When HEROES don't come HOME

Chapter Ten – Broken Lights

The strip bar was tired long before Reeves sat down.

It smelled of perfume and disinfectant, of spilled beer that had lived too many nights in the floorboards. Colored bulbs throbbed against mirrored walls, casting fractured light that made everyone look cheaper than they were. The stage was small, the music too loud to ignore but too soft to hide behind.

Michael Reeves took the back booth because it let him see everything at once. He sat half in shadow, the way he always had, even back when he carried a badge. The jacket on his shoulders was worn at the collar, his hair longer than regulation would have allowed, his face carved by lines that hadn’t been there ten years ago.

On the table in front of him sat a half-finished beer, a phone, and the silent weight of four hundred dollars he hadn’t yet earned. His eyes, sharp despite the wear, tracked the man across the room.

Target. Male, mid-thirties, office tan and a ring that still gleamed under neon. The guy laughed too loud at jokes that weren’t jokes, his words slurred by whiskey. A girl perched on his lap, her smile professional, her eyes flat. He tipped too much, touched too much, and believed that money excused both.

Reeves rubbed his temple with one finger. Four hundred dollars for proof. That was what the wife had slid across the table with shaking hands: four crisp hundreds, her wedding band still on, her voice low when she said she “just needed to know.”

Once upon a time, Reeves had been paid by the city to catch killers, unravel rackets, and put wolves in cages. His chest had carried medals, commendations stamped in polished bronze he’d never asked for. Gone now. Stripped when the department decided he was too loud about the wrong things. They’d called it “conduct unbecoming.” He called it survival instinct.

And now? Now he hunted drunks in strip bars.

The man across the room leaned in to whisper something to the dancer, his hand sliding high up her thigh. She giggled on cue, the sound hollow. Reeves reached for his beer and stopped halfway, the taste already sour in his mouth.

“Still at it, huh?”

The voice slid in from the side. He looked up. Karen. Blond hair tied back, tray of empties balanced on one palm, eyes sharp despite the neon fog.

“Karen,” he muttered.

She smirked. “Thought you were dead. Or locked up. Didn’t expect to see you still chasing shadows.”

Reeves leaned back in the booth. “Dead, locked up—same thing. Just cheaper rent.”

She laughed under her breath and set the tray on the table’s edge. “Remember when I used to feed you names? Who was pushing pills on 5th, which corner boys carried guns too big for their pockets? You’d buy me coffee, call me your guardian angel.”

“Yeah,” Reeves said, lifting his glass in salute. “Guardian angel with a rap sheet.”

Karen shrugged. “I got you results.”

“And I got you out of two arrests you didn’t deserve,” he shot back. His tone wasn’t cruel—just tired.

She studied him. “Look at us now. You—PI, working cheater cases in places like this. Me—serving shots to men who can’t remember my name. We’re both falling stars, Mike.”

He didn’t argue. Instead he raised a finger at the bar. Two shots arrived in seconds—cheap vodka, sharp enough to strip paint. Reeves downed one, the burn dragging down his throat, then chased it with the second before the fire had died. His stomach twisted, but the ache felt honest.

Karen frowned. “You’ll pickle yourself one of these nights.”

“Already halfway there,” he said.

Across the room, the target pulled the dancer closer, his hands clumsy, greedy. The man laughed like he was the king of something small. Reeves felt a wave of contempt—less for the cheating than for the mediocrity of it. If you’re going to betray someone who trusted you, at least be subtle. At least earn the sin.

The music shifted, heavier bass, dimmer lights. The target leaned forward, whispered into the girl’s ear. She rolled her eyes behind her smile. Reeves raised his phone, angled it discreetly, clicked. One shot. Another. Clear. Enough for the wife to confirm what she already knew.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket, exhaled. The case was over before it began.

Karen slid into the booth across from him, abandoning her tray. “You hate this work,” she said quietly.

Reeves smirked without humor. “You think?”

“You used to chase dealers, Mike. You took down half a gang with just a wire and a prayer. I was there. Now you sit here photographing drunken accountants. What happened to you?”

Reeves looked at her for a long moment. “Department happened. Politics. Brass that didn’t like me shining a light in the wrong corners. They took the badge. The medals. Left me with rent and bills. That’s what happened.”

Karen leaned closer, voice softer. “So you drink yourself blind and wait for the phone to ring?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he waved for another shot, tossed it back, grimaced.

The target laughed again, his voice cutting across the music. Reeves could almost hear the echo of wives’ voices—every wife who had ever sat across from him, hands twisting, voices breaking. They all said the same thing: Just tell me the truth.

He’d given it to them. Always. But the truth never saved them. It only confirmed their nightmares.

The music dipped; the dancer left the stage. The target slumped deeper into his chair, the girl still on his lap. He whispered something else, and she smiled like a blade.

Reeves pushed out of the booth. His knees cracked as he stood. He left cash on the table—too much, more than a man in his line of work should leave. Karen frowned at it but didn’t push it back.

At the door she caught his sleeve. “Mike… whatever you’re chasing, I hope you find it.”

He paused, looked at her. For a second he almost said something—something about angels, about how she was the last person who still called him Mike instead of Mister Reeves. Instead he nodded once, sharp, and left.

Outside, the night air was cold and smelled of rain. Neon buzzed behind him, a cheap heartbeat. He pulled out his phone, glanced at the photos: one of a man too drunk to remember his wedding vows, another of a girl smiling through boredom. Proof.

Four hundred dollars. Tomorrow he would deliver the images. Tomorrow another woman’s suspicions would become certainty.

Reeves slid the phone back into his pocket and lit a cigarette. He drew the smoke deep, coughed once, then stared down the empty street. The photo sat in his device, money in his future, but nothing in his chest.

He exhaled slowly, smoke curling into the night.

Once, justice had meant something. Now it was just paperwork, shots of whiskey, and a PI license stapled to the ruins of a badge.

He dropped the cigarette into a puddle, watched it hiss out.

Then he walked into the darkness, more tired of himself than of the city.