Blood and Vows.

Chapter 8 — The Unseen Debt

The bell above the record store door gave a weary jingle when Alex stepped inside. The shop was small, half-forgotten by the city, its ceiling lights buzzing faintly, illuminating rows of wooden crates filled with vinyl. The scent of dust, paper, and the faint sweetness of aging cardboard clung to the air.

Alex paused by the entrance, scanning the aisles. Her shoulders carried a tension that even here refused to drop. She had no gun, no badge, no shield of authority left—only herself.

She walked toward the jazz section, fingers brushing across the spines of albums. Coltrane. Rollins. Davis. Mingus. Her thumb slowed on Kind of Blue. Jacob had teased her once: You don’t like jazz. You like control. She’d pretended to be offended, but he hadn’t been wrong. Jazz gave her order in chaos. That night he had fallen asleep on her shoulder before the record ended. The memory sliced deep. She forced it away and slid the record back.

Outside, across the street beneath the dripping awning of a shuttered boutique, Sebastian Cortez watched. His dark coat cut a silhouette that blended with the night. Beside him stood Leila, posture relaxed but eyes sharp.

“She’s alone,” Leila said quietly. “No tails. No one from the Bureau.”

“They don’t understand her yet,” Sebastian murmured.

“You do.” Leila’s gaze lingered on him. “And that’s the problem.”

He didn’t answer. His eyes stayed fixed on Alex, the way she tilted her head when she read the back of an album, the strand of hair that slipped across her cheek. Details most would ignore, he collected and memorized.

Leila folded her arms. “You told me once to tell you if I thought you were losing perspective. I think you are. Right now.”

Sebastian almost smiled. “Perspective is overrated.”

“Not when it gets you killed.”

Inside, Alex moved to a listening station, sliding a record onto the turntable. Tinny speakers hissed before Chet Baker’s trumpet bled through. She closed her eyes, lips pressed tight, shoulders softening as if the music pulled her somewhere Jacob hadn’t poisoned.

“She saved my life once,” Sebastian said suddenly.

Leila blinked. “What?”

He kept his eyes on Alex. “At the harbor. Years ago. Everything went to hell. Gunfire, collapsing beams. I was pinned under steel. And then—she appeared.”

Leila’s face stayed impassive, but he caught the faint flicker of surprise.

He remembered the roar of metal and the sting of salt air. His leg had been trapped, crushed beneath a support beam. Pain chewed through him with every breath. Smoke clawed his lungs, gunfire ricocheted through the collapsing warehouse.

And then footsteps. Lighter than the chaos around them.

Through the haze, a figure appeared—small for a soldier, mask over her face, scarf pulled tight. She scanned the wreckage quickly, then spotted him.

She crouched beside him, hands bracing on the beam. “You’re going to hate me in ten seconds,” she said, voice muffled by the mask.

“I already hate you,” he rasped, the words edged with pain.

She leveraged a bar under the beam. Instead of lifting on three, she jerked on two, using his reaction as a gauge. He bit back a cry but managed to drag his leg free. The world exploded into stars, but she was already pulling him up, half-carrying him toward the faint triangle of night where the loading bay door hung crooked.

Bullets tore splinters behind them. She shoved him behind a forklift, then returned fire with crisp, efficient bursts that scattered their pursuers. Her eyes through the mask burned with focus.

By the time an engine screamed outside the chain-link fence, she had him moving again. At the truck, she lowered him into the back, leaned close, and said, “You’ll live. Try not to waste it.”

He had asked for her name. She tapped the mask. Doesn’t matter.

Then she was gone, running back into the fire.

“She didn’t even tell me who she was,” Sebastian said now. “But I found out later. Alex Walker. The woman I was supposed to forget.”

Leila studied him. “You’ve paid debts before, Sebastian. Usually in blood. Not like this.”

“Debts work best when one side doesn’t know the balance sheet.”

“Or when you don’t want to admit it’s more than a debt,” Leila countered.

His jaw flexed, but he said nothing.

Inside the store, Alex returned the record to its sleeve and brought two choices to the counter. The clerk slid them into a paper bag, making a quiet joke about the rain. She gave him a small, exhausted smile.

That smile struck Sebastian harder than he expected.

Alex stepped out beneath the awning, tucking the bag against her ribs. For a heartbeat, she went still—head tilted, eyes scanning the shadows like a hunter sensing another presence. His pulse caught. She didn’t turn, didn’t call out. She simply adjusted her coat and walked away into the night.

Sebastian exhaled slowly.

“She nearly spotted you,” Leila said.

“She would have if she wanted to.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“With her, it is.”

Rain thickened, blurring headlights on the street. They began walking, matching the city’s rhythm.

“Say it,” Sebastian told her.

“What?”

“The line you’ve been holding back.”

Leila’s mouth curved faintly. “Debts like this don’t disappear.”

“They grow interest,” he replied.

“And who pays it—her, or you?”

“Me.”

“That’s the part that worries me.”

He turned his collar against the rain, eyes still drawn to the corner where Alex had vanished. “I’ve never asked you to worry.”

“And I’ve never waited to be asked,” she said softly.

They walked on. Behind them, the record store bell jingled again for someone else seeking refuge. But the woman who had once pulled him from fire was gone, carrying her records and her ghosts, unaware of the shadow that still owed her everything.