cash. I walk among them wearing someone else’s face and my own ghosts.
“Name?” the guard at the door growls.
“Reed,” I say. The fake ID in my pocket says Daniel Reed, transport consultant. The gun on my hip says try me.
He scans me with suspicion, then nods me through. “Boss is expecting you.”
The “boss” being Silas Kane—the man who made me, broke me, and now thinks he owns me again.
Inside, the world smells like money and gasoline. Men are unloading crates marked with Cyrillic warnings—drugs, weapons, maybe worse. I blend in, quiet, competent, invisible. That’s how you survive in a ring like this—by becoming background noise.
But even noise has echoes.
By nightfall, the warehouse turns into a den of liquor and bragging. Someone throws on music. Someone else laughs about “the Tate guy.”
I freeze mid-step.
“Man, remember Owen Tate?” one of the smugglers says, cracking open a beer. “The ghost with a gun. Used to work under Silas before he went soft.”
“Soft?” another scoffs. “He took out seven men and still made it to breakfast.”
“Yeah, but he fell in love. That’ll do it every time.”
The first man snorts. “Silas says love’s the worst drug of all. You can’t quit it without killing someone.”
Their laughter rings through the room like gunfire. I swallow the bile rising in my throat. My fingers twitch against the table, itching for a weapon I can’t afford to draw. I need patience. Patience is survival. Patience is how I get home.
Still, every time I hear my name here, it sounds like a curse that never died.
When Silas finally arrives, the room goes quiet. He walks in wearing his trademark black coat, the kind that hides sins and weapons alike. His hair’s whiter now, but his eyes—cold, clever—haven’t aged a day. He looks at me and smiles.
“Well, well,” he says, voice smooth as oil. “The infamous Daniel Reed. You remind me of someone.”
I force a smirk. “He must’ve been a handsome bastard.”
The men laugh. Silas doesn’t. “He was. Until he got soft.”
He studies me too long, then gestures toward the back office. “Come. Let’s talk business.”
The office hasn’t changed—same mahogany desk, same stale cigar smoke, same ghosts. Silas pours two glasses of bourbon and slides one toward me. “To loyalty,” he says.
I clink glasses. “To profit.”
He grins. “Smart man.”
We talk numbers, routes, bribes. It’s a performance—I ask the right questions, take notes on things I already know. But his eyes keep flicking to me like a predator who’s waiting for the meat to twitch.
“You’ve got discipline,” he finally says. “Most men flinch when they hear about the Tates.”
I look bored. “Should I?”
He chuckles. “Maybe. Depends on how much you read.”
“Not much of a reader.”
“Then let me educate you.”
He reaches for a remote on his desk, presses play. The flat screen behind him flickers to life. I see water. Soap bubbles. And then—Noelle.
Her bare shoulder, the curve of her neck, Luna’s tiny hands splashing in the tub. My wife’s soft laugh fills the room like light breaking through storm clouds.
For a second, I forget to breathe.
“How—”
Silas cuts me off. “Relax. It’s not live. Just a gift from a friend who knows how to access a baby monitor feed.”
Every muscle in my body locks. “Turn it off.”
He tilts his head. “Why? It’s beautiful. A mother and her child. Such fragile things, aren’t they?”
“Silas.” My voice is low, dangerous. “Turn. It. Off.”
He smirks. “Still protective, even when you’re supposed to be dead.”
“I said off.”
He presses pause, freezing the screen on Luna’s tiny smile—Noelle kissing her forehead, love caught mid-motion.
Silas leans back, studying the image like it’s art. “She’s grown since I last saw her. Reminds me of someone.”
My throat feels raw. “Don’t.”
He grins. “You think you can come back here, play double agent, and I won’t know? Please. You were my favorite creation. I recognize my own shadow anywhere.”
The world narrows to the space between us—the faint hum of the computer, the ticking of the wall clock, my pulse pounding like a war drum.
“You touch them,” I whisper, “and I’ll erase your name from history.”
He laughs softly. “Always so poetic.”
Then he stands, walks toward the screen, and does something I’ll never unsee. He touches the frozen image of Luna’s face, presses his lips to it like a benediction, and murmurs, “Mine now.”
Something inside me breaks so fast it feels like a gunshot.
I don’t remember crossing the room. One second, I’m behind the desk. The next, my hand’s around his throat, the chair crashing back. He’s laughing—laughing—as my fist connects with his jaw.
“Easy,” he chokes out, blood at his teeth. “The walls have ears.”
“I’ll tear them down.”
He spits blood onto the carpet, still smiling. “That’s the spirit I missed.”
I slam him into the desk again. “Say her name. I dare you.”
He wheezes, “You mean Noelle? Such a pretty name for something you’ll never protect.”
I press the gun under his chin. “Say that again.”
His smile widens. “You can’t kill me, Owen. You need me alive for your little redemption arc.”
The sound of my name—my real name—hits me like a blade. The pretense is over.
He knows. And he’s enjoying every second. I step back, forcing air into my lungs, forcing my hand to lower the gun. If I pull the trigger, Vale’s entire operation burns with it.
Silas stands slowly, straightening his collar. “See? You still follow orders, even when you think you’re free.”
“You’ll regret touching them,” I hiss.
He wipes the blood from his lip, eyes gleaming. “Oh, I already am. Because you made me care once. Never again. The girl and her child? They’re just leverage now.”
My vision tunnels. I see flashes—Noelle’s eyes, Luna’s laugh, the moon sticker inside my boot. Leverage? No. They are the reason I’m still standing. The reason I’ll finish this.
I holster my gun, force a smile that tastes like venom. “You want loyalty, Silas? You’ll have it. But remember something—when this ends, only one of us walks out.”
He raises his glass again, smug as sin. “Looking forward to the reunion, son.”
The word detonates in my skull. Son. I walk out before I can kill him.
Outside, the air feels colder, the night sharper. I pull my jacket tight, boots crunching on gravel. My fingers brush the inside of the left boot, where the moon sticker still clings. A whisper from another world.
Come back to me.
I look up at the sky—no stars tonight, just darkness heavy enough to drown in—and whisper back, “Not yet, angel. Not until the devil’s gone.”
Behind me, Silas laughs again, low and haunting, echoing off the walls.