Page 95 of Jayson
“She’s a problem.”
Not a person. Not a girl.
A problem.
And problems?
They aren’t comforted.
They aren’t protected.
They don’t get second chances or quiet mornings or lovers who kiss their foreheads.
Problems are meant to be solved. Eliminated. Buried.
And every time I close my eyes, I feel the ground shifting beneath my feet. Because no matter how far I run or how many layers I put between me and the truth… the memories still breathe life. And they remember me just as clearly as I remember them.
38
KANYAN
Idon’t fear the dark. I come from it. And I was raised to bite before the shadows even draw breath.
My mother taught me that—though not with words. It was the parade of men she brought home: slick-smiled hustlers whose affection turned to fists the moment the liquor dried up. By the time I was fourteen, I could read danger in half a heartbeat. By sixteen I had broken a man’s jaw with a cast-iron skillet for calling her worthless. By thirty two years, I was the Gatti Brothers’ favorite guard dog, a kid with shoulders too broad for second chances and a temper that never asked permission.
Family, they said, and my ribs vibrated with the word. Not blood. Something thicker. Something chosen.
So now—six years, too many scars, and one bullet-shattered knee later—I sit behind a dark mahogany desk at the Moreno estate, the weight of the empire humming through the floorboards. Night drapes itself over the city’s skyline outside like a funeral veil.
Inside, the room hums with silence—the kind that settles heavy on the skin, thick with secrets. The only light comes from the sterile white glow of encrypted monitors, casting fracturedlines across my face like digital scars. A single desk lamp flickers amber, pulsing like a slow heartbeat over scattered files and the ghost of violence not yet cleaned up.
I’m tying off the day’s mess—blood, lies, numbers. Whatever needs to be done. This isn’t nine-to-five. This is the work that gets buried beneath headlines, the kind no one talks about unless it goes wrong.
But I don’t make mistakes. Ever.
I was born in shadow, forged in silence. And while others fumble when the light dies, I come alive. My best work? It’s always been done in the dark. Where no one sees. Where no one remembers.
I should feel settled. The work’s done, the files locked, the loose ends tucked into digital coffins. But I don’t. My jaw’s tight, molars grinding like they’re hunting for bone. It’s not restlessness. It’s something darker—something wired into me. A craving for chaos. For the kind of mess that ends with someone on their knees and me walking away without a scratch.
That’s when the secure line blinks to life. No ringtone—just a silent red pulse in the corner of the screen, steady as a countdown.
Only twelve people in the world have this number.
And if one of them’s calling, it means something’s broken. Or someone needs to be.
I don’t hesitate. Thumb to biometric pad, the scanner warms beneath my skin before it clicks green. The overhead speakers crackle to life, sterile and sharp, waiting for the voice on the other end to announce itself. The calm before the war. And my molars stop aching—because the fight is here.
“Good evening, my friend.” Emilio Cavalho’s voice rolls in smooth as aged Scotch—warm, composed, and unmistakably calculated. “Tell me you’re not still buried in work.”
“Emilio.” I lean back in my chair, the leather groaning underthe shift. “You tracked me down just to criticize my productivity?”
A low chuckle filters through the speaker—light, practiced, and entirely sincere. “That, and perhaps… to request a small courtesy. A sit-down, if you’ve got an hour to spare. Something of a delicate nature.”
I twirl the gold pen between my fingers, letting the silence stretch as I study the live security feed—nothing but still shadows and steel at the compound gate. “How delicate are we talking?”
“It concerns a name you know well. A gentleman by the name of Jayson Caluna.”
My hand pauses mid-spin.
