The only thing promised is death.
Out here, surrounded by unreadable namesetched into stone, it’s impossible to argue with him. Death is the only vow this world never breaks. The only thread binding every living soul together. It waits beneath my feet, hangs in the air I breathe, and whispers through the rows of forgotten lives surrounding my home. It’s probably why I’ve always preferred the company of the dead. The living are unpredictable. They lie. They betray. They pretend their asses off so convincingly they eventually forget where the performance ends and the person begins. The dead don’t have that luxury. Every secret they ever carried is buried with them. Every promise they ever broke no longer matters.
I climb the worn timber steps into my house, the porch groaning beneath my boots before I push open the front door. The familiar scent of incense greets me immediately, soaked so deeply into the timber that I doubt even a full renovation could strip it from the walls. I’ve tried. More than once. At this point, it’s as much a part of this place as the creaking floorboards and the bodies that frame these grounds.
I toss the keys onto my entry table, the dull clink echoing through the otherwise empty house. The leather jacket slides from my shoulders, landing over the back of a dining chair with a heavy thud. I reach for it. My eyes catch on the blood staining the black leather sleeves, my fingers tightening around the leather before slowly releasing it.
I should throw it in the wash, but I can’t. Instead, I leave it where it is.
Cameron’s words refuse to loosen their grip on my thoughts.
People die. Ideas don’t.
Everyone watches the crown.
The bastard died with a smile on his face because he knew he’d left me with a clusterfuck to unravel. For the first time in years, I don’t know if I’ve been chasing a woman…or a lie.
The shrill vibration of my phone against the kitchen bench cuts through the silence.
Unknown number.
I stare at the screen for a long moment before reaching for it.
“Yeah?”
A low chuckle crackles down the line. “You always answer the phone like someone pissed in your Cheerios?”
The voice is older, weathered by cigarettes and time. It still takes me less than a second to place it.
“I didn’t think you were still alive.”
“Most people don’t.”
The line falls silent. Not because either of us has run out of things to say, but because in our world, men who disappear are usually supposed to stay that way. Snow falls steadily beyond the kitchen window, the flakes catching in the security lights that line thecemetery. I turn away from the glass, absentmindedly straightening one of the framed photographs hanging in the hallway before making my way into the living room. I kneel in front of the fireplace, stacking a couple of split logs over the kindling before striking a match. The flame catches slowly, crackling as it spreads through the timber, filling the room with the familiar scent of burning cedar.
“I heard you’ve been keeping yourself busy.”
“I heard you retired.”
“I did.”
I ease back onto the couch, resting my forearms on my knees as I watch the fire begin to take, growing stronger with each passing second. The flames lick at the cedar, popping loudly enough to fill the silence Thomas leaves between each sentence. There’s only one reason he’d be calling me after all these years, and it sure as hell isn’t to reminisce. He’d worked for Titan for decades, long before I was old enough to understand what men like him actually did for a living. By the time I came along, Thomas’s name was already a name spoken with quiet respect, the kind earned by surviving a profession where most men ended in shallow graves. Some said he retired. Others thought he’d simply started working for himself, taking on the occasional contract when the price, or reason, was right. Whatever the truth, one thing never changed. Thomas Sterlingonly ever picked up the phone when someone was about to die.
“What can I do for you, Sterling?”
He doesn’t answer immediately as I listen to nothing but the slow rasp of his breathing.
“You remember that favor you owe me?”
My grip tightens on the phone, because I knew there was a reason behind this call.
“I remember.” My finger drags over the old scar running across my palm. Fifteen years old. One stupid mistake that almost cost me my life. One man standing between me and Titan’s wrath.
“Figured you would. Anyways, kid. I’m gonna need to call it in.”
“What do you need?” Another measured pause fills the line, before he finally says, “I need you to do a job.”
There it is.
