Cordite. The scent of the drive-by. The alley. The ruined food truck.
But it's not the alley. It's older. Deeper.
Wet copper. Blood. Rain-soaked concrete.
A sudden, cold vacuum opens up in my chest—the unmistakable onset of a spiral.
The walls of the penthouse suite dissolve. The velvet drapes rot away into nothingness. The gilded mirrors shatter.
I am sixteen years old.
I am standing in the hallway of the Costa compound. The old house. The hardwood floor is cold beneath my socks. The grandfather clock ticks in the corner.
The phone in my hand is cold. The plastic receiver is slick with sweat.
"Matteo?" My voice is thin. Weak. A boy's voice.
Static on the line. The sound of rain pouring through the earpiece. Sirens in the distance.
"Dante." Matteo's voice is destroyed. Ripped to shreds. The sound of a man who has just seen the end of the world. "Dante, it's Dad. He's…"
A choked sob. The sound of my older brother breaking.
"Where are you?" I scream into the phone. "Where are you!"
"The alley. Behind the warehouse. Blood everywhere, Dante. He's gone."
The phantom smell of wet copper fills my lungs. I am choking on it. Drowning in it. I try to breathe, but the air is filled with rain and blood.
My left hand betrays me, vibrating with a force I can’t suppress. The adrenaline crash tearing through my nervous system. Twenty-year-old trauma ripping its way to the surface. The phantom phone call ringing endlessly in my ears.
I drop the knife. The metal clatters loudly against the floorboards.
I press my hands to my ears, trying to block out Matteo's voice. The broken sobs. The sirens.
"Stop," I gasp, my chest heaving. "Stop."
I squeeze my eyes shut. I am in the hotel. I am thirty-six. I am the guard.
But the teenager on the phone is screaming in my head. The helplessness. The crushing inability to protect my family. To be there when they needed me.
I wasn't in the alley. I didn't see the blood. But I heard it. I absorbed the trauma through the phone line, stealing Matteo's memory and forging it into my own armor.
The panic threatens to consume me. My lungs burn. The darkness closes in.
Then, a scent cuts through the cordite and the wet copper.
Sweet orange. Warm cumin.
A hand touches my shoulder.
I flinch hard, my combat instincts taking over. I sweep my arm out, intending to neutralize the threat, to break the attacker's arm.
My forearm connects with soft, yielding flesh.
Gemma gasps, stumbling backward.
The physical contact shatters the hallucination. The hallway vanishes. The phone disappears. The smell of blood evaporates.
