Page 194 of Inevitable Endings
I inhale, slow and deep. My breath clouds in the air.
Beside me, Ada’s voice crackles softly through the earpiece.
“Issa, now is the time.”
Just one sentence. I know she is dying of anxiety.
One sentence that tells me the snipers are locked in, the feeds are running, the rats are exactly where they’re meant to be.
One sentence that means they’re watching.
The world.
The underworld.
Him.
I glance over my shoulder, just once.
Sawyer stands ten feet behind me in the dark, arms crossed, face unreadable. His eyes are fixed on mine like twin blades. He doesn’t speak. He nods, strength.
He won’t let anything through.
I turn back toward the door.
I take one more breath.
Then I step forward.
The doors open with a low groan that sounds like the throat of something ancient tearing open.
And just like that—
I’m inside.
The room is massive. Cold stone, vaulted ceilings, and low-burning sconces casting everything in a rust-colored haze. It smells like dust, like power, like something old dying slowly.
There are fifteen men inside, more than I anticipated to see.
Seated around a long, U-shaped table. Italian. Russian. American. Heavy coats. Rings on every finger. Some with their hands clasped. Some resting fingers near the hilts of weapons, just in case. All of them turn when I walk in.
And every single one goes still.
Lorenzo is at the head.
His face drains of color the moment he sees me.
He recognizes me.
But he doesn’t recognize this me.
‘‘Lorenzo, perhaps Nick, or should I sayuncle?’’
And for a moment, no one breathes.
The silence is not quiet. It’s pulsing. Tight. Like the air is seconds from tearing open. Every face in that room, a who’s who of legacy, of blood, of greed and violence, twists into confusion, recognition, and disbelief. These men, seated like kings around acoffin-shaped table, blink at me as if I’ve stepped out of a ghost story. As if I don’t belong in their world. But I do. More than any of them. Because I’m the blood they tried to erase, and I’m here to remind them that memory is never truly dead. It waits.
Nick—Lorenzo—rises to his feet too quickly, his chair scraping back behind him. The sound is sharp. Startling. His hand twitches like he doesn’t know whether to defend himself or deny me. But he recognizes me. He recognizes everything. His mouth opens, the first syllables of a name, or maybe a lie, forming on his tongue.
