not a coincidence
813 Words
Chapter 2
The rain had thinned to a mist, soft and clinging, as if trying to soothe the chaos that had erupted inside Eclipse. Outside, police sirens still flashed like fragments of a past Kai Navarro had buried deep but never deep enough.
Inside, the restaurant was wrecked.
Blood streaked the floorboards. Glass crunched under Kai’s boots as he moved through the mess, taking stock. Shelves shattered, chairs overturned, his top-shelf whiskey gone. But that wasn’t what unsettled him.
It was her.
Elena stood by the door, arms crossed, eyes tracking every cop like a hawk. The adrenaline had faded, replaced by something colder: calculated focus. She wasn’t just a customer with quick reflexes. She moved with purpose, with precision. Like someone trained.
He’d have to be careful. Very careful.
A square-jawed officer with a clipboard and no patience approached.
“You the owner?”
Kai nodded. “Yeah.”
“Name?”
“Ryan.”
The officer paused. “Last name?”
Kai stared him down. “Just Ryan.”
After a beat too long, the officer scribbled something down. “You’ll need to come in and give a full statement.”
Kai gave a half-shrug. “You got it on tape?”
The officer blinked. “What?”
Kai nodded at the shattered shelves. “There are no cameras. No recordings. If you want my statement, I’ll give it tomorrow. When my floor isn’t covered in blood.”
The cop muttered something and moved on.
Elena drifted closer, her gaze lingering on the ambulance outside as the shooter was loaded in, cuffed and groaning.
“I can’t believe he found me,” she murmured.
Kai’s brow lifted. “Found you?”
A pause. “I mean… this place. Doesn’t exactly scream attention.”
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”
Silence settled between them, dense and heavy.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
She turned, guarded. “You first.”
He smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m just a bar owner.”
She studied him like she didn’t believe a word. “No, you’re not.”
He didn’t answer. He walked behind the bar, grabbed a clean towel, and started wiping the blood-streaked wood. A shard of glass sliced his palm. He winced and pressed the towel to the cut.
“Let me see,” Elena said, stepping behind the bar.
Kai hesitated, then held out his hand. She examined the cut it was deeper than he’d thought.
“You’ve done this before,” he said.
“I worked as a nurse… once,” she replied without meeting his gaze.
Liar.
Her hands were steady, careful as she wrapped his hand in a strip of cloth. Odd how the same hands that had pulled a trigger without blinking were now tending a shallow wound with that much grace.
“You could’ve killed him,” he said.
“I didn’t. I aimed for the shoulder. He’ll live.”
“You always carry?”
“You always know when to duck?”
She turned her head slightly, eyes narrowing. “And you knew. He hadn’t even drawn, and you knew.”
Kai said nothing.
“You moved like someone trained,” she continued. “Not like a guy who owns a bar.”
He gave a dry chuckle. “Just a coincidence. Couldn’t let him wreck the place.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “When you called 911, you said ‘officer down.’ Civilians don’t say that.”
Still, silence.
The last officers filtered out. The ambulance doors slammed shut. Rain fell in soft sheets outside. The storm had passed, but its shadow lingered.
Elena turned toward the exit, pausing in the doorway.
“You gonna be here tomorrow?”
Kai leaned an elbow on the bar. “You planning to shoot someone again?”
She gave the faintest smile. “Only if they deserve it.”
And with that, she vanished into the mist.
Kai stood in the wreckage a moment longer, listening to the jazz crackling from the record player. He looked around—the shattered shelves, the bullet holes in the wall, the fading prints of crimson on wood.
He exhaled slowly and pulled a blood-speckled wallet from his pocket.
Inside: an ID he’d taken off Castillo’s leather jacket during the scuffle earlier.
Tom Castillo.
Kai’s jaw tightened.
“What does he want with her…” he muttered, eyes narrowing.
He slid the ID back into his pocket and moved to the far end of the bar. Between the untouched bourbon and rum, his fingers found the neck of an old, dusty bottle.
He gave it a sharp twist.
Click.
A soft groan of wood followed, and a panel in the back wall creaked open, revealing a narrow staircase descending into shadow.
Kai stepped inside.
The door closed behind him.
- Writer
