Chapter 8; Message
The city glowed like a neon confession booth, all chrome halos and buzzing sin. Altair sat in the passenger seat, half-awake, half-suffocating inside a memory he never chose to keep.
Vittorio drove in silence, cigarette dangling between two fingers, the car slicing through the late-night traffic like it owed them space.
Altair drifted.
In the dream, he was small again. Barefoot on the cold steel underbelly of the New Lazarus City bridge, soaked in river water, lungs burning. Kevin had hauled him out by the collar, coughing, panicked, calling Altair's name over and over like he could shout life back into him.
That was the first night Altair realized hell didn't need him at least not yet.
But your hell meant nothing when you lived in someone else's hell.
Every night in that cramped, rotting apartment, Kevin's father turned the place into a ritual. Drunk hands, angry words, the thud of fists on bone. Kevin never fought back. He just stood there, jaw clenched, shoulders trembling, taking it like he was paying off some cosmic debt. Like if he endured long enough, it would mean something.
Altair watched. Every night. Too scared to move, to speak.
Until the night he wasn't.
He remembered the crack of the wooden bat in his hands, the weight of it. He remembered stepping between Kevin and the man, heart pounding so loud it drowned out every thought. Then the sound. The sick thud when the bat connected with the back of the man's skull. The man dropped. Altair didn't.
He kept swinging.
And swinging.
And swinging.
By the time he stopped, the room smelled like pennies and meat. Kevin's father wasn't anything anymore. Just a shape.
Altair had felt something warm then. Something frightening. A twisted sense of rightness. Like justice wearing a monster's face.
For once, he'd killed to save someone.
Or so he convinced himself.
The car rolled to a slow stop, snapping him out of the dream like a gunshot. The Constantine Mansion towered ahead, all stone arrogance and black windows.
Vittorio flicked the last ash from his cigarette and glanced at him.
"You know," he said, voice light, almost entertained, "the way you kept calling Kevin's name in your sleep? Anyone would think you were in love with the kid."
Altair blinked, still half inside the memory, still half tasting blood.
Vittorio added, shrugging, "But then I see how you look at that cop girl, Alice, and suddenly I'm confused. You Constantine boys really don't do simple attachments, do you?"
Altair didn't answer.
He just stepped out of the car, leaving the dream behind but dragging the guilt with him like a second shadow.
Vittorio laughed under his breath and followed.
The Constantine garden looked like it belonged to another universe entirely. Moonlight lacquered the pond in silver, the hedges were trimmed like they were auditioning for a magazine cover, and the air smelled nothing like New Lazarus. No rot. No gasoline. No fear. Just wealth.
A small table sat near the pool, candles flickering over crystal glasses. Vittorio lounged back. Leonard sat straight-backed, trying too hard. Rose stared at the koi pond as if memorizing the fish patterns would save her life. Altair remained on his feet for a moment before finally sinking into his chair like someone forced into a dinner he did not ask for.
Vittorio took the lead, of course.
"We have a quarterly issue approaching," he said, swirling his wine. "Heroin and Oxynoxylate distribution. Three major drops across the city. A perfect bait for Rico. He's desperate, paranoid, sloppy. If he thinks we're moving weight, he'll come sniffing."
Leonard nodded like a student cramming to impress a professor. Rose didn't react, unless blinking counted.
Altair just stared at the table, jaw tight.
Vittorio continued, "The three of you will oversee the transport routes. Leonard takes the South Blocks. Rose handles the Midtown shift. Altair, you'll run the Port drive. If Rico is going to make a move, it will be on you." he pointed at Altair
"Great," Altair muttered. "Put a target on me. Again."
"Consider it an honor," Vittorio replied with a grin. "Someone's gotta be the bait."
They went through logistics: trucks, escorts, falsified manifests, dead drops. Leonard asked questions. Rose took quiet notes. Altair waited for someone to say something remotely useful, but mostly it felt like a lecture.
Once Vittorio dismissed them, Altair pushed back his chair.
"Done? Good. I'll go prep."
But Leonard stood up quickly. "Hold on. We should… talk. The three of us. Build some trust."
Altair turned, giving him a tired, sharp look.
Leonard cleared his throat. "Father put me on this team because he wants me to learn from you two. Says you're the best we've got. And if I'm going to take over someday, I need to understand how things work from the inside."
Rose, barely audible, said, "I have amnesia."
Both men paused.
She continued calmly. "Every three days. Faces, names, places, all gone. I write what matters in a journal so I don't lose everything."
Altair blinked once. "That's… inconvenient."
She shrugged
Leonard nodded awkwardly, trying to show solidarity.
Altair exhaled, rubbing his brow. "Look, touching stories, deep bonding, all that emotional kumbaya… not my thing. I'm here to kill Rico. And eventually kill Vittorio."
Leonard froze. Rose lifted a brow. Vittorio didn't even look over.
Altair added, dead serious, "He and Rico screwed with my family. They made this personal. So unless this little campfire circle involves those two ending up six feet under, I'm not in the mood."
Rose quietly closed her journal.
Leonard swallowed.
Vittorio smirked at the pond's reflection.
Altair turned and walked out of the garden, jaw clenched, eyes burning with memories he refused to revisit. The night air followed him like a second shadow, and behind him, the perfect garden felt just a little colder.
Moonlight spilled across the bedroom ceiling like a thin sheet of ice. Alice lay awake beneath it, Maggie's bare arm wrapped tight around her waist, breath warm against her shoulder. The room should have felt safe. It didn't. Not tonight. Not after everything she'd seen Altair do.
Alice exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on nothing, her mind replaying the gunshots, the screaming, the broken maniacal way Altair kept pulling the trigger.
Her phone buzzed.
A single notification from an unknown number.
Be at the port in an hour.
A photo followed. Grainy. Night vision tint.
The New Lazarus Port. Shipping crates stacked like tombstones.
A black van.
Six vehicles scattered in formation.
Another photo came in. Closer. Focused.
Altair. Standing in the shadows.
Alice's heart punched her ribs.
Very slowly, she lifted Maggie's arm off her. Maggie murmured something in her sleep and tightened her grip.
Alice froze.
She loosened Maggie's hold with careful fingers, easing out from under her. The bed dipped, creaked. Maggie didn't wake.
Alice dressed in silence: jeans, boots, duty belt, jacket. No badge. No backup. Just the bitter taste of inevitability.
She paused at the bedroom door, looking back once.
Maggie's curls were spread across the pillow, her back bare, the kind of vulnerable that made Alice's chest tighten. She should wake her. She should tell her. She didn't.
Alice shut the door gently.
Down the stairs. Out the apartment. Into the cold.
Her car engine roared the moment she turned the key, headlights slicing through the dark. She sped onto the empty road, the city lights smearing across her windshield. Every turn tightened the knot in her gut.
Fifty minutes until the port.
Fifty minutes until whatever trap she was driving straight into.
And somewhere ahead, in the shadowed maze of shipping crates, Altair Constantine waited like a living storm ready to break.
The port at night looked less like a workplace and more like a battlefield. Fog clung low to the ground, rolling between the stacked crates like something alive. Sodium lights flickered overhead. The air smelled of salt, diesel, and quiet promises of violence.
Altair stood dead center in the open space, hands buried in the pockets of his long coat, posture loose but coiled. Six of Vittorio's men filed out of the van behind him, each carrying a crate stamped with falsified customs seals. They placed them in the middle of the vehicles arranged in a near-perfect circle.
One representative stepped out from each car, patted down by Vittorio's men, then waved through to approach the product. Negotiations began. Money cases opened. Boxes unlocked.
Altair didn't even glance at it.
He kept scanning the perimeter, chin slightly lifted, eyes slow and predatory. Trouble wasn't here yet, but it was coming, and every instinct in him thrummed with anticipation.
Far off, behind a shipping crate, Alice skidded to a stop. She ducked low, breathing fast, gripping her handgun with both hands. The cold metal steadied her, barely.
She pulled out her phone.
I am here.
She waited.
Nothing.
Her throat tightened. She leaned closer to the crate, peeking around the corner. Altair was in full view now, motionless, unreadable, the faint glow of the port lights turning his silhouette into something unreal.
He wasn't paying attention to the deal at all.
Because he felt it too.
At their respective joints, Leonard called Vittorio.
"No movement here," Leonard whispered.
Rose checked later. "Clear."
Which meant only one thing.
Their side was covered.
The threat would come head-on.
A low rumble vibrated through the ground. Headlights swept across the port gates.
Three black SUVs rolled in like executioners arriving late to the ceremony.
Suvs. Not sedans. Not vans.
Statement vehicles.
The floodlights snapped on automatically, bleaching the scene harsh white and giving a crisp, undeniable view of the man stepping out of the lead vehicle.
Rico.
White singlet. Bloodstains. Submachine gun slung lazily over his shoulder like he was taking a stroll. He scanned the port, found Altair, and smiled like he'd just spotted a long-lost friend he planned to bury.
Altair's lips curved into a slow, violent grin.
He had never seen Rico before.
He didn't need to.
Predators recognize each other by the air they take up.
Behind the crate, Alice's phone buzzed. The vibration nearly made her drop it. She lifted the screen with trembling fingers.
The choice is yours.
Her blood ran cold.
Someone had brought her here.
Someone who knew Altair.
And she was already in too deep to walk away.