Page 10 of Veil of Ashes

My chest heaves.

I lock the door. Bolt it. Then drag the metal bar across it.

Everything’s a mess. The place I built to be untouchable has been stripped bare in minutes.

I pick up the burner phone.

Thumb over the keypad.

To: Kieran Santoro

Message: Fine.

Send.

The chisel still lies on the floor from last night. I grip it, blood pounding in my ears.

Outside, dawn bleeds into the skyline. Pale streaks of red stretch across buildings that don’t care about the bodies buried beneath them.

I watch the city wake.

"You want a forger, Santoro?" I whisper. "I’ll give you a masterpiece. Then I burn the whole gallery down."

Chapter 3 – Kieran

The Mirage Grand is built on desperation—layered in neon and cologne, rigged for loss disguised as luck.

Up here, on the security balcony above the VIP floor, it’s quieter. Not quiet, never that, but muffled—filtered through glass tinted to keep the players in their fantasy. The scent doesn’t rise this far either, but I remember it: perfume that smells expensive and fake. Whiskey poured over cheap bravado. The sour edge of sweat that clings to losers.

My vantage point is perfect.

I stand half in shadow, tucked behind a column just left of the surveillance hub. No security guards around. No cameras pointed this way. The men who know I’m here don’t ask why. They know better.

Below, Tony Rizzi holds court at the craps table like he built the damn place. His laughter rips through the din—raw, sharp, ugly.

He’s surrounded by smoke, flesh, and arrogance. The girls on his arms don’t bother pretending to care about the game. Their job is to drape over him, laugh on cue, look good while the chips stack high. He hands one a fifty. She slips it into her bra and gives him a smile that’s more business than pleasure.

He rolls the dice again. Wins. Of course he does.

A dealer nods. A man in a suit claps him on the back. Everyone down there wants to be close to the man they think has power. They don’t know he’s a walking carcass.

I touch the grip of the silenced pistol tucked beneath my jacket. Thumb rests just over the safety. I could do it from here. Clean line. Single shot to the base of the skull. No witnesses, no noise.

But I don’t move.

You don’t slit a throat in public. You starve it. Quiet. Precise.

The gun isn’t for tonight. Tonight is for remembering.

My pulse shifts, and the past forces its way back in.

Warehouse. Rain on the windows, leaking through cracks in the ceiling. Dust and rotting wood. My brother kneeling in the middle of the floor, hands tied behind his back. His face swollen. Blood down his shirt.

Benedetto.

He was younger. Softer in the places I’d already hardened. Trusted the wrong men. Trusted me.

I was up in the rafters. Watching. Frozen. Waiting for the perfect moment.

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