Page 6 of Veil of Smoke

The warehouse breathes cold when I step inside. Jazz crackles from the busted radio in the corner. Horns and sax bleeding into static. Crates lean high along the walls—shipment leftovers, some sealed, some picked clean. A single bulb swings overhead, giving just enough light to see the dust cut across the room.

T-Bone doesn’t look up right away. He’s sitting on an overturned pallet, mouth full of sandwich, eyes fixed on the rusting metal door like he’s expecting it to answer for something.

“About damn time,” he mutters, chewing slow. “You get caught playing hero, or did you just stop to dance in the blood?”

“Corradino sent a tail.” I take the chair across from him. “One of his. Not subtle.”

T-Bone raises a brow.“Dead?”

“Yes.”

He grunts and flicks a crumb off his lap. “Of course.”

I say nothing. He leans back, sets the sandwich down, then eyes my shirt.

“You get hit?”

“No.”

“Then who’s the blood from?”

I take out the slip. Drop it on the table between us.

His fingers hover over it. “This the message?”

“Yeah.”

He lifts it, reads the type. His brow dips. “Red Thorn. Cute. And vague.”

“It was delivered this afternoon,” I say. “To a flower shop.”

He looks up, sharp now. “The girl.”

“She’s not with Corradino.”

“You sure?”

“She had no backup. No signal gear. She looked like she came from her shift.”

T-Bone folds his arms. “So what the hell was she doing on our dock?”

I don’t answer right away. I see her face again. That look—green eyes tracking every movement, wide but sharp. Blood at her feet, hair curling from the lake mist, too stubborn to fall apart.

“She didn’t scream,” I say. “Not once. She watched me slit a man’s throat and didn’t move until it was done.”

He whistles low. “And you think that’s a good sign?”

“It’s not nothing.”

“It’s a fucking problem.”

“She didn’t act like a plant. There was no hesitation, no code phrases. Nothing rehearsed.”

“She could still be a decoy.”

“Then why not run when he came at me?”

T-Bone shrugs. “Maybe she froze.”

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