Page 79 of Veil of Smoke

I tilt my head. “Why warn me?”

Her laugh is quiet. Pitying. “Because I still owe your brother. And because if you go down without knowing, it’s bad business.”

“Since when do you care about business?”

She taps her nail against her glass. “Since the day I realized Caldera doesn’t retire their soldiers. They just recycle their funerals.”

I glance at the glass again. A single bead of condensation trails down the side. That’s all it takes—a few drops of rot dressed in amber.

I don’t toss it. I don’t even nudge it.

I slide it aside with two fingers, like clearing a corpse from a crime scene.

Rita watches me, then lights another cigarette.

“You’re calm,” she says. “That’s new.”

“I’ve been expecting this.”

“Not from him.”

She means Marco.

I don’t answer. Just feel the way my chest tightens with something worse than betrayal.

Disappointment.

The kind that hurts a lot more than bullets.

I speak finally, voice low. “It’s war now.”

Rita nods, exhales. “It always was. You just weren’t the target yet.”

She leaves before I can respond. No farewell. No favor owed.

Just gone. Like a warning.

The jazz climbs again. The club forgets me. Or pretends to. Caldera’s eyes are back in their drinks. Their games. Their lies.

But I feel it now.

I’m not one of them.

I’m one of the dead men walking.

Chapter 17 – Viviana

I turn the key in the lock, and the door groans open. Fog hangs low outside my childhood home, gray and damp, curling around the porch as Dario steps up behind me.

The house sits still, like it’s waiting for me to break it open. Dust drifts in the thin sunlight cutting through cracked blinds, settling on white sheets draped over furniture.

I haven’t been back since the funeral. My boots scuff the floorboards, and they creak loud, sharp enough to pierce the quiet. The faint scent of old lavender and mildew stings my nose—time’s locked grief into these walls.

Dario shuts the door with a soft thud. He stands there, hands in his pockets, dark jeans and leather jacket making him look too alive for this dead place.

I lead him into the living room. Nothing’s moved since Dad passed—since Camila overdosed upstairs and left us with nothing but echoes. The couch sits under its sheet, a ghost of itself, and the mantle holds frames I can’t look at yet.

My fingers brush one anyway. It’s her—golden hair spilling over her shoulders, laughing mid-spin at some party, eyes bright with a fire I never had.

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