HONEY AND KNIVES

One year later

One year later, the apartment on 5th and Main still had bad wifi.

It also had two coffee mugs in the sink. A stack of Zara’s GED textbooks on the kitchen table. And Dante’s jacket thrown over the chair that he never remembered to hang up.

They weren’t married. They weren’t engaged.

They were just... home.

Zara worked at a community center now. Teaching reading to kids whose parents were in the same system she used to police. No badge. No gun. Just a name tag that said "Z. Cole, Tutor."

Dante did freelance IT. Off the books. Fixed laptops, wiped drives, installed security systems for small businesses that didn’t ask questions. He still flinched at sirens. Still walked the perimeter of their apartment twice before bed.

It was quiet.

It was boring.

It was everything they’d fought for.

Until Tuesday.

---

*6:43 AM. Knock at the door.*

Three knocks. Sharp. Official.

Zara was already up. Dante was in the shower.

She opened it to Reyes.

Older. Tired. In jeans and a windbreaker, not a suit. No backup. No warrant.

“Can I come in?” Reyes asked.

Zara didn’t move. “You’re not here to arrest us.”

“No.” Reyes held up a manila folder. “I’m here because 3 of the 14 are dead.”

That got Dante out of the shower. Towel around his waist, gun already in his hand from the bathroom drawer.

Reyes’ eyes flicked to it. “Put it down, De Luca.”

He did. But he didn’t go far.

Zara made coffee. Bad wifi coffee. The kind they’d had on the day he got out.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Car bomb. Jersey. One of them.” Reyes slid photos across the table. Burned metal. “Hit and run. Chicago. Second one.”

She tapped the last photo. “Overdose. Fentanyl. Miami. Third.”

Dante leaned against the counter. “All within 10 days.”

“All people who were supposed to testify next month,” Reyes finished.

Silence.

“You think it’s connected,” Zara said. It wasn’t a question.

“I think someone is cleaning up loose ends.” Reyes looked at both of them. “And I think you two are next on the list.”

Dante laughed. Once. No humor. “We’re nobody. We did our time.”

“You’re the only two who walked out of Harbor View with the full ledger and lived,” Reyes said. “That makes you a problem. And a witness.”

Zara wrapped her hands around the mug. “What do you want from us?”

“Protection. For you.” Reyes pulled out two new phones. Burners. “And your help. Because the feds who were dirty are gone. But the people they worked for aren’t.”

Dante picked up a phone. Turned it over. “You want us to go back in.”

“I want you to stay alive,” Reyes said. “The Bureau can’t officially touch this. But unofficially? I need eyes. And you two are the only ones who know what to look for.”

Zara looked at Dante.

A year of quiet. A year of 3 PM walks on separate tracks. A year of learning how to be normal.

And now this.

“Give us 24 hours,” Zara said.

Reyes nodded. “You have 12. After that, I can’t keep you off the grid.”

She left. No goodbye.

---

*Hour 3: The Argument*

The door closed. Dante immediately started packing. Laptop. Cash. The drive from Harbor View that they’d never turned in. The insurance copy.

“Don’t,” Zara said.

Dante stopped. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t do this. Don’t go running again.”

“We’re not running. We’re—”

“Surviving?” Zara cut him off. “That’s what we called it last time too. Look where it got us. 4 years. 3 years.”

Dante slammed the duffel on the table. “So what? We stay here and wait for a car bomb?”

“I don’t know!” She threw her hands up. “I just got used to the quiet, Dante. To the coffee. To not looking over my shoulder.”

“And I’m sorry, but I can’t un-know what I know.” He stepped closer. Voice dropped. “If we don’t do something, they’ll keep killing people. And then they’ll come for us.”

Zara stared at him. At the scar on his shoulder. At the way he was already halfway gone.

“Fine,” she whispered. “But we do it my way.”

“Which is?”

“No guns. No running. We go to Reyes. Officially. Witness protection. Real protection. Not this off-the-grid bullshit.”

Dante shook his head. “Witness protection is how people end up dead in Jersey.”

“Then what’s your way?”

“My way is we disappear. For real this time. New names. New city. And we take the ledger with us.”

They stood there. A year of peace between them, and one folder to ruin it.

The burner phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

`You have visitors. - R`

---

*Hour 6: The Visitors*

They weren’t FBI.

Two men. Suits. No badges. One had a tattoo on his knuckles: a crown.

They were waiting in the stairwell when Dante and Zara came down to check the mail.

“Mr. De Luca. Ms. Cole.” Crown-knuckles smiled. “We’d like a word.”

Dante stepped in front of Zara. “Wrong building.”

“Is it?” The second man pulled out a photo. Their apartment window. Last night. “You’ve been very hard to find. The Bureau did a good job hiding you.”

Zara’s blood went cold. “What do you want?”

“The drive,” Crown-knuckles said. “The real one. Not the copy you gave Reyes.”

Dante didn’t blink. “Don’t have it.”

“Liar.” The man pulled a knife. Not to use. Just to show. “We know you do. Victor kept backups. We want them.”

Zara moved. Fast. She grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and swung.

It caught Crown-knuckles in the knee. He went down screaming.

The second man reached for Dante.

Dante was faster. 20 seconds. Disarm. Pin. Knife on the floor.

Sirens in the distance. Someone called it in.

“Go,” Dante said to Zara. “Now.”

They ran. Out the back. Into an alley. Into a car that wasn’t theirs.

Dante hotwired it in 30 seconds. Old habits.

Zara was shaking. “They found us. In a year. They found us.”

“I know.” Dante checked the mirrors. “Change of plans. We’re not going to Reyes.”

“Where then?”

“To the only place they won’t look.”

---

*Hour 9: The Place They Won’t Look*

The Bureau.

Not the main building. The evidence locker. Sub-basement.

Reyes met them at the service entrance. No questions about the stolen car.

“You have 5 minutes,” she said. “Then I’m reporting this.”

Inside, it was cold. Rows and rows of boxes. Case files. Evidence.

Dante went straight to locker 447. Key from his pocket.

Inside: the drive. The real one. And a file. `MORALES, V. OFFSHORE.`

But also something else. A USB. Labeled in sharpie: `FOR Z + D. IF WE’RE DEAD.`

Zara picked it up. “What is this?”

Reyes looked away. “Victor made it. Before Harbor View. Said if anything happened to him, give it to you.”

Dante plugged it into a secure laptop.

Video. Victor. Alive. Smiling.

“If you’re watching this, I’m dead,” Victor said. “Good. But before you celebrate, know this: I wasn’t working alone. I had partners. In the Bureau. In City Hall. In the D.A.’s office. And they’re still there. The names are on the drive. The proof is on the drive. But the money... the money is somewhere else.”

He leaned forward.

“And Dante? She’s pregnant.”

The video cut.

The room went silent.

Zara’s hand went to her stomach. Instinct.

Dante looked at her. “What?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t... I haven’t...”

Reyes cleared her throat. “You might want to check. Because if Victor knew, they know.”

That’s why the men came.

That’s why the 14 were dying.

Not for the ledger.

For this.

Dante put his hand over Zara’s. Over nothing. Over everything.

“Okay,” he said. “New plan.”

“What?” Zara asked.

“We don’t run. We don’t hide.” Dante looked at Reyes. “We finish it. All of it. The names. The money. The people Victor worked for.”

Reyes nodded slowly. “That’s a death sentence.”

“Maybe,” Dante said. “But we’ve done time already.”

Zara looked at him. At the fear in his eyes. At the determination.

She thought of the apartment. The coffee. The quiet.

Then she thought of a kid. Growing up looking over their shoulder.

“No,” she said. “We don’t run.”

She took the drive. Put it in her pocket.

“Let’s go burn it all down.”

Outside, the rain started again.

The quiet was over.

BABE. "She's pregnant"??? WE ARE NOT OKAY 😭