Chapter 2
Sophie's words came out in fragments, stitched together by hiccups and the kind of fear that made a child's voice climb an octave it should never have to reach.
""We were closing the shop,"" she said. ""Mama's flower shop. Two men came in. They said Mama owed them money. Mama said she didn't have it — she gave them what was in the register, but they said it wasn't enough."" Her small hands twisted the hem of her torn dress. ""They knocked over everything. The vases. The — the roses. I hid behind the counter like Mama taught me. I didn't move. I didn't make a sound.""
Vincent said nothing. He had learned, in thirty years, that silence pulled more truth out of people than questions ever could. He let her keep going.
""But then Mama tried to stop them from taking her purse, and one of them — he hit her. And she fell and she didn't get back up, and the other one just laughed, and they kept hitting her, and I—"" Sophie's breath hitched so hard she couldn't finish the sentence. ""I couldn't move. I just watched.""
Around the table, men who had broken kneecaps for missed payments without blinking suddenly found their wine glasses very interesting.
""They said something before they left,"" Sophie whispered. ""They said — 'that's what happens when you don't pay the Serpents.'""
Vincent went very still.
The Red Serpents weren't just street muscle. They were a gang that had spent the last year clawing their way into territory that had sat neutral for a decade — territory Vincent had never bothered to claim because it wasn't worth the paperwork. Small shops. Struggling owners. The kind of blocks where nobody had enough money to be worth protecting and nobody had enough power to be worth fearing.
Which meant whoever had done this hadn't been afraid of anyone. Not the police. Not rival gangs. Not even, apparently, the reputation of the man now kneeling in front of a bleeding seven-year-old.
""Two men,"" Vincent said quietly. ""Can you tell me what they looked like?""
Sophie nodded, eager now, like she'd been waiting for someone — anyone — to finally ask. ""One had a scar. Here."" She traced a shaky finger down her own cheek. ""The other one had a spider. On his neck. Right here."" She touched her throat. ""They called each other names. Carlos and Miguel.""
The names landed on Vincent like two separate stones dropped into still water.
Carlos Vega. Miguel Santos. Mid-level enforcers, both of them — the kind of men who did the dirty work and let someone else keep their hands clean. Vincent knew exactly who they answered to. And that was the part of this that made his stomach turn colder than anything Sophie had said so far.
Because if Carlos and Miguel had done this on someone else's orders, then this wasn't random. This wasn't two men losing their tempers over an empty register.
This was a message. Sent to a woman who had nothing, in a neighborhood nobody claimed, for reasons that had nothing to do with sixty-seven dollars in a flower shop till.
Which meant the real question wasn't who had swung the first punch.
It was who had given the order — and why a struggling single mother selling roses on the south side had suddenly become worth beating half to death over.
Vincent stood up slowly, Sophie's small hand still gripped tight in his. Behind him, Tony was already pulling the car around. Ahead of him waited a flower shop soaked in blood, a woman fighting for her life, and two names that were about to learn exactly what it cost to put a child through hell.
But somewhere underneath the rage building in his chest, a colder thought was forming — one Vincent couldn't shake as the sedan pulled away from the curb.
May you like
Sixty-seven dollars didn't earn you a message like that.
Something else did.
