Page 69 of Nocturne
The bar has that familiar scent of old wood and beer that clings no matter how much you scrub. The hanging lights cast a dim, warm glow over the long counter, where a few men drink in silence, lost in their glasses.
I pick a seat near the end, where I can see almost everything without looking like I’m watching anyone.
The American flags hanging from the ceiling sway gently every time someone opens the door and a gust of wind blows in, carrying the smell of grease and stale beer. Red lights cut across the dark ceiling, painting warm glints on the bottles lined behind the bartender. Old signs, rodeo posters, and cowboy portraits cover every inch of the wall, like the place is trying to pass as a saloon that never wentout of style.
It’s a mess that works — tourists, locals, old drunks, and wanderers all sharing tables, not giving a shit about each other.
“Liam Gallagher?” I ask, locking eyes on him.
“Call me Hawk.”
“Zachary Hayes sent me. Said I’d find you here.” I’m straight to the point — no time to waste.
Liam’s expression shifts instantly. Cold terror spreads across his face — eyes wide, body stiff. He eyes the door, maybe thinking about running.
“Nah, man — I’m out. Don’t bring that shit to me,” he stammers, voice betraying the fear he’s trying to hide.
I don’t have time for this. I need answers, fast. Every minute that ticks by, Midnight Echoes is getting stronger in Boston. I set the gun down on the counter, metal clinking sharply in the tense air. “I just wanna talk, okay? Now.”
His face is rough-hewn, like it was carved by force — square jaw, straight nose, heavy chin, the mark of someone who’s broken more than promises. His beard hides half the expression, but it can’t mask what his eyes say: fear and desperation.
“Follow me. Not here.” He pulls off his apron with shaking hands and walks toward a door leading to the back of the bar, the tension thick between us.
?????
When I want something, I take it.
Nothing — no one — can kill this thirst burning in my chest. Thirst for blood. For justice. For killing the ones who deserve it.
But life has a cruel way of spitting in your face. It plays with you. Change the rules. Forces you to swallow choices you never wanted to make. And in the end, you either adapt… or you die.
Since the day I joined the Nocturne Pact, they promised me vengeance. And for that —onlyfor that — I let them break me. Mold me. They turned my body into a weapon, my mind into a minefield. Made me a ghost of the streets. A killer. A predator.
I went through brutal training, had my loyalty tested to the bone, earned scars that’ll never heal.
I carry the trauma on my body like silent medals. And no — I don’t regret it. I chose this path. I embraced the monster they put inside me.
Because I lost everything. And someone had to pay.
Vengeance didn’t come the way I expected. It came twisted. Different. Cruelly creative.
And still — even now — here I am. Face to face with my brother’s killer. And I can’t do a fucking thing.
Nothing.
I wiped out half his gang. Tore down the pillars his boss spent years building. I made their empire collapse. But I can’t destroyhim.
Him.
Hunter Wolfe.
And that… that breaks me more than any scar ever could.
He’s lying there, unconscious, dumped on a dirty mattress inside some forgotten warehouse in the middle of nowhere — a place the world erased from the map.
The drug I injected is still running through his veins. It’s been over an hour and he hasn’t moved an inch. And even unconscious, he still looks like a fucking god. The raw light from the hanging bulb carves out the lines of his muscles, the tattoos on his arms... and that new one, fresh, across his back.
A fucking angel.
