CRIMSON VENDETTA

Blood on His Hands

The first thing James Moretti noticed was the smell.

Copper. Thick and wet, coating the back of his throat like old pennies. It was the smell of blood—he'd known it since he was twelve years old, since the first time he'd watched a man die in an alley behind Sal's Restaurant.

The second thing he noticed was the cold.

He was lying on concrete. The damp had seeped through his jacket, through his shirt, into his bones. His left leg ached where the old bullet wound sat, a dull throb that promised rain. His head pounded with the rhythm of his own heartbeat, slow and heavy, like a drum at a funeral.

James opened his eyes.

The warehouse ceiling loomed above him, thirty feet of rusted steel beams and corrugated iron. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, a metronome counting down to something he couldn't remember. The emergency exit sign glowed red at the far end, the only source of light in the cavernous space.

He pushed himself up on his elbows. His hands were slick.

*Blood.*

James looked down at himself. His white shirt was ruined—dark crimson spread across his chest, down his arms, soaking into the fabric. He patted himself down, searching for a wound, a hole, something that explained why he was wearing a dead man's wardrobe.

Nothing. The blood wasn't his.

"What the hell..."

His voice echoed off the empty walls. The sound was wrong—too loud, too sharp, like he was hearing himself from outside his own body. His mouth was dry, cotton-mouthed like he'd been drinking all night, but the last thing he remembered was—

The last thing he remembered was Sal's Restaurant.

Dinner. Uncle Sal's veal parmigiana. Gianna laughing at something he'd said. The way her hand had brushed his when she reached for the wine. He remembered walking her to her car, kissing her forehead, telling her he'd call her tomorrow.

He remembered leaving. Walking toward the Warehouse to check on a shipment that was coming in late.

After that... nothing.

James forced himself to his feet. His legs wobbled, and he caught himself on a wooden pallet stacked high with crates. His fingers left bloody prints on the rough wood.

*Think. What happened after you left Sal's?*

Nothing. The memory was a void, a black hole where his last hours should have been.

He looked around the warehouse. It was one of the Moretti family's storage facilities—the old one on Harborside, the one they used for shipments that needed to be... discreet. The main office was in the back, a small room with a desk, a filing cabinet, and a phone that wasn't connected to anything.

The office light was on.

James moved toward it, his footsteps echoing in the empty space. Each step felt like wading through cement. His head throbbed in time with his heart, and the copper smell grew stronger the closer he got.

The office door was open.

The body was on the floor.

James stopped in the doorway. His brain tried to process what he was seeing, but the image didn't make sense. It was like trying to read a book in a language he'd forgotten—the words were there, but the meaning wouldn't come.

The man was in his late forties. Dark suit, expensive shoes. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling with the flat, glassy look of a man who'd stopped seeing anything a long time ago. His throat had been cut from ear to ear, a grin of crimson that had painted the floor in a spreading puddle.

James knew him.

He knew the face, the build, the cheap Rolex on his wrist.

*Detective Paul Morrow.*

FBI. Federal Investigation Division. The man who'd been circling the Moretti family for three years, digging into their finances, their connections, their shipping records. The man who'd promised to put Marco Moretti in prison for the rest of his natural life.

And there he was. Dead. In a Moretti warehouse. With James standing over him, covered in his blood.

"Oh no."

James backed away from the doorway, his hands coming up instinctively. He looked down at his palms, at the blood that had dried in the creases of his skin, and felt the world tilt sideways.

He'd killed a federal agent.

Or someone wanted him to think he had.

The thought cut through the fog in his head like a blade. James forced himself to breathe, to think past the panic that was clawing at his throat.

*Someone set you up. Someone made sure you'd be here. Made sure you'd wake up like this.*

The warehouse was too quiet. Where were the guards? Where was the night shift? There should have been at least three men on duty, watching the shipments, watching the doors.

James moved to the main office window. He looked down at the warehouse floor, his eyes searching the shadows for movement.

Nothing.

He looked back at the body.

*You need to leave. Now. You need to get out of here, get somewhere safe, and figure out who did this to you.*

He started moving toward the emergency exit, his feet carrying him across the warehouse floor without his brain giving the order. The blood on his hands was drying, flaking against his skin. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets, hiding the evidence.

*Think. What happened after you left Sal's?*

Still nothing. The black hole in his memory yawned wide, swallowing every attempt to reach into the void.

He reached the emergency exit and pushed the bar.

The door didn't move.

He pushed again, harder. The metal bar groaned but refused to give. James stepped back, his heart hammering in his chest, and looked up.

A steel bar had been welded across the door from the outside.

James turned and ran for the main entrance, his injured leg protesting with every step. He shoved the heavy doors—they groaned but didn't budge. He threw his shoulder against them, once, twice, the impact jarring through his entire body.

Locked. Welded shut.

He was trapped.

James pressed his forehead against the cold metal of the door and tried to breathe. His lungs felt too small, his vision going grey at the edges.

*Trapped with a dead FBI agent. The whole place is sealed. When someone finds him—*

*"James?"*

The voice came from behind him. High, female, edged with confusion. He spun around, his hands coming up in a defensive stance, and saw—

*Tessa.*

She was standing in the doorway of the office, the dead detective at her feet. She was wearing a dark jacket, jeans, and the kind of practical boots that said she'd been following a lead. Her face was pale, her eyes wide as she took in the scene in front of her.

"James? What—"

She looked down at the body. Then at him. Then at the blood on his hands.

"Stay back," James said, his voice rough. "This isn't what it looks like."

*She won't believe you.*

"James... what did you do?"

"*I didn't do anything.*" The words came out too loud, too desperate. He lowered his voice, forcing himself to calm. "Tessa, listen to me. I don't remember coming here. I don't remember any of this. I woke up like this—"

"Woke up?" She was staring at him like he was a stranger. "You woke up covered in blood in a locked warehouse with a dead FBI agent?"

"Yes."

"That's your explanation? That's what you're going with?"

"It's the truth."

She reached into her jacket, and James saw the glint of a badge. "I'm going to ask you to stay where you are, James. Don't move."

"Tessa—"

"*Don't move.*"

He stayed still. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his temples, in his throat, in the tips of his fingers. The blood on his hands felt like a brand.

Tessa pulled out her phone with her free hand, her eyes never leaving his. She started to dial, her thumb moving over the screen—

And the lights went out.

Complete darkness. The kind of absolute black that pressed against your eyes like a physical weight. James heard Tessa gasp, heard her phone clatter to the concrete floor.

"*Tessa*—"

A crash. A scuffle. A muffled cry.

James lunged forward in the darkness, his hands outstretched, and found nothing. The air was cold, empty, swirling with something that smelled like—

*Chloroform.*

The world tilted.

The last thing James heard before the darkness swallowed him was Tessa's voice, distant and terrified:

"James..."

And then there was nothing.

---

When James woke again, the warehouse was empty.

The body was gone. The blood had been cleaned. His shirt was still stained—he was still covered in Detective Morrow's blood—but there was no evidence that anything had ever happened in the main warehouse.

Except for the fact that Tessa was gone.

The lights were back on, buzzing with their usual flicker. The emergency exit was still welded shut. The main doors were still locked.

James pushed himself up from the floor where he'd been left, his head spinning. His hands were empty, his pockets were empty—they'd taken his phone, his wallet, his keys.

They'd left him alive.

He stumbled to the office and found it clean, the filing cabinet still intact, the phone still on the desk. The only evidence that anything had happened was the faint scent of bleach in the air.

*Someone cleaned up. Someone made sure this place was spotless. And then they left you here to take the fall.*

His legs gave out. James slumped against the desk, his head in his hands, and tried to breathe.

Someone had killed a federal agent. Someone had framed him. Someone had locked him in this warehouse with the body and made sure he'd be found.

They'd given him an alibi—an alibi that made him look guilty.

The only witness was gone.

James looked up at the ceiling, at the rusted beams, at the water dripping somewhere in the darkness.

*They wanted you here. They wanted you to wake up covered in blood. They wanted you to panic, to run, to look guilty.*

He was going to find out who.

He was going to find out why.

And when he did, he was going to make them pay.

James Moretti pushed himself to his feet, wiped the dried blood from his hands onto his ruined shirt, and started looking for a way out.

He had a vendetta to begin.