My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photo loaded slowly.
McGrevy’s Tavern.
Front window smashed.
Flames blooming inside.
Under it: Thirty hours left.
But something in the photo was wrong.
The bar lights were off.
And Charlie’s truck was parked out front.
### Part 7
I called Charlie six times.
No answer.
By the seventh, I was already in the truck. Micah drove. I loaded anger into silence because Jacob was asleep in the cabin and I refused to let him wake to the sound of me becoming someone else.
McGrevy’s sat on the corner of Ash and Mercer, a stubborn little building wedged between a laundromat and a pawn shop. When we turned onto the block, smoke crawled under the streetlights. Fire trucks had not arrived yet. A few neighbors stood across the street, faces lit orange.
The front window was gone.
Flames licked the curtains.
I ran inside.
Smoke hit low and bitter. The sprinklers I had installed after buying the place were already coughing water, but fire had found the old liquor shelf and climbed fast. Glass popped. Wood hissed. The air tasted like burned sugar and chemicals.
“Charlie!”
A groan came from behind the bar.
He lay on the floor with blood on his temple, hands zip-tied behind him. I cut him loose with the knife from my pocket and dragged him toward the door as Micah killed the last of the flames with an extinguisher.
Outside, Charlie coughed until he vomited black spit.
“Kid,” he rasped.
“What kid?”
“Dany. Danny. Something. Young guy. Neck tattoo. He said Maurice told him to leave a message. I tried to stop him.”
“You saw his face?”
Charlie nodded weakly. “He looked scared, boss. Real scared.”
