Page 64 of Faron
Black ink. Bold letters. All uppercase.
YOU’RE NOT AS INVISIBLE AS YOU THINK.
59
Aponi
Istared at the letters for hours.
You’re not as invisible as you think.
It sat on my kitchen counter like a bomb no one had defused.
I hadn’t slept. Hadn’t even changed out of my clothes. Just kept circling the apartment like a caged animal, replaying every case, every perp I’d pissed off, every loose end I thought I’d tied.
And in the end, there was only one person I trusted with this. One person who didn’t ask permission to burn the world down when someone came after his own.
I picked up the phone and hit his number.
It went straight to voicemail.
I decided to go to the rec room and talk to one of his team.
60
Aponi
The rec center sat in the middle of a rough neighborhood, but it glowed like a safe haven. Bright mural walls. Laughter behind chain-link fences. It wasn’t fancy—but it was real. And for some of these kids, that was the first safe place they’d ever known.
Faron had asked her to check it out weeks ago. She’d brushed him off.
Now she understood why he loved this place.
I stepped inside, tucking the note into my jacket pocket. The lobby was bustling—volunteers sorting donations, kids playing indoor basketball, a teen girl helping an elderly man fill out a job application. It was a living heartbeat.
“You must be Aponi,” a woman said.
I turned to find a striking woman with long beautiful hair and kind, tired eyes. She smiled warmly.
“I’m Blue. Faron showed me your picture.” She gave a teasing grin. “He undersold you. You’re beautiful.”
I huffed out a tired laugh.
Her expression shifted when she saw the fatigue behind my smile. “You okay?”
I handed her the note.
Her face tightened. She took a breath and motioned for me to follow her to the back.
61
Tag
Blue waved me over before I even got to the coffee table.
“Aponi,” she said, “this is Tag. Faron’s teammate.”
I sized him up—tall, ex-military build, sharp eyes that missed nothing.
