The sky over Manhattan was a smudge of bruised gray, the kind that promised rain before dusk.
Jason walked aimlessly along Mercer Street, the sound of his shoes against the wet pavement echoing like a memory. The city was the same — impatient, glittering, indifferent — but he wasn’t.
He moved through it now like a shadow.
Once, every street corner, every building, every whispered name had meant something to him — a piece of the empire he’d built with his own hands.
Now those same streets carried only silence, and the reflections in every window showed him the same stranger: hollow-eyed, unshaven, and older than he should’ve been.
His phone vibrated in his pocket again — another message from Bobby that went unanswered. The last few months have been a blur of headlines, legal meetings,
