Page 18 of Veil of Secrets

Like I wasn’t a charity case.

I don’t say yes.

Not out loud.

Not to him.

But I haven’t said no either.

And that hesitation?

That’s the part that scares me most.

Because no matter how much I remind myself I don’t belong to anyone, there’s a part of me—the part that got out, that survived, that still itches for something real—that can’t stop asking what it would mean to be chosen not out of pity or attraction.

But because I might actually matter.

Chapter 4 – Nico

The boards beneath my boots moan with every step. This pier’s been dying longer than most of the men who come out here. Salt eats through everything eventually—wood, steel, flesh.

I pull my coat tighter as I step around a broken plank. Wind howls off the Atlantic, sharp and constant. The lamplight overhead swings, barely hanging on to the rusted fixture. It throws shapes across the wet planks. Nothing steady. Just chaos in motion.

I like this place for that.

The scent’s all wrong—fish rot, old gasoline, damp wood, and the bite of old bullets fired too close to salt.

Marco’s boys have been using this dock to drop messages. They think I won’t come out for the small ones. They think I’m too busy patching leaks in a family boat that’s already sinking.

They think wrong.

The runner’s ahead.

I see the back of his jacket near the edge of the pier. He’s alone, hunched like he’s trying not to look cold. Bad posture. Worse instincts.

I close the distance without rushing. No point in noise.

When the wind dips, the boards echo with every footstep. He hears me. Turns.

Too late.

He lifts his hand like there’s a reason for it to matter. Gun half-raised, cheap polymer grip. Not Brotherhood issue.

“Marco says back off or—”

“You’re wasting breath.”

I step in, drive the blade through his throat before the threat finishes leaving his lips.

His eyes go wide. Blood spills across his shirt in thick pulses. The metal taste hits the air.

I twist the handle once, then pull out.

He staggers. I follow him down, blade slipping into the soft give of his gut. His mouth opens again, no sound. He drops fast.

I crouch beside the body.

The blood moves slower now. It puddles around him, staining the wood. A knot of it seeps through the cracks between planks.

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