The air conditioning inside Our Lady of the Forgotten River hummed a low, steady rhythm, pushing back the oppressive afternoon heat of San Antonio. Sean stood near the restored stained-glass windows, looking out at the overgrown lot that served as their perimeter. He was spinning the silver half-dollar across his knuckles, feeling the smooth edge of the metal.

  He had secured the Senator. He had blinded the FBI. He had broken Hector’s supply lines. But the cold draft of the Void still lingered at the edges of his mind, a constant, whispering reminder that the universe didn't like being rewritten.

  The heavy sacristy door opened, breaking his concentration. Javi walked in, moving fast. The soldier’s face was a tight mask of suppressed anger.

  "Boss," Javi said, his voice a low gravelly rumble. "We have a situation. And it's not the cops."

  Marcus looked up from his laptop at the mahogany table, his strategic mind instantly pivoting. "Did Hector hit the shell accounts?"

  "He's hitting the street," Javi said, walking over to the table and pulling out his phone. He swiped open a video and slid it across the wood. "Hector knows he can't breach the church, and he knows his trucks are dead. So he sent his street-level guys into the neighborhood."

  Sean looked at the screen. It was a shaky cell phone video taken from across Zarzamora Street. Four men with baseball bats and crowbars were systematically smashing the windows of a local panaderia. A second video showed a different crew pulling a street vendor out of his taco truck, kicking him into the gutter while they poured bleach over his grill.

  "They're leaving a message," Javi said, his jaw clenching. "They're telling the locals that anyone operating within a mile of the church pays a new tax. And the beatings don't stop until the Brujo comes out of his fortress."

  Marcus sighed, leaning back in his leather chair. He steepled his fingers, looking at Sean. "It's a bait tactic, Sean. Hector is bleeding millions; he’s trying to force you into an emotional mistake."

  "They're hurting people who have nothing to do with us," Sean said, his voice flat and dangerous.

  "They aren't our clients," Marcus countered smoothly, playing the devil's advocate that Sean needed him to be. "We are a high-end wellness society. We cater to billionaires and senators. If you walk out there and get into a street brawl, someone is going to catch it on a Ring camera. If a video of you goes viral, the exclusivity of the Apex Society shatters, and Chloe won't be able to spin it. The police will handle local vandalism."

  Sean looked at his right-hand man. Marcus was absolutely right from a business standpoint. It was the smart play. It was the safe play.

  "This is my neighborhood, Marcus," Sean whispered, dropping the silver coin into his pocket. "I don't let innocent people pay my tolls."

  Marcus held Sean’s gaze for a long moment, reading the absolute resolve in his friend's eyes. Marcus didn't argue. He just nodded once, accepting the decision. "Then do it clean, Sean. No bodies. No blood on your hands. If you're going to be a ghost, be a ghost."

  "Javi," Sean said, turning to the soldier. "Keep the gun holstered. We're going for a walk."

  The heat of the West Side hit them like a physical blow as they stepped out of the heavy oak doors. The humidity was suffocating, smelling of hot asphalt and exhaust. Sean and Javi walked down the gravel driveway, heading toward the intersection of General McMullen and Zarzamora.

  It didn't take long to find them.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Two blocks down, a crew of five cartel thugs had surrounded a small, family-owned auto repair shop. They had chained the front gates shut and were currently taking tire irons to the windshields of the cars parked out front. An old man—the owner—was bleeding from a cut above his eye, shouting at them in Spanish while one of the thugs shoved him back against a brick wall.

  Javi tensed, his hand instinctively hovering near his ribs where his pistol was concealed. "Say the word, Boss."

  "We do this quietly," Sean said.

  Sean closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, reaching into the Static. He felt the chaotic, violent probability web of the five men. He needed to be precise. He needed to maintain the golden order of his power, avoiding the violent, tearing red shifts that the Void wanted him to use.

  If A happens, then B happens.

  The thug shoving the old man raised his tire iron for a strike. Sean grabbed the probability of the man's grip and the sweat on his palms. He spiked the friction coefficient to zero.

  Shift.

  The tire iron slipped seamlessly out of the thug's hand mid-swing, flying backward and smashing directly into the face of the cartel member standing behind him. There was a sickening crunch of cartilage. Both men went down, one screaming and clutching his broken nose, the other stumbling in confusion.

  The remaining three thugs spun around, their weapons raised, looking for whoever threw the iron. They saw Sean and Javi standing calmly on the sidewalk thirty feet away.

  "Get 'em!" the largest of the thugs yelled, charging forward with a heavy wooden baseball bat.

  As the man sprinted across the cracked pavement, that cold, freezing draft brushed against the back of Sean's mind. The Void pressed against the tiny crack he had just made.

  Pinch the artery in his brain, a cold, formless thought whispered in Sean's head. Snap his neck. It takes so little energy to kill. Let me help you.

  Sean gritted his teeth, forcing the dark temptation back. He leaned into the golden reservoir of belief fueling him. He looked at the charging man’s boots. He isolated the structural integrity of the man's left heel.

  Shift.

  The heel of the thug's boot completely sheared off. The man’s ankle rolled violently at a full sprint. He hit the concrete like a sack of wet cement, his momentum carrying him forward in a brutal, flesh-tearing slide across the asphalt. The wooden bat clattered uselessly into the gutter.

  The last two men froze. They looked at their three friends writhing on the ground. None of it made sense. They hadn't even been touched.

  Javi stepped forward, his military posture radiating pure, disciplined violence. He didn't draw a weapon. He just looked at the remaining two men like they were already dead.

  Sean walked slowly up to the thug with the broken boot, who was groaning and clutching his ruined ankle. Sean crouched down, his dark suit perfectly crisp against the dirty sidewalk.

  "You tell Hector something for me," Sean said, his voice a low, vibrating hum that seemed to carry the weight of the Static itself. "Tell him the West Side is closed. If I see his men on my streets again, they aren't going to have bad luck. They're just going to stop breathing."

  The thug stared up at Sean, his eyes wide with a primal, instinctual terror. He felt the unnatural pressure in the air. He scrambled backward like a crab, shouting at the last two men to help him up. They grabbed their wounded and dragged them toward a beat-up SUV parked idling at the corner, throwing themselves inside and tearing off down the street, running a red light in their panic.

  Sean stood up, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. The Void receded, leaving him with a throbbing headache, but the golden light in his chest held strong. He hadn't broken his rule.

  The old man by the auto shop slowly walked over, holding a rag to his bleeding forehead. He looked at the shattered glass of his customer's cars, then at Sean. "You're the one from the church," the man said softly in Spanish. "The Brujo."

  "I'm just a neighbor," Sean replied in perfect Spanish. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills Marcus had given him for emergencies. He pressed the money into the old man's hand. "For the glass. They won't be coming back."

  Sean turned and walked back toward the church with Javi falling into step beside him.

  "That was clean, Boss," Javi murmured, his eyes scanning the rooftops for snipers.

  "It was a warning," Sean said, rubbing his temple. "But Hector is running out of options. He's going to do something stupid soon."

  When they walked back through the heavy oak doors of the sanctuary, Marcus was waiting at the mahogany table, exactly where they left him. He had two glasses of bourbon poured. He pushed one toward Sean.

  "No viral videos," Marcus reported, checking his tablet. "No police sirens. You kept it contained."

  "I told you I would," Sean said, taking the glass.

  "You won the neighborhood, Sean," Marcus said, his eyes serious. "But Hector is backed into a corner now, and a cornered dog is the most dangerous."