Thirty minutes passed, though Connie felt them slip by like indistinct shadows, rain sliding along the windows of the bus shelter where she stood, cold water trickling through the cracks in her hairline, down the collar of her coat. Her thoughts wrapped themselves around Sticks Jackson, around the way his life spiraled outward from the ruins that had once been the Youth Center.
She watched cars brush past her, headlights washing her in cold whitewashes. Her fingers tapped at her thigh. She needed a way close to him, a crack in the armor of a man who had turned pain into sermon, abandonment into community, scars into reputation.
Maybe she could pretend to be a volunteer.
A tutor.
A student in need.
Someone eager to hear his gospel.
She played with the possibilities like weapons laid out on a table. Each held a promise. Each was a blade with its own edge.
She was deciding which one fit best when her phone buzzed hard against her palm. The screen lit up DEE in bold letters.
Her stomach twisted.
Not now.
Not him.
She let it ring once, twice, trying to decide whether to answer—but she knew better. Not answering Dee always made things worse. She dragged her thumb across the screen.
"What." Her voice was thin steel.
On the other end, Dee sucked his teeth, a slow, disappointed click that made her jaw tighten.
"You got collection work," he said flatly. "Tonight. Two stops. They are overdue. Get your ass movin'."
She inhaled sharply.
There it was.
That tone.
That assumption.
Like she was still one of his lackeys.
Like she was still riding under him.
Like Shade's disappearance made her easy to reshape.
"I'm busy," she said.
Silence.
The kind of silence that had weight.
"You busy?" Dee repeated slowly. "The hell you mean you busy? I give you work, you do the work. You still part of this family or not, Con?"
She closed her eyes.
Family.
What a joke.
Shade had been her only anchor, the only thread tying her to the gang at all. Without him, she floated, directionless but burning. And Dee—Dee was trying to leash her, pull her back, as if she was something he owned.
"I said I'm busy," she repeated, colder. "I got something else going on."
Dee laughed, low and mean.
"Nah. Nah, see, this ain't optional. You wanna stay part of this organization? You show the fuck up when I say so."
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip until she tasted copper.
He would've never spoken like that if Shade was here.
Never.
Dee had always behaved differently when Shade breathed the same air, sharper, stiffer, cautious. Shade didn't have rank, not officially, but he had fear. The smart kind. The silent kind. The kind that made men reconsider their next sentence.
But Shade was gone.
And Connie felt her chest tighten with something ugly, something furious, something possessive and cracked.
"Dee," she said slowly, "if you show up lookin' for me… if you follow me… if you start thinkin' you can order me around like I'm yours—"
He cut her off.
"Or what?"
Connie's voice curled into something dark, something silk over razors:
"I'll kill you myself."
There was no tremor.
No hesitation.
Only truth.
"And if I do," she added, voice lowering until it matched the rhythm of her pulse, "I'll enjoy it."
For a moment—an electric, suspended moment, Dee was silent. Not offended. Not shocked. Just calculating.
Then his tone sharpened like a drawn blade.
"You keep talkin' like that and you won't have time to enjoy shit," he murmured. "Don't forget who you talkin' to."
The line went dead.
Connie stared at the wet pavement as the city lights bled into the forming puddles. Her pulse thudded violently. Her breath came short and ragged.
She'd done it.
She'd crossed a line.
Not one you step back from.
Not one you apologize for.
The kind of line Shade had stepped over many times without flinching.
But she wasn't Shade.
She wasn't that untouchable.
She wasn't that feared.
A tremor ran down her spine.
I messed up, she thought.
Shit. I messed up.
But it's done.
Her hand pressed against her chest as if she could physically steady the storm burning under her ribs. She leaned against the cold bus shelter wall, rain hammering the plastic roof overhead like impatient fingers.
All she could think about now, now that the threat hung over her, now that Dee's voice clung to her ears, was what comes next. The retaliation. The consequences. The inevitable shift.
Dee didn't like being challenged.
And he liked even less being threatened.
That meant he'd move.
He'd watch her.
He'd test her.
He'd try to put her back in place.
But the truth was simple:
She no longer had a place.
Not in the gang.
Not in the city.
Not anywhere except one path, one direction, one obsession.
Shade.
Finding him was all she had left.
All she wanted.
All she burned for.
And now, with Dee as an enemy, Sticks Jackson became more than just a lead.
He became her only way forward.
Her last thread.
Her final chance.
She pushed off the wall, breath fogging the cold air, eyes sharpening with a dangerous clarity.
She wasn't afraid of Dee.
She was afraid of failing Shade.
And now, the hunt would begin.