Page 6 of Veil of Ashes

I nod toward the flash drive still sitting on her bench.

“You want peace? Burn that ledger. Let it rot with the rest of the dirt under this city. But if you want justice—pick up the damn phone.”

She crosses her arms and leans back against the bench like she’s not trying to keep me from seeing how hard she’s breathing.

“What justice is left, Kieran? For him? For me?”

“Not much. But it’s real.”

Her eyes flash. Not just anger. Recognition. She wants to believe it, and that pisses her off more than anything.

She doesn’t move.

I let my gaze drop to her hands—stained with ink, fingertips smudged and nailbeds black from old toner. Precise. Dangerous. These aren’t hands that shake. They make people disappear and identities real. They ruin lives quietly, efficiently.

I’ve broken bones that screamed less.

“You’re right,” I say quietly. “You don’t need me. You never did.”

I step back, but not far. Just enough to make her question it.

“Say no now, but you’ll call me within the week. The past never stays buried in this town.”

She doesn’t respond. Not with words.

But her eyes stay locked on mine long enough to say everything her mouth won’t.

I walk to the trapdoor, pop the latch. The metal creaks above me. I climb halfway up, then pause.

I walked out before I could watch her choose, I think. It was already written on her face: she would.

I close the hatch behind me and step into the cool desert night.

The dive bar thrums above, full of cheap beer and cheaper regrets. I ignore it. I head toward the strip of starlit asphalt where I parked my bike.

She’s not done with me.

And I’m not done with her.

Fire always needs air to burn.

Chapter 2 – Sylvara

The monitor hums like it knows what’s coming. I have been up in my room since. It’s past three in the morning, and I haven’t blinked in maybe an hour. The bourbon’s gone warm beside me. The ashtray’s full again. My fingers ache from typing, scraping, digging—none of it hard enough to dull the pressure building in my chest.

I pull back the rug near my bed and flip open the floor panel. Hinges screech, protesting the movement. I built this vault myself—cut through linoleum and concrete with a rotary saw, patched the edges with fireproof sealant. It’s not just a safe. It’s a grave.

Inside: encrypted drives. Discs labeled in code, in blood. A stack of paper files so thin you’d think I barely lived at all. But each one holds names. Places. Numbers that make men disappear.

And at the center, like rot around the root—one velvet box.

I ignore it. For now.

I pull the drive marked Enzo / Legacy, close the floor, and lock it twice.

Back at the workstation, the old machine boots with a familiar whine. She’s patched together with scavenged parts and spite, but she runs hotter than any government rig. The OS is customized, face-recognition shell nested inside a firewall loop I designed drunk at nineteen. Still hasn’t been breached.

The flash drive clicks in, and the terminal lights up.

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