Page 29 of Heresy
Fuse's words fade into a dull roar in my ears. The image he paints—a boy carved up on the pavement—is replaced by another. The alley behind O'Malley's. The smell of wet asphalt and blood. The look of shocked betrayal in my brother's eyes as his life bled out into the rain. Abel.
The war is no longer a matter of strategy. They have drawn first blood on a boy who was, until yesterday, one of mine. They have put their mark on my territory. A chilling, absolute calm settles over me. The time for thought is over.
"Get Rook and Zero," I say, my voice a low, deadly command. "Meet me in church. Now."
The heavy oakdoor of the church room seals us in. The air is thick with the promise of violence. Rook, Zero, and I are the only ones at the table. The others stand, lining the walls, a silent jury.
This is the law of Church, a tradition forged in blood and discipline. At this table, only three men sit: the President, the VP, and the Sergeant-at-Arms. The crown, the council, and the sword. Every other brother stands, a wall of leather and loyalty. They are not here to debate; they are here to witness the decree and become the instruments of its execution. It is the architecture of our strength, a silent vow made visible.
Zero’s report is brutal and efficient, “The boy is dead. The message is clear.”
"This is Cain's play," Rook says, his voice a low growl. "It has his stink all over it. Humiliation. Psychological warfare. He's trying to make us look weak, make us overreact." He has a map spread on the table, their known fronts marked in red. "The logical move is to hit their money. We bleed them dry, cut off their supply lines. A cold, strategic strangulation."
"No," Zero says, his voice flat. "A boy wearing our ink is dead. The law demands blood for blood. We hit their clubhouse. We burn it to the ground with their President inside. We send a message in fire."
The two paths lie before me: fire and ice. Zero’s is the path of pure, hot vengeance. Rook’s is the path of cold, strategic strangulation. I have walked both roads a hundred times.
But today, I see a third. A path shown to me by the ghost in the cage.
I hold up a hand, a quiet gesture that silences the room. "Hitting the clubhouse is what they expect," I say, my voice alow, flat rejection of both plans. "Hitting their money is slow. We're not going to hit their bodies or their wallets." I lean forward, my hands flat on the table, my eyes locking on Rook, then on Zero. "We're going to hit their soul."
Rook and Zero exchange a look of confusion.
"A man can recover from a lost soldier or a lost shipment," I continue, the words forming with a chilling clarity. "But you break his spirit… that's a wound that never heals. You find the one thing he loves, the one thing he thinks is safe from this life, and you put your hands on it. You show him there is no sanctuary."
Rook’s eyes widen slightly. He sees it now. This is a new level of cruelty, even for me. He thinks I've developed a new strategy. He doesn't realize I'm just applying the lessons I'm learning from my own prisoner. To truly break an enemy, you don't attack his walls. You find the ghost that haunts him.
"Their President, Judas Santos," I say, my voice dropping. "He's a puppet, but he's Cain's puppet. And he has a weakness. Glitch, you will find that person. A daughter in college. A brother he's still close to. Find the one person he loves."
My gaze shifts to our tech man, who nods once, his fingers already flying.
"Zero," I say. "You will prepare a snatch team. Small, silent. No bodies. We take the asset, and we hold them. We let Judas and Cain sit in the dark and imagine what we’re doing to the one person they thought was safe."
My orders are delivered. I have just declared a new kind of war, a quiet, vicious campaign of psychological terror. And the blueprint for it came directly from a girl in a cage, twenty feet above my head.
As the men begin to file out, their purpose now clear and deadly, I stop one of them with a single word.
"Rook."
He pauses, turning back to me, the question in his eyes.
My voice is low, for him alone. "Static died a civilian. The club can't claim him. He doesn't get a brother's burial. That is the law." I let the harsh reality of our code settle between us. "But he was killed because of us. That's a debt. The family... make sure they have what they need for a proper burial. Cash. No name on it. Just take care of it."
Rook gives a single, sharp nod. He understands. It's not charity. It's the club balancing its bloody ledger. He turns and leaves, the heavy oak door swinging shut behind him.
The heavy oakdoor thuds shut, sealing me alone in the heavy silence. For a moment, the cold thrill of the strategy remains—the clean, sharp adrenaline of crafting a new, more vicious kind of attack. It’s a familiar high, the feeling of a king moving his pieces into place for a checkmate.
And then, as it always does, it recedes, leaving a familiar, hollow void in its place.
The silence in the room is absolute, but the silence in my head is filled with the image of the dead prospect. Static. A boy I cast out, a body I am responsible for. His ghost now joins the other one that haunts this room. Abel’s face, superimposed over the boy's, his eyes asking the same silent question:Was it worth it?The weight of their sacrifices, their blood on my hands, is a crown far heavier than the one I wear for this club.
My hands clench on the arms of my scarred throne, the wood cool beneath my grip. I should be thinking about Judas Santos, about the logistics of the snatch team, about the daughter whose life I’m about to detonate. My mind should be a grandchessboard, mapping out a dozen moves and counter-moves against Cain.
But all the squares are empty. All the pieces have been swept from the board. All that remains is the image of the defiant queen, sitting on her cot, staring back at me. My mind is not a chessboard. It is a cell, and she is its only occupant.
I push myself away from the table, my chair scraping harshly against the floor in a sound of protest. I walk out of the church room, my boots echoing in the now-empty clubhouse. The air is stale with the ghosts of beer and smoke, but the electric energy of the war council has vanished. My steps carry me with an undeniable, magnetic pull, not to my bed or to a bottle, but to my office. To the monitors.
I sit in the cold, blue-white glow of the screens, the hum of the machines a low, conspiratorial whisper. With a click of the mouse, I pull up the feed to her cell.
