Page 32 of Veil of Ashes

Outside, humid heat presses against the windows. A thunderstorm grumbles over the Strip, low and restless, matching the storm brewing in my chest.

I hold the burner phone I lifted from Kieran’s jacket. He was out cold that night, sprawled on the safehouse floor, and I’d slipped it free. Now it’s mine to crack.

My hands move fast, precise, tearing it apart like it’s a live grenade. Maybe it is. I pop the casing, exposing its guts—circuitry glinting under the lamp.

Tools scatter around me—screwdrivers, pliers, a chipped mug half-full of cold coffee. My thigh twinges as I shift, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.

I pry out the battery, then the SIM tray. Nothing obvious yet. My fingers dig deeper, peeling back layers, hunting for what’s hidden.

Then I find it. A tiny chip, embedded slick in the board. Not a standard tracker—too sophisticated, too quiet. I grab my loupe, leaning in close.

The casing’s clean. Too clean. But the code etched inside? That’s Veyra—no question. I know their patterns. Their encryption signatures are like fingerprints, and this one’s practically shouting in cursive. It’s not just a tracker—that part’s obvious. Standard locator ping, silent but steady. But there’s something else. A buried protocol. Nested deep, almost elegant—like a scalpel hiding inside a switchblade.

It’s a comms feed. A backdoor into Veyra’s internal channels. Not just watching me—this thing is listening to them. Which means whoever put it here doesn’t just want to track me... they want intel from the inside. They want to ghost through conversations, listen in on orders, maybe even reroute messages. That’s not a hitman’s tool. That’s a power play.

Rizzi’s cartel wouldn’t need this. They’d send another thug with a pipe and a warning. And the old guard? Veyra doesn’t plant bugs on their own people unless they’re ready to bury them. No—this is someone threading the needle. Someone who knows how close I am to cracking Rizzi’s ledger and wants to either get ahead of me—or set me up.

There’s only one person who fits.

Gia.

She’s the only one with the access, the motive, and the ego to pull this off. The comms signature matches her uncle’s encryption schema—old school Veyra but modified, dirtied up, cloaked just enough to suggest plausible deniability. And that burner Kieran’s been carrying? She gave it to him.

She knew I’d find it. She wanted me to. This isn’t just surveillance—it’s psychological warfare. She’s saying: “I see you. I’m always watching. And if I can plant this, I can plant doubt in your head too.”

Well done, Gia. You’ve got my attention. But now I’ve got yours too.

I plug the chip into a reader, fingers flying over keys. Lines of data scroll fast, green text on black. I backtrace the signal, narrowing it down.

Recent ping. Two hours ago. Triangulated near the casino district—Rizzi’s turf. My pulse spikes, loud in my ears like gunfire echoing down a memory. I sit back slowly, like moving too fast might trigger something worse. Something I can’t undo.

He said we were alone.

He promised no one was watching. That we were off-grid, ghosts working in the cracks between their networks. But this—this—is a live signal. Fresh. Close. And the device didn’t just track me... it whispered through the Veyra comms system the whole time.

He lied.

Whether by omission or design, Kieran let this ride in my pocket like a loaded gun. And now it’s pointed straight at my spine. Was it carelessness? Or did he think I wouldn’t notice? Maybe he thought I wouldn’t question him—not after everything. Not after the alley. The touch. The kiss.

The weight in my chest isn’t just betrayal. It’s shame. I let myself believe him. Let myself feel safe in the space we carved out of fire and blood. And now?

Now I’m just another mark who trusted the wrong hand.

I don’t need more proof. The code, the ping, the burn in my gut—it all lines up. Gia’s name is carved into every byte of that backdoor. But Kieran brought the phone into my world. And he didn’t warn me. That silence is louder than any confession.

We weren’t alone. We were never alone. And now the mask I let slip? It’s coming back up—fast, steel, locked in place.

I slam the laptop shut, chair scraping as I stand. My gun’s on the shelf, matte black and loaded. I grab it, checking the clip.

It snaps back with a click, solid in my hand. I set it beside the phone on the desk, barrel pointing at nothing. Yet.

Gia’s watching Rizzi—I’d bet my life on it. But she’s watching us too. Me. Kieran. Every move, every breath.

My mind spins, a tangle of wires and fire. Was this always the plan? Keep me close, keep me blind? I pace, boots thudding on warped wood.

The lamp flickers, shadows jumping. Papers crunch under my feet.

I stop, staring at the phone’s guts. Two days ago, he stitched me up, held me steady.

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