The morning after the rain was gray and silent.
Clouds hung low over the city like smoke refusing to fade.
Marcus Vail sat in his small office, a cigarette burning in the ashtray beside him. The blinds were half-closed, and papers covered the desk — names, routes, bank transfers, and pictures of men in dark suits.
He had not slept.
When Sofia called him to ask if he had started the job, he only replied, “It’s bigger than you think,” before hanging up.
Now, as he flipped through the file he had started the night before, he muttered, “Lucian DeLuca… what the hell are you hiding?”
The name alone was enough to stir whispers in every dark corner of the city.
But Marcus wasn’t a man easily scared. He had dealt with crime families before — smugglers, politicians, men who smiled with knives
