Page 25 of Prospect’s Curvy Vinyl Girl

"Bossy," he mutters.

"Accurate," I correct him.

He shakes his head, dropping into a crouch to carefully pick up the Coltrane record. He handles the damaged sleeve with a reverence that makes my chest ache in the best possible way. The killer, carefully sorting vintage vinyl on the floor of a dying shop.

I drop down next to him. We sit shoulder to shoulder on the dusty floorboards.

The silence in the Vinyl Vault shifts. It’s no longer the suffocating quiet of isolation. It’s the loaded calm before a storm.

I slide a stack of 45s into a crate. Tyler hands me a pile of sleeves. Our hands brush. The spark of the Ignition flares, a constant, burning reminder that gravity has shifted.

Four years of carrying my mother's ghost. Years of locking the doors and praying the monsters wouldn't break the glass.

I look sideways at the man beside me. The phantom. The prospect. The killer.

Mine.

The Syndicate thinks they own Crimson Hollow. They think they run this town on a spreadsheet and a Tuesday schedule. They think they just intimidated a helpless record store owner and her dense cousin.

They have no idea what’s coming for them.

And for the first time since my mother died, I can't wait for Tuesday.

8

Tyler

The steering wheel of the battered nineteen-ninety-two Honda Civic Mac gave me outside the clubhouse Chapel shudders in the alleyway. The heater is shot. The floorboards reek of stale cigarette smoke, damp upholstery, and old engine grease. The cracked plastic of the wheel bites into my bare palms, freezing cold.

Two in the morning. Crimson Hollow decays around me. The streetlights buzz, casting long, sickly yellow shadows over the cracked asphalt and boarded-up storefronts. The air bleeding through the poorly sealed windows smells like frost, sulfur, and rotting leaves.

The apartment building across the street is a brick monolith. Third floor. Apartment 3B. That’s where the enforcer sleeps. Nadia’s intel was flawless. Three hundred dollars bought me his location, his routine, and his digital drop points.

His name is Martino. I don't give a fuck what his name is. He's a dead man walking.

The window across the street flickers with the pale blue light of a television screen. He's awake.

My hands grip the steering wheel until the plastic groans under the pressure. The animal locked inside my chest thrashes, clawing at my ribs. It demands blood. It demands that I cross the street, kick the door off its cheap hinges, and crush the man's trachea. The urge to feel cartilage snap under my thumbs is a physical ache. The desire to watch the light go out of his eyes burns through my veins like battery acid.

Because he touched her money. He stood in her shop. He breathed her air.

Mine. Wendy is mine. The Ignition locked her into my soul the very second she put her hand on my arm and claimed me as her cousin. It reorganized my DNA. It burned away the ghost I used to be. I’m no longer a deep-cover operative adrift in the world, waiting for the next assignment. I’m a shield. I’m a weapon meant only for her.

Martino’s car is parked in the shadows of the alley below his window. A dark gray sedan. Standard Syndicate issue.

I slip out of the Civic. The freezing air bites my face, shocking my system. Years of undercover work trained my boots to step without making a single sound. The shadows swallow me whole. I blend into the darkness so thoroughly I cease to exist.

I reach the sedan. I run a slim jim down the window glass. The lock pops with a dull, hollow click. I open the door and slide into the driver's seat. The interior smells of cheap cologne and fast food wrappers.

I pop the glovebox. Locked. The edge of my combat knife pries it open in two seconds flat.

Inside sits the thick manila folder.

I flip on a small penlight, shielding the narrow beam with my palm. I flip the cover open.

The world stops spinning. Gravity vanishes.

It's a ledger, yes. But underneath the extortion records lies a secondary, heavily annotated file.