Chapter 75: YOU’RE LATE

I stayed leaning against the counter, arms still crossed, mind already splitting into parallel tracks, one calculating how to neutralize Karim before the deadline, the other resigned to spending another night across a table from men who wanted their money back. Outside, a car passed. Upstairs, the building was temporarily quiet. Hubert was at work. Karim was somewhere in the building, waiting.

Sarah shifted on the couch, the white hotpants pulling tight across her thighs. She looked smaller than usual, folded in on herself, but the fear in her eyes had sharpened into something closer to resolve.

"If we can’t stop him," she said, almost too quietly, "I don’t know what I’ll choose."

I met her gaze and held it.

"You’re not going to have to choose. That’s the whole point."

She didn’t look convinced. Neither was I, not completely. But the alternative, watching Karim walk into her apartment in two days and take what he wanted while holding that photo over her head, was unacceptable.

I pushed off the counter, walked over, and sat down beside her. Close enough that our shoulders almost touched. For a while we just sat there in the quiet apartment, both of us staring at different points in space, both of us running out of easy options.

Two days. Just two days.

And tonight I still had to go play cards for a man who already knew my address.

I walked over to where she sat on the couch and crouched in front of her so we were eye level. Her hands were cold when I took them in mine. I gave them a small, firm squeeze.

"We’ll get through this. Alright?"

Sarah looked at me for a long second, then nodded once. The movement was small, but it was steady.

I rose, leaned in, and kissed her. Soft. Brief. She kissed me back, lips trembling just slightly against mine, before I stepped away.

There were too many things that still needed handling.

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TARGET: Sarah Angi

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[ RELATIONSHIP ]

> Partner: [Hubert]

> CORRUPTED

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[ SYSTEM SYNC ]

> Favor: 85% [?]

> Threat: None

> The Lover: +25% EXP

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x6 Sexual Encounter EXP

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> GRIEVANCE LOG

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??????????

Evening came colder than the afternoon had promised.

I stood on the cracked sidewalk a short distance from the apartment entrance, jacket zipped, hands in my pockets, watching the street. Snow had stopped falling an hour ago, but the wind still cut down the block in irregular gusts. A single streetlight near the corner flickered every few seconds. Most of the windows in the building behind me were dark. Somewhere farther down the road a dog barked once and went quiet.

I checked the time on my phone. 10:47.

Mark’s car was supposed to arrive at any minute. I had no intention of waiting inside the building, the less time I spent in the same hallway as Karim tonight, the better. The twenty thousand from the previous game still sat in an envelope under my mattress. Part of me wished I had brought some of it. Another part of me knew cash wouldn’t have helped with what was actually circling me.

Nine minutes passed.

A pair of headlights turned onto the street, then continued past without slowing. Not the car. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and exhaled a thin cloud of breath into the cold. My mind kept drifting back to Sarah’s face when she told me about the two-day deadline. To Karim’s smirk in the coffee shop. To the photo that currently existed on his phone like a loaded weapon.

And it happened. I never heard them coming.

The first impact hit me from the left side, a full-body shoulder check that drove me off the sidewalk and into the narrow gap between a parked van and the low brick wall of the neighboring building. I stumbled, caught myself on the van’s side mirror, and turned just in time to see Cole’s fist already traveling toward my face.

The punch landed high on my cheekbone. White light exploded behind my eyes. I went down hard on one knee, the rough pavement biting through my jeans. Before I could get air back into my lungs a second set of hands, thinner, meaner, grabbed the back of my jacket and hauled me upright just so Cole could hit me again.

This one caught me in the stomach.

The air left my body in a single ugly rush. I doubled over. Karim’s voice came from somewhere above and behind me, almost conversational.

"Told you I’d see you again, homeboy, didn’t I? Huh? You fucking good-for-nothing bastard?"

Cole didn’t waste words. He grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanked my head up, and drove a knee into my ribs. Something in my side flared hot and sharp. I tried to twist away and only succeeded in giving Karim a clean angle at my kidney. The punch landed with a dull, deep thud that made my vision narrow.

I hit the ground for real this time. Karim... he was there, too... fucking snake.

Cold pavement against my cheek. The taste of blood already in my mouth. Boots scuffed around me. I got one arm under myself and tried to push up. Cole’s foot came down on my forearm and pinned it there.

"Stay down," he said, almost bored. "Or it’ll get worse, bitch."

"Ugh... fuck..."

Karim crouched beside my head. I could smell whatever cheap cologne he wore mixed with cigarette smoke. He grabbed my jaw and forced me to look at him.

"You should’ve kept your nose out of other people’s business," he said quietly. "Abigail. Sarah. Doesn’t matter. You keep inserting yourself where you don’t belong."

I spat blood onto the pavement near his shoe. The action cost me. Cole responded by kicking me in the thigh hard enough that my whole leg went numb for a second.

They weren’t trying to kill me. Not yet. This was a message. A softening. Something to think about while I recovered.

Karim stood up and nodded to Cole. The bigger man hauled me halfway up by the front of my jacket just so he could punch me in the mouth again. My head snapped back. Fresh blood ran warm over my lip and down my chin. When Cole let go I collapsed forward onto my hands and knees, coughing.

Time stretched in ugly fragments after that.

Another kick to the ribs.

A casual open-handed slap from Karim that was somehow more insulting than the punches.

Cole’s boot pressing down on the side of my head, grinding my cheek into the grit of the alley while he said something I couldn’t fully hear over the ringing in my ears.

I stopped trying to get up. Getting up only gave them a better target. I curled in as much as I could and waited for the next impact, breathing in short, controlled pulls that still sent spikes of pain through my side.

Somewhere in the middle of it I became aware of new headlights washing across the mouth of the alley.

A car door opened. Then another. Then two more.

Footsteps approached, heavier than Karim’s or Cole’s. The beating stopped. For a second the only sound was my own wet breathing and the low idle of an engine.

Mark’s voice cut through the cold air, mild and almost amused. "Get in, Chance."

I turned my head enough to see him standing at the edge of the light. Three of his men flanked him, silent, hands visible and empty. None of them had moved to intervene. None of them looked particularly concerned about the two men who had just been working me over.

Karim and Cole had already taken a half-step back. Not far. Just enough to show they understood the new math of the situation. Mark’s presence didn’t mean protection. It only meant the current activity was inconvenient for his schedule.

I forced myself onto one knee, then both feet. Everything hurt. My left eye was already swelling. Blood still dripped from my split lip onto the front of my jacket. I staggered the short distance out of the alley and toward the open rear door of the black car without looking at Karim or Cole again.

Mark watched me climb in with the same mild expression he had worn at the card table.

"You’re late," he said, as if that were the only relevant detail.

Late? Me? This guy and his sense of humor...

I didn’t answer. I just sat back against the leather seat and tried to keep my breathing shallow enough that the cracked rib, or whatever was wrong with my side, wouldn’t scream too loudly.

One of Mark’s men closed the door. The car pulled away from the curb.

Through the tinted window I caught a final glimpse of Karim and Cole standing in the mouth of the alley under the flickering streetlight, watching the car leave. Neither of them looked worried.

The message had been delivered.

And I was still expected to play cards tonight.