Page 4 of Hard Bargain

They came up to the counter with two energy drinks and a bag of chips. “Evening,” one of them said, smiling like they hadn’t just walked in and stirred up crap Knox didn’t feel like dealing with.

He scanned the items and kept his expression flat. “That it?”

“Yeah.” The guy nodded. “Thanks, man.”

They left with the same easy closeness they came in with, leaving behind only the faint draft from the opening door and the soft, fading jingle of the bell.

Knox let out a breath through his nose, annoyed at himself for reacting at all. It wasn’t like he cared. It wasn’t like any of it mattered. It was just… his dad had carved certain shit into him before he was old enough to know better. Knox had spent years telling himself he was nothing like that man—would never be that man—but sometimes old reflexes rose before the better parts of himself had a chance to speak up. That alone was enough to make shame burn hot beneath his skin.

Some damage stayed in the blood longer than it had any right to.

He bit his lip again, harder this time, shaking off the leftover tension. “Get over it,” he muttered under his breath.

It should’ve been just another shift, another useless hour, but something in the air felt wrong. It felt like the kind of night that pretended to be harmless right before it went straight to hell.

* * *

By the time his shift ended, the feeling hadn’t gone away. If anything, it had settled deeper.

Knox turned things over to his colleague for the graveyard shift, shoved his hands deep in his jacket pockets, and stepped out into the night. He started the walk home, boots hitting pavement, each step echoing through the empty street.

This late, the city always felt hollowed out. Sirens wailed in the distance, somewhere a dog barked at something unseen, and the streetlights threw pale circles over cracked sidewalks and sagging fences.

A few blocks down, he turned into the alley he always cut through. The entrance sat wedged between a shuttered liquor store and a tattoo shop that had been boarded up for so long its windows looked permanently blind. It was lit only by a single buzzing light high on the brick wall. The shortcut shaved five minutes off the walk, and at this point in the night, five minutes mattered.

He was a few steps in when the hair on the back of his neck rose. That’s when he heard it: a loud thud. The sound cracked through the alley with enough force to stop him mid-step. He froze, every muscle in his body tightening at once.

For one clean second, instinct told him exactly what to do: turn around, walk out, keep breathing, and pretend he heard nothing. People who minded their own business lived longer in this part of town. But something tugged at him to take a quiet step forward. Another thud came a second later, followed by a muffled shout.

I should have left.

Instead he edged closer, moving along the wall, staying in the shadows. His pulse quickened, but he kept his face blank out of instinct. It wasn’t bravery or altruism that had him moving forward. Knox knew himself well enough not to lie about either. It was something meaner than courage and far less noble than concern: a restless, dangerous curiosity, sharpened by the thread of adrenaline that always seemed to pull him toward things he ought to avoid. It lived in him like a defect. Even on nights when all he wanted was to keep his head down and make it home in one piece, some reckless part of him still turned toward trouble as though it might contain an answer.

That’s when he saw them: four men near the far side of the alley, two of them pinning a third against the wall. The rough familiarity made it obvious this wasn’t the first time they’d done such a thing. The victim’s head lolled once before one of them jerked him upright by the collar. His mouth was bloodied, one eye already swelling shut, a gash cutting through his eyebrow and bleeding freely down his cheek. Fear slicked every line of what was left of his face.

But it wasn’t the violence that held Knox still. It was the man standing a few feet away, dressed in dark clothes that fit too well. He wasn’t doing anything. That was the first thing Knox noticed, and somehow the most damning. While the others moved and cursed and tightened their grips, he remained perfectly composed, posture easy. He did not belong to this alley, or this neighborhood, or any part of Knox’s life.

The overhead light buzzed and flickered, catching on his features for a moment. A strong jaw roughened with stubble, sharp enough to look carved. Dark hair, cut short and clean. He was tall and broad-shouldered, standing a few inches above the others, radiating an unspoken dominance. There was something else there, something colder and far more dangerous than mere size. Knox knew—without knowing how he knew—that this was the sort of man who did not need to raise his voice in order to be obeyed. This was someone you didn’t look at twice unless you had a death wish.

So why the hell am I still staring at him?

Knox stayed exactly where he was, hidden in shadow, pulse beginning to hammer with a violence of its own.

One of the men holding the victim shifted, yanking the guy upright. The pinned man tried to speak—maybe beg or explain—but it came out as a choked stutter Knox couldn’t make out.

The man in charge lifted a hand, barely more than a tilt of the fingers, but everything stopped. The two men restraining the victim went rigid, tightening their hold. Even the air in the alley seemed to hold its breath.

The one giving orders stepped forward, slow and unhurried, until he came to a stop in front of the trembling man, studying him with the kind of detached attention one might give a stain on a shirt. His hand slipped into his coat.

Knox’s stomach dropped before the gun even appeared.

The faint glint of metal caught the weak light as he drew it out and twisted a silencer onto the barrel. He gave a short nod, and the two men forced their captive down. His knees buckled against the pavement, a strangled sound escaping him, swaying as the two released their grip and stepped back.

The barrel came up next, leveled at the man now trembling on his knees. The sound of the shot cut through the alley in a muted crack. The victim collapsed immediately, his body hitting the pavement in a blunt, final thump.

Knox recoiled hard enough that his shoulder smacked into the wall behind him. His breath caught somewhere high in his chest and stayed there, but he didn’t dare make a sound. For one wild instant, the alley tilted, the world narrowing to black brick, blood, and death.

The man didn’t check the body. He lowered the gun, slid it back into his coat, and gave a faint nod to the others, who moved at once to deal with the corpse.