Chapter 3 - Ashland Avenue
The rain was coming down in sheets by the time my black sedan pulled up to the weathered brick apartment building on Ashland Avenue. The neighborhood was a labyrinth of dim streetlights, narrow stairwells, and the constant hum of the elevated train rumbling a block away.
I ignored the sharp, burning tearing sensation in my side, stepping out into the cold downpour with my coat pulled tight against the wind. Victor stayed in the car with the engine idling, watching the perimeter like a ghost.
I climbed the three flights of creaking wooden stairs to the second floor, the air smelling of cheap laundry detergent and old floorboards. Apartment 3B had a brass plate hanging crookedly on the door: E. CARTER, RN.
I didn't bother knocking.
Using a specialized tension wrench and pick set I kept tucked in the lining of my belt, I bypassed the cheap deadbolt in less than four seconds. The lock clicked softly, and the door swung open into the dark, cramped apartment.
It was sparse, clean, and smelled faintly of brewing chamomile tea and old paperbacks. A single desklamp was lit in the corner, illuminating stacks of medical journals, anatomy textbooks, and a corkboard covered in newspaper clippings, financial charts, and handwritten notes.
I stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind me.
Before I could take a second step, a sharp metallic click echoed from the dim hallway to my left.
“Don't move,” a voice cut through the dark—cool, steady, and utterly devoid of fear.
I turned my head slowly. Standing in the doorway of her small kitchen was Emily. She wasn't wearing her navy scrubs anymore; she wore an oversized gray cable-knit sweater and soft lounge pants. In her right hand, held with a terrifyingly steady grip, was a heavy, nickel-plated Smith & Wesson revolver that looked entirely too big for her frame.
Her sharp blue eyes locked onto mine, widening by a fraction when she recognized the face of the man she had patched up just hours earlier.
“You,” she whispered, her finger resting lightly against the trigger. “You’re out of bed. Your stitches are going to rip.”
I let out a low, humorless chuckle, raising my hands slightly—not in surrender, but to show I wasn't reaching for a weapon.
“You have a remarkable habit of giving me medical advice, Nurse Carter,” I said, taking a slow step forward into the dim light. “Even when you’re holding a gun on me in your own living room.”
“This is private property, Mr. Callahan,” she said, her voice never wavering as she tracked my movement, keeping the barrel pointed squarely at my chest. “And you broke into my home. Step back toward the door or I will put a hole through your other lung.”
“You won't,” I murmured, studying her face—the sharp jawline, the tight brown hair now unbound and falling loosely around her shoulders, framing eyes that burned with a decade of accumulated rage and pain.
“Try me,” she challenged, her jaw tightening. “You think because you run half the city, I’m afraid to pull this trigger? I’ve spent ten years waiting for the men who killed my parents to show up at my door. I just didn't expect the boss himself to deliver his own corpse.”
The atmosphere in the room grew heavy, suffocatingly dense. The ghost of David Carter hung between us like a shroud of smoke.
“Your father was a smart man, Emily,” I said softly, using her first name for the very first time. It tasted foreign on my tongue, yet completely natural. “Too smart for his own good. He thought he could skim from the ledger and hide behind federal protection without paying the toll.”
“He didn't skim anything!” she shouted, a sudden crack of raw, agonizing vulnerability breaking through her icy exterior for the first time. The gun trembled just a millimeter in her hand. “He was trying to get us out! He was compiling evidence against you and your father to shut your whole damn operation down, and you murdered him for it! You blew up our car with my mother inside it!”
Her breathing grew shallow, her chest heaving under the heavy wool of her sweater. The pain of a ten-year-old wound tore open right in front of me, raw and bleeding.
I didn't flinch. I didn't reach for a weapon. Instead, I took another slow, deliberate step forward, closing the distance until the cold steel barrel of her revolver was literally pressing against the fabric of my shirt, right over my bandaged ribs.
May you like
She gasped softly, pulling back slightly in shock, but she didn't lower the gun.
“If you want vengeance for David Carter,” I said, my voice dropping into a low, hypnotic register, “here I am. No guards. No armor. No escape. Pull the trigger.”
