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The response appears before I reach the next light.

Quillan: matt says youre doing a personal errand

Me: Then why are you asking where I am?

Three dots pulse, vanish, then return.

Quillan: because i love you, babe

I roll my eyes.

Me: I’ll be around later.

Quillan: need help?

Absolutely fucking not.

Me: No.

A second later:

Quillan: boring

I toss the phone back into the cupholder.

This is not for Quillan.

Not for Mathias.

No one but me gets to touch this.

Maybe that sounds possessive, and that’s because it is. Steven belongs to me now.

John isn’t here, Kamden isn’t ready, so I am what’s left. And unfortunately for him, I’m a son of a bitch.

Steven Mercer has aged badly. The photograph I found of him online is several years old, probably taken when he still cared enough to smile for somebody else’s camera. Fuller face, dark hair not yet receding at the temples, and way less red around the nose.

The man who comes stumbling out of the neighborhood’s corner store holding a brown bag looks like someone took that picture and left it submerged in cheap whiskey for a decade.

I’ve been parked across the street for ten minutes, and within that time, he’s bought a bottle of alcohol, harassed the poor clerk who looks young enough to be his daughter, and scratched a lottery ticket. I assume it’s not a winning one since he curses, throws it on the wet ground, then spits on it.

As Steven finally leaves the small lit area underneath the shop’s awning and walks toward a battered pickup, I get out.

My footsteps are quiet on the wet asphalt as I get to within fifteen feet of him. He turns when he hears it, his eyes narrowing to slits as he regards me.

“Can I help you?” His voice is rough and full of false bravado.

There are moments when I wonder whether people recognize danger before they understand it.

I keep closing the distance between us, even as his free hand drifts toward his pocket. “Steven Mercer?”

“Who’s asking?” He takes half a step back, shoulders tightening.

I stop close enough to see the spiderweb of burst vessels mapping his cheeks, smell the sour sweat mingling with alcohol on his skin. “Friend of John Blake.”

“Who?”

“John Blake,” I repeat.