Page 5 of Heresy
"Affirmative. She's cornered. Awaiting your directive."
Good. Clean. Professional.
"I'm on my way. Maintain position. No contact."
I snap the phone shut, plastic creaking like small bones breaking. A witness. Here? Now? Coincidence is a luxury I don't believe in. The Sin Santos are making noise, and now a woman with a camera appears at our most private venture. Is she a ghost, or is she their ghost? The thought coils in my gut. An informant. This isn't just a mess to be cleaned; it’s a message that needs to be answered. The decision crystallizes—this problem requires a surgical, final resolution before metastasizes into organizational cancer.
Another soul to feed to the machine.
"Trouble?" Rook asks, dark eyes searching mine with the intensity of someone who has learned to read psychological weather patterns.
He already knows the answer.
I stand, heavy silence pressing against consciousness like atmospheric pressure before storms. "A loose thread," I say, offering only the explanation necessary. "Her name is Vera."
Speaking the name makes the problem concrete. Not a person. A tactical complication.
"Keep digging on the Santos," I instructed, grabbing my cut from the chair's worn back. The jacket settles across shoulderslike armor, psychological preparation for work that requires emotional insulation. "I'll handle this."
It's not a request.
The filth, like the crown, is mine to bear. This is the mathematics of survival: sometimes you choose to be a monster so your people can remain human.
Time to go handle Vera Ivanov.
I leaveRook suspended in the calculated quiet of my office and take the stairs. Four flights down. With each level, the muffled hum of the clubhouse sharpens into distinct sounds—a harsh laugh, the clink of glass, the low thrum of music. The air grows thick with stale beer and smoke. When I step onto the main floor, the noise doesn't just quiet, it evaporates. I move through the room like a shark cutting through water. The men part instinctively—they know their place in the food chain, and recognize this particular stride. Not social. Not casual. This is the measured walk of someone on his way to handle a problem.
And my problems always end in silence.
The garage breathes different air—sharp, clean honesty of mechanical spaces. Gasoline. Oil. Hot metal. The scents of purpose stripped to essential function, where honest work happens without pretense or performance.
My bike dominates the concrete floor like a monument to controlled violence—blacked-out beast of steel and carefully contained rage. No chrome to catch light, no decorative elements serving vanity over function. Only power, speed, menace distilled into mechanical form.
My throne. My confessional on wheels.
I swing my leg over worn leather that has molded to my body through thousands of miles of shared purpose. The machine settles under my weight with recognition—metal and flesh finding familiar equilibrium.
Turn the key. Wake the beast.
The engine roars to life with a guttural rumble that vibrates through my spine, settling into bones like a tuning fork struck against frequency of violence. This isn't just transportation—it's psychological armor, mechanical extension of will made manifest.
A familiar voice answering my own darkness.
The setting sun bleeds across the urban sky, painting warehouses in shades of copper and threat. This is my city, my kingdom—territory carved from concrete and claimed through blood. But I don't see architectural beauty. My eyes catalog tactical possibilities: one-way streets as choke points, rooftops as sniper perches, blind corners for ambush.
You have to know concrete, steel, and secrets to survive here.
I navigate a backstreet labyrinth with unconscious expertise, a web of alleys mapped in muscle memory. The rumble of BQE overhead provides acoustic cover, urban white noise that masks approach and muffles consequence.
As the pier materializes, tactical consciousness sharpens. Zero's coordinates were precise—professional efficiency that reduces chaos to manageable variables. I see the alley formed by shipping containers, a geometric canyon created by an industrial accident.
Perfect killing ground. Isolated. Contained.
A hundred yards out, I cut the engine. The beast falls silent with mechanical sigh, momentum carrying me forward like a ghost on two wheels. The only sound now is soft crunch of gravel—percussion announcing arrival to those trained to interpret such signals.
The time for noise is over. Time for necessary work begins.
Each revolution carries me closer to an encounter that defines the true cost of leadership—the moment when abstract authority transforms into concrete action, when philosophical positions require practical demonstration through applied violence.
