Violent Skin
1532 Words
New Devlin was a city within a city. The moment Alya crossed the eastern bridge, she felt the difference like a cold hand on her back. Everything here was sharper—the graffiti was angrier, the people quieter, and even the air had a grit that clung to your teeth. It wasn’t polished. It didn’t try to be. New Devlin knew what it was: raw, fast, and always listening.
She wore black today. No makeup. Hood up.
The Violet Skin wasn’t hard to find. It stood out like a wound on the corner of Helgar Street. A strip club by name, but in truth, it was a nesting ground for deals, cover-ups, and the kind of people who never used their real names. The neon sign blinked half-dead, casting a bruised purple glow on the wet pavement. The front door was flanked by two bored-looking guys—one checking IDs, the other staring blankly into space.
Alya didn’t hesitate.
“Not open yet,” the bouncer muttered without looking at her.
“I’m not here for the show,” she replied.
Now he looked. She met his gaze dead-on. After a moment, he squinted. “You Alya?”
She nodded.
He stepped aside and thumbed the door open.
“Upstairs. Second door. Don’t touch nothin’.”
The hallway inside was narrow and hot, lined with mirrors that had seen too many versions of the same kind of sin. She walked slowly, counting doors, until she reached the second. The door was thick. Steel core, probably. She knocked.
“Come in,” said a voice like rusted metal.
She entered.
Ellis looked nothing like she expected.
He wasn’t old, but something in his face made him feel ancient. Sharp cheekbones, thinning hair pulled back tight, eyes the color of rust. He sat behind a desk cluttered with papers, weapons, and a half-eaten pear. His sleeves were rolled up, and tattoos coiled along his forearms like stories he’d stopped telling.
“Alya Benchman,” he said, as if it tasted strange in his mouth. “You look like a question I didn’t want to answer.”
“I was told you knew my father.”
“I knew a version of him. Smart. Charismatic. Dangerous.”
She didn’t sit. “He died. They both did.”
“I heard.”
“And you didn’t care?”
“I don’t deal in grief,” Ellis said simply. “I deal in information. And pain, when needed.”
“I want the truth.”
“Do you?” He tilted his head. “Or do you want your version of it?”
She stepped forward. “I know my father was in deep. But I need to know who pulled the trigger.”
“More than one trigger was pulled that night.”
Her throat tightened. “You were there?”
“No. But I sent someone who was.”
Alya’s breath caught. “Who?”
Ellis sighed and leaned back. “Her name’s Talia. A cleaner. One of the best. She was called in after the fact—to make sure the bodies stayed buried.”
“She saw them?”
“She handled them.”
Alya’s nails dug into her palms. “Where do I find her?”
Ellis took a long moment before answering. “West Hollow. She runs a garage. You ask for a wheel alignment, and she’ll ask if you want winter tires. Say yes, and she’ll know you’re not just there for oil.”
It felt too easy. Alya narrowed her eyes. “Why help me?”
“Because your father helped me once. Saved my life, even though it cost him something he didn’t talk about. I’m paying that debt. But after this... you’re on your own.”
She nodded. “I don’t need your protection.”
Ellis smiled faintly. “I didn’t offer any.”
She turned to leave.
“One more thing,” he called out.
She paused.
“If you keep going down this road, you’ll find that the truth is a knife—it cuts both ways. And some of the blood on it might be yours.”
Good, she thought, stepping into the hallway. I came prepared to bleed.
—
The garage in West Hollow was camouflaged in decay. Faded signage, rusted beams, the smell of fuel and despair thick in the air. Talia’s Garage didn’t look like much. That was the point.
She approached the front office, greeted by the chime of a dying bell overhead. A woman looked up from behind the desk—tall, lean, hair braided tight to the scalp. Her fingers were stained with grease, but her eyes were sharper than any blade.
“Help you?” she asked, voice low and clipped.
“I need a wheel alignment.”
Talia didn’t blink. “You want winter tires with that?”
“Yes.”
The woman stood, wiped her hands on a rag, and motioned for Alya to follow. They walked through the garage, past cars with their guts hanging out, until they reached a back room. Talia locked the door behind them.
“I knew this day would come,” she said without ceremony.
“You knew my father.”
“I buried him.”
Alya’s breath hitched.
“He was dead when I got there,” Talia continued. “Gun to the head. Your mother was shot in the chest—twice. Clean hits. Professional.”
“Do you know who did it?”
Talia hesitated. “No names. But I know why.”
“Tell me.”
“Your father made enemies. Not just one. He played both sides, Alya. Yours, theirs. The mafia, the cops, the bankers. He thought he could be the middleman in a war with no rules. Eventually, someone had to make him stop.”
“So they killed him?”
“No. Your mother killed him.”
Alya froze.
Talia’s voice was steady. “I found her fingerprints on the gun. Her DNA on the grip. His blood on her clothes.”
“No. That’s not possible. They loved each other.”
“They did. Until your father gave up something he shouldn’t have. A file. A list of names. He sold out allies. Maybe even sold out her.”
Alya shook her head, hands trembling. “Then who killed her?”
Talia didn’t answer at first. She walked over to a drawer and pulled out a folder. Threw it onto the table between them.
Alya opened it.
Photos. Evidence. Reports. Her mother, sprawled on the floor. Blood like a halo. Gunpowder residue. A single footprint near the window—too large to be hers.
“A cleanup job,” Talia said. “Whoever finished her off didn’t want loose ends. But he left one.”
“Me.”
Talia nodded. “Maybe you weren’t home yet. Or maybe they didn’t know you existed.”
“I was there. I saw it.”
Talia looked at her. “Then maybe you weren’t meant to survive.”
The weight of it sank into her skin like a bruise. Her mother killed her father. Someone else killed her mother. And Alya had been nothing more than an overlooked piece of the game board.
Until now.
“Do you want revenge?” Talia asked.
Alya didn’t flinch. “I want all of them.”
“Then I’ll help you,” she said simply. “But only once.”
Alya stood. “That’s all I need.”
—
That night, Alya returned to her motel and didn’t sleep. She laid every photo across the floor. The timeline. The angles. The players.
Her mother’s eyes in the pictures haunted her. So sharp. So full of decision.
Had she pulled the trigger in fear? In rage? Or was it strategy?
Her father had been many things—but a traitor?
She stared at a photo of them together. A moment from years ago. Her father had his arm around her mother’s waist, and her mother was smiling. Smiling.
She thought of her own hands. The ones she’d held over her ears that night. The blood under her fingernails. The coldness in her bones.
And now, truth twisted everything.
But that wasn’t what broke her.
It was the small receipt she found tucked inside Talia’s folder—dated the morning of the murder. Signed: M. Benchman.
From a pawnshop.
He had sold something the morning he died.
Something personal.
Alya blinked. Her heart stuttered.
She picked up her phone and dialed the number Ellis had included on the back of the receipt.
It rang once.
Then: “Hello?”
“Did someone named Michael Benchman sell you anything on this date?”
The voice paused. “Yeah. Real expensive ring. Said it belonged to his wife once. Real sentimental.”
Alya dropped the phone.
Her mother hadn’t killed him in betrayal.
He had sold her wedding ring.
He had given up everything. Even her.
The rage settled in her stomach like fire.
If they wanted her silent, they should have made sure she stayed a child.
But Alya Benchman had grown teeth.
And she was ready to bite.
- Writer
