The air inside was thick.
Not just warm — thick. It carried the sour weight of spilt liquor, damp wood, and something that had been left too long in a corner. Voices overlapped without direction. Laughter rose suddenly and fell just as fast.
He stood near the entrance for a moment, letting his eyes adjust.
To the right, a group crowded around a table, mugs lifted high, cheering at nothing in particular. One man had his arm around another's shoulder, swaying as though the floor moved beneath him. Near the wall, someone had fallen asleep over crossed arms, a thin string of drool slipping toward the edge of the table.
He inhaled once.
Regretted it.
His fingers came up quietly to his nose. "This is… more than I imagined," he murmured under his breath.
He had expected shadows. A corner. A trembling figure watching the door.
Instead—
The chair at the centre of the bar was occupied.
Not hiding. Not turning away.
Sitting.
The criminal leaned back slightly, one leg crossed over the other, as if he had arrived early for an appointment. Light from the high windows brushed across his shoulders. He did not look like a man who had just run for his life.
The sight of him — seated so openly, so comfortably — made something shift in his expression. His jaw tightened first, then the muscle near his temple flickered once. His fingers curled inward until his knuckles paled, the restraint more visible than any outburst could have been. For a brief second, heat rose behind his eyes, sharp and unblinking.
"That bastard," he breathed, barely parting his lips.
He did not move toward him. Not yet. Instead, he turned and walked to the counter, each step controlled, as though he were forcing the anger to settle before allowing himself another move.
Three soft knocks followed.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
He exhaled lightly. "May I have a glass of whiskey," he said, voice steady now.
The bartender looked up, a faint smile forming beneath his moustache. "Of course."
"Stop right there, Vane."
The voice did not shout, yet it carried. It slipped through the music and clinking glasses and landed cleanly between them. Conversations thinned. A chair leg scraped somewhere to the side.
Vane stopped.
Ten steps away. Close enough to see the lazy tilt of Kyler's head. Far enough that neither had to raise a hand.
A few men turned in their seats. Someone muttered. The bartender paused mid-wipe.
Kyler did not look up immediately. He tapped the table once. Twice.
"You always did follow orders well," he said at last. "Didn't know you'd started giving them."
Vane's jaw tightened. It was slight — but there.
"You took something that wasn't yours."
Kyler let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh.
"Something?" He rolled the word around as if tasting it. "Is that what they're calling it now?"
"The files," Vane said. "Return them."
A glass was placed in front of Kyler. He did not touch it.
"You're still doing that," Kyler murmured. "Talking like a clerk reading a notice."
Vane stepped forward.
Two steps.
The third did not come.
Kyler's fingers drummed softly against the wood.
"Fastest runner in the district," he went on, almost idly. "No one outruns you. That what they tell you?"
Silence.
"But this isn't a race, Vane." His eyes lifted now. Calm. Steady. "It's a sale."
A few heads leaned closer.
Vane's hand curled slowly into a fist at his side.
"If I leave without those papers," he said, voice low, "I don't walk back in."
That made Kyler's tapping pause.
"Oh?" His brows dipped slightly. "So it's like that."
Vane didn't answer.
For a moment the only sound was someone coughing near the door.
"You weren't built for this," Kyler said, studying him. "You kept records. Counted routes. Filed reports. You never liked the noise."
Another step from Vane.
"It was quiet," he said. "It worked."
"Until it didn't."
The words hung between them.
Kyler leaned back in his chair. The wood creaked.
"You know what he told me?" he asked suddenly, not looking at Vane but somewhere past him. "The night my shoulder gave out."
Vane didn't move.
Kyler smiled faintly — not kindly.
"He said the club didn't need weak shoulders." A pause. "Told me to rest if I couldn't carry it."
The smile faded.
"I rested."
His hand came down flat on the table. Not a slam. Just enough to still the air around him.
"No one noticed."
A glass tipped somewhere at the back of the bar.
Vane's voice, when it came, was quieter.
"This isn't the way."
Kyler's head tilted.
"Then show me one."
Silence again.
Then—
"If you want them," Kyler said, finally lifting the drink, "take them."
He set the glass down untouched.
"Let's see what changed you."
Vane's foot shifted back half an inch.
Just enough for someone watching carefully to notice.
Vane's heel shifted back only briefly before his weight rolled sideways. He moved to the left in a smooth arc, never once breaking eye contact. His hand brushed the counter as he passed, fingers closing around the neck of an unopened bottle. The glass was cool against his palm. In the same motion, he pushed off the floor and drove forward, coat flaring slightly behind him as he closed the distance in quick, deliberate strides.
Kyler's chair scraped sharply against the floor as he rose. The laziness vanished from his posture. His feet set themselves apart with practised precision, one sliding back half a step. His shoulders angled, chin lowering just enough to guard his throat. The loose ease from moments before had hardened into readiness, his hands lifting—not wild, not reckless—but steady, waiting.