Page 12 of Rebel
He’s already here.
Boots planted in the mud, hands clasped behind his back, standing like a sentry instead of a mourner. Fresh white lilies rest against the stone. Grief shouldn’t look so controlled.
“You lost?” I ask.
He turns just enough to look at me. Salt air, clean soap, and a hint of metal scent cling to him.
“No.” His voice is low and steady.
“You know him?” I ask, pointing to the grave.
This strange man pauses. “Yeah.”
His tone isn’t defensive or casual. It’s heavy, like a weight is pressing down on his shoulders. Before I can push further, I feel a shift in the air.
I glance toward the tree line and see Bones leaning against a headstone, cigarette ember glowing like a warning. He’s not watching the grave. He’s watching us.
Bones approaches us, his gaze dragging over the stranger once, assessing.
The stranger doesn’t flinch, but I notice the recalculation in his posture, two predators measuring distance.
“Careful who you share mourning with, Rebel,” Bones says softly as he passes. Then he disappears into the fog.
The stranger steps back. “I’ll let you have your time.” He walks away without giving me a name.
The smell of salt and gun oil stays in the air long after he leaves.
I let the memory settle where I keep everything I don’t have time to examine. I told myself it didn’t matter who he was. It was just a stranger paying respects. Another man carrying grief he didn’t know where to put.
Now I’m not so sure.
5
CARTER
Ishouldn’t have gone back to the cemetery. I shouldn’t have risked being seen, but I needed to check if Alex’s grave was still there. I didn’t expect her to show up before sunrise.
The scent of salt, diesel, and bullshit pulls me away from the memory of a blonde-haired beauty. Long Beach seeps into your clothes no matter how many times you wash them. I’ve spent half my life in ports like this, watching the same cranes move the same steel boxes full of secrets no one wants their name on.
Tonight is no different. It should’ve been just another shipment, another paycheck wired through someone else’s shell company. But the second I saw the watermark stamped on the manifest, I knew this one wasn’t routine. It was personal.
I check the manifest again, scanning the clipboard with my flashlight.Shipment three-one-four, special handling. Signed off by Delgado.
Delgado means cartel. That means this isn’t standard cargo. If Alex Slade were still alive, he’d be standing right where I am, smirking and saying,We don’t do standards, brother. Alex has been dead for four years, and I’m still out here running ghosts. Still pretending that if I follow enough money trails, I’ll circle back to the moment before I made the call.
I adjust the holster at my ribs, eyes cutting toward the warehouse. The security team I brought in are ex-contractors, good shooters, bad listeners. They smoke too much, talk too loudly, and make the kind of jokes that used to make sense when I was nineteen and bulletproof.
Now I’m thirty-three, sober on paper, still sleeping with the light on, because darkness sounds like gunfire if you listen hard enough.
“Bishop,” one of the men calls, his voice cutting through the night. “East gate’s clear. You want the trucks rolling?”
“Five minutes,” I answer. My voice sounds calm, but my pulse isn’t. It never is when it’s cargo that doesn’t belong to me.
The Pacific wind shoves the smell of rust and ocean into my lungs. I take it as punishment. The comm in my ear crackles, distorted divine static. Static always drags me back to the desert, to the sound before something went wrong. Then silence. I scan the perimeter again. Everything’s too quiet. No gulls, no forklift echo, no ship horns. Just stillness.
The manifest watermark catches in my light. A tiny gear wrapped in a vulture’s wing. Not cartel. Not PortAuthority. A signature I’ve seen in files I shouldn’t have opened. Iron Vultures. Perfect.
That’s when I see her.
