CHAPTER 6
567 Words
SERA
Friday night. My apartment.
Every lock engaged. Kitchen knife on the counter. I hadn't left since coming home from Caine Industries.
Six hours of research had given me two Dominic Caines.
The first: Stanford MBA. Private equity. Founded his company at twenty-eight. Board positions. Charity galas. Forbes profile. No criminal record. Not a single photograph showing the tattoos I'd seen crawling up his neck.
The second: president of the Iron Saints MC. Federal investigations, none resulting in charges. Weapons trafficking. Money laundering. Territorial disputes that had left bodies in three counties. Listed in one archived article as "D. Caine", two words buried on page nine, never repeated.
Two identities. Two worlds. One man.
And I was sitting in the narrow space where they overlapped.
My laptop screen had gone to sleep. The apartment was dark, just the weak yellow light above the stove and the blue glow of the city through my window. The radiator ticked, irregular, like a stuttering heartbeat. The remains of my dinner sat untouched: a sleeve of crackers and soup I'd opened but never heated. My mouth tasted like stale coffee.
Then I heard it.
A footstep. In the hallway outside my door.
I went still. The radiator stopped ticking. Even the couple upstairs went quiet. My building was old, converted warehouse, thin walls, creaking floors. I knew the patterns. Mrs. Chen in 4B shuffled. The college kid in 4D stomped. The hallway had three boards between the elevator and my door, each with its own voice.
Two had spoken. The third, directly outside my apartment, was silent.
Someone was standing on the other side of my door.
I reached for the knife. Cheap wooden handle, varnish worn smooth. I moved toward the door on bare feet, cold floorboards groaning faintly beneath my weight. Pressed my eye to the peephole.
The hallway was empty.
No, not empty. A manila envelope sat on my doormat like a patient threat.
I waited. One minute. Two. No sound. No shadow.
I cracked the door with the chain on. The hallway air rushed in, stale carpet and industrial cleaner and something sharper underneath, chemical, like aftershave that didn't belong to any of my neighbours. I grabbed the envelope. Smooth and cool, heavier than I'd expected. Shut the door. Deadbolt. Shoulder blades flat against the wood.
Inside: photographs. Eight. Glossy, high resolution. Professional equipment. They smelled of fresh toner.
Me walking into Caine Industries. Me in the elevator, face tilted toward the glass. Me at my desk. Me leaving at five-fifteen, blazer folded over my arm.
And the last photo: Purgatory. Time-stamped last night. I was visible through the open door, half in, half out, the red neon staining my face.
A single sentence in black marker on the inside of the envelope:
We know who you talked to.
My phone buzzed. Unknown number. Same one from last night.
I answered.
"Don't move." Dominic's voice. Low. Tight. Stripped of every pretence of corporate polish. "I'm sending someone. Don't open the door until you hear the name Gauge."
"How did you know..."
"Because they're not just watching you, Sera." A pause. The growl of an engine. The c***k of wind. He was on a bike. "They're watching me. And they just made you a message."
The line went dead.
Three minutes later, the creak of the third floorboard. A heavy knock.
"It's Gauge, sweetheart. Prez says move. Now."
- Writer
