Page 43 of Veil of Dust

Chairs scrape the floor.

Glasses knock together.

Someone laughs too loudly.

The regular sounds. Familiar.

I step into the hallway. Tiziano follows, his steps behind me quiet, measured.

I left the knife in my waistband, but the weight of it feels different now. Not just a tool. A line in the sand.

Tomas warned me.

Alfeo threatened me.

Tiziano bled for me.

None of that changes what I’m walking into. But it sharpens me.

I glance into the main room as I step through the threshold. People are where they usually are. Faces I’ve seen a hundred times, but now every one of them feels like a question mark.

The bar smells like old beer and lemon cleaner. The kind of scent you stop noticing until something goes wrong.

Rain hits the windows, soft but steady.

Tiziano doesn’t come all the way in. He stops at the doorway, leaning into the frame. Tomas stood there earlier, too, but the energy is different now.

Tomas looked ready to act.

Tiziano looks ready to hold the door shut behind me.

His shirt’s clean. No blood. No mud.

But I remember.

I remember every inch of him when he walked in, soaked in what he did for me. It hasn’t left my mind.

I walk to the counter, boots tapping softly on the hardwood. The bar feels normal, but thin—like it’s barely holding together.

I pick up a glass and wipe it out. It’s a habit, something to do with my hands.

My fingers follow the rim while my brain runs the same cycle. Tomas’s blade. Tiziano’s blood. The steps they took toward me. The ones I didn’t ask for, but didn’t stop either.

I feel Tiziano’s stare on my back. It doesn’t push. It doesn’t claim.

But it’s there.

Constant.

I don’t have to look to know he’s watching every move I make.

The knife’s cold against my spine.

Whatever it means—gift, warning, shield—I took it.

Same way I’ve taken everything else that’s come for me lately.

Tiziano takes one step forward.

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