Page 7 of Veil of Smoke

“She didn’t.”

He studies me. His voice drops. “You’re reading too much into this.”

“She had the slip.”

“She was bait.”

“She didn’t know she was bait,” I snap.

That hangs between us.

T-Bone rubs his jaw, scrapes his thumb across a scar by his ear. “You get a name?”

“No.” I respond.

“Then she’s still a problem.”

I look at the blood drying under my nails. “She didn’t come armed,” I say. “She came curious.”

“That makes her more dangerous, not less.”

“She had no idea what she walked into.”

“Exactly,” he barks. “What kind of girl walks into a dock at night like it’s a coffee date?”

I sit back, heat rising under my skin. Not from anger. From the memory.

Her voice. Calm, even when she was cornered. She never asked for help. Never begged. She faced me like someone used to ghosts.

T-Bone watches me. “And that doesn’t set off any alarms in that slick head of yours?” he says.

I don’t look at him.

“It makes me wonder who she really is.”

The warehouse is too warm. Too still.

I step out the side door, boots crunching gravel as the wind blows across the pier. The mist rolls in from the lake, thick enough to smother the skyline. The moon hangs like a bruise above the water, swollen and dull behind cloud cover. I reach into my coat pocket, slide out a cigarette, and light it with a flick.

Smoke tastes like ash and regret.

My free hand presses to the railing. Rust dusts my fingertips.

I run the night back through my head, frame by frame.

She walks out of the fog, red slip in her coat. Looks me in the eye. Doesn’t flinch.

She doesn’t shout when the gun goes off.

Doesn’t scream when I cut a man’s throat right in front of her.

Only runs once I speak. Not before.

She touched the bloodstained paper before leaving. Like she needed proof that it all happened. Like she wasn’t scared of me—but of what I meant.

I drag on the cigarette. The smoke stings.

That’s not innocence. That’s something else.

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