Back in the game
1103 Words
Chapter 5
The alley behind Eclipse reeked of motor oil and cigarette ash, but that wasn’t what made Kai pause at the threshold. It was the scent of trouble. Old, familiar, and sharp as cordite.
He stood beneath the flickering backlight, gaze narrowed at the SUV idling across the street. Tinted windows. Engine too quiet. Driver trying too hard not to be seen.
They were watching again.
Kai didn’t bother with subtlety. He stepped out and cleaned the glass window with slow precision.
The SUV’s engine cut, tires rolling as it disappeared into the night.
Kai tossed the wiper he used into the bin and returned inside, locking the deadbolt behind him.
“I need a smoke,” he muttered.
It had been years since Kai lit a cigarette. He preferred quieter vices now. Alcohol. Isolation. Routine.
But tonight didn’t feel quiet.
It felt like the first tremor before a quake.
And it was Elena’s fault.
She had walked into his bar and tilted the axis just enough.
He didn’t like it.
Elena sat on the floor of her motel room, back against the wall, laptop humming beside her. The glow from the screen painted her face in cold blue hues as she scrolled through encrypted files her contact had delivered. Off-book reports. Prison logs. Redacted field notes.
Rodgers had ties to someone called C.L. Reyes.
Not cartel. Not officially.
Power moved differently in the Southwest. Reyes wasn’t a name you found in public records. He was whispered about in black sites, off-grid detainment logs, and unsolved disappearances.
What concerned Elena more was that Reyes had ties to a black-ops task force that had been disbanded after a failed operation in Durango.
And guess who appeared in a surveillance shot near the blast site?
Kai Navarro.
Clean-shaven. Military posture. Eyes dead.
Elena stared at the grainy photo, her breathing slowing.
He wasn’t just a trigger man.
He was trained. Coordinated. Dangerous.
So why was he running a bar?
Why now?
The following night, the bar was quieter than usual. Low jazz hummed through the speakers while glasses clinked softly against polished wood. Kai wiped down the counter with calm efficiency, but he wasn’t relaxed.
The silence felt loaded.
At exactly 9:14 p.m., Elena walked in.
She looked different tonight. No smile. No small talk. Just a cold, calculating stare as she slid into her seat.
Kai didn’t move to pour.
“You followed me,” she said quietly.
Kai didn’t flinch. “You’ve been watching me longer.”
“Rodgers wasn’t random.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“Then what the hell is this?”
She dropped a photo onto the counter. Kai’s blurry image from Durango stared back at him.
He looked at it without blinking.
Elena leaned closer.
“You were there. Durango. Operation Black Halo. Classified U.S.–Mexico joint task force. You shouldn’t even exist.”
Kai finally poured her a drink.
“Lots of things shouldn’t exist,” he said calmly. “They still do.”
“That blast killed seventeen people. You walked away.”
“I didn’t walk,” he replied. “I crawled. Through someone else’s mistake.”
“You’re not just a bartender.”
“No.”
They stared at each other like two gunfighters across rooftops. The tension between them crackled.
Elena leaned forward again.
“So who is C.L. Reyes?”
Kai’s jaw twitched. He poured himself a drink for the first time since she’d known him.
“Someone who should’ve stayed buried,” he muttered.
“But he’s not, is he?”
Kai took a slow sip.
“You know what Reyes does to loose ends?”
She waited.
“He doesn’t cut them off,” Kai said quietly. “He re-braids them. Wraps them around your neck.”
The lights flickered once.
Then the power died.
Darkness swallowed the bar.
Kai dropped low instantly, hand reaching beneath the counter. A metallic click echoed softly.
“Elena, down.”
His voice changed. Hard. Sharp. Military.
Glass exploded inward.
A silenced shot tore through the bottles behind the counter, liquor spraying like blood. Kai tackled Elena to the floor, shielding her with his body.
“Back room. Move.”
They crawled fast, broken glass cutting through sleeves and palms. Kai kicked the swinging door open, grabbed a sawed-off shotgun hidden beneath the sink, then shoved a pistol into Elena’s hands.
“Ever used one of these?”
“Not in years,” she replied, checking the slide with practiced familiarity.
“Hope you haven’t forgotten.”
The front of the bar creaked.
Someone stepped through the shattered entrance.
Then another.
Kai motioned silently. Two fingers. Point left.
He moved right.
Silence stretched for one dangerous heartbeat.
Then hell broke loose.
Gunfire ripped through the room. Loud. Violent. Close enough to taste.
Kai rolled behind the counter and fired. The shotgun blast thundered through the bar, dropping the first attacker instantly.
Elena moved without hesitation.
One shot.
Center mass.
The second attacker collapsed mid-step.
Silence returned almost violently.
Only the smell of gunpowder and spilled whiskey remained.
Kai stood slowly, eyes fixed on the bodies.
“They’re not cartel,” he muttered.
Elena lowered her weapon. “Then who are they?”
Kai’s expression darkened.
“I think Reyes just said hello.”
Later, sirens wailed somewhere in the distance.
Kai stood in the alley behind Eclipse, blood drying across his knuckles as smoke curled from the cigarette between his fingers.
His peaceful life had just been shattered in a matter of minutes.
Elena stood beside him in silence.
Neither of them spoke until the cigarette burned halfway down.
“I never asked for this,” Kai finally said.
“You mean Reyes?”
“No.” His eyes stayed on the street ahead. “You.”
Elena’s throat tightened.
“You brought the storm,” he said quietly. “Now we either face it or drown in it.”
She reached into her jacket and pulled out a flash drive.
“This is everything I have on Reyes,” she said. “If you want out, we burn it and run.”
Kai stared at the drive.
“You want in...” she continued carefully, “then once this is over, I leave. I want my normal life back. And I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see me again either.”
“That’s why I’m doing this,” Kai replied, taking the drive from her hand.
Elena frowned slightly. “What does that mean?”
Kai looked toward the city lights, expression unreadable.
“It means I’m already in.”
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