Page 6 of The Rook’s Obsession

I shot him in the thigh, and he didn’t scream. He didn’t call the police. He didn’t fucking leave.

I wish I could stop thinking about it. I wish it more than just about anything as my feet slap against the pavement.

No matter how I try, Vincenzo’s story runs on in my head. I was rescued. My biological family was dangerous. There was an accident. I was hurt badly, scarred. I still carry those scars to this day. The Russos found me and took me in. They gave me a home and an education. A purpose.

Vincenzo told me I should be grateful. For a long time, I was. I was so grateful, I didn’t ask too many questions. I was so grateful, I accepted the blanks in my memory as a mercy instead of a wound.

But there are cracks in the story. Tiny ones, the kind you don’t notice unless you’re looking. For years, I wasn’t looking… or I refused to, because not looking was so much easier than the alternative.

The way Vincenzo’s face would go tight whenever I brought up the past. He would change the subject with a joke or a distraction, smooth as silk, making me forget I’d ever asked.

The way no one offered me a single detail about the family I supposedly came from. Not once in twelve years. Not a name, a location, a picture.

Nothing but the scars on my arm and down my leg to prove any of it happened at all.

Nick Brooks is specific. He has names and details. He has emotion in his voice. He’s the first person in twelve years who’s offered me something concrete about a life I can’t remember, which makes him either the most valuable person I’ve ever met or the most dangerous.

I need to find out which.

The walk takes fifteen minutes. My apartment is small, two rooms above a bakery in a neighborhood where people mind their own business. It’s functional, not comfortable. I don’t do comfortable. My space is clean, organized. A bed, a chair, a desk. A rack of equipment I keep behind a false wall in the closet, the same rack I keep in all of my safe houses.

Once inside, I set down my case and released a long breath. The job is done. I’m back safe.

And I’m still thinking of Nick. The hotel. I should let it go. Letting it go would be easier and safer. I should text my contact, confirm the job is finished, and move on.

Instead, I change into fresh clothes. Black, as always. The only way to get answers about Nick Brooks is to get them from Nick Brooks.

Which means I’m going back to the hotel.

I won’t be sloppy about it this time. Last time, I stood there in the light with my gun drawn like some dramatic character in a movie. It was stupid. Effective, maybe, but not for extraction. If I want information out of him, I need the upper hand in a way that doesn’t give him room to appeal to emotions I’m not supposed to have.

I’ll go in quietly. I’ll find out what he knows and get my answers. If those answers aren’t satisfactory, I’ll finish what I should’ve finished two days ago.

No more warnings. No more leg shots.

I check my weapons before leaving. I have the Beretta, plus a backup strapped to my ankle and a blade in my boot. Force of habit. I pull my hair back before checking the hotel feed one more time.

The door is closed, the light off this time. He’s either asleep, or he’s out.

I take the long way to the hotel. The east side has no camera coverage in the alley, and the entrance lock is a joke. Thirty seconds with a tension wrench and a pick, and the door is open. The stairwell is empty. I move up four flights without making a sound, stepping on the inner edges of the stairs, where they’re less likely to creak.

It takes nothing to bypass the deadbolt on the door, sidestepping the key card system. Ten seconds, tops, barely worth calling it a lock. I ease the door open, leading with the Beretta.

The room is dark. The bed is empty. I guess he’s refused maid service, for obvious reasons—there’s a rust-colored stain on the carpet between where he dropped to the floor and the bathroom. His bag is on the floor by the closet.

The bathroom door is open. The light is on, but the room is empty.

He’s not here.

Something prickles at the back of my neck. It’s the instinct that’s kept me alive through situations that should’ve killed me. That instinct is screaming now, telling me something is very wrong, that I need to get out.

Maybe I would, if it wasn’t for the hand that clamps over my mouth from behind.

Instantly, I react. Driving an elbow backward, aiming for the solar plexus. He’s already turned, absorbing the blow against his side while his other arm wraps around me, pinning my weapon arm against my body. Damn, he’s strong, stronger than I expected. He moves like someone who’s done this before.

The needle slides into my neck before I can get free.

Cold. It spreads from the injection site, radiating outward, turning my muscles into liquid as it pumps through my system with every quick heartbeat. My fingers loosen around the gun. My legs stop cooperating, going loose, useless. The room begins to blur. Somewhere in the fading distance, I hear his voice, low and steady against my ear.