Page 104 of Shades of Grey & Gold

Light skin. Shaved head.

An expression that I have seen before—the expression of a man who does violence the way other men do paperwork, without feeling, without hesitation, as another function of his day.

I know that look.

I know it because I saw it. I know it because my father cultivated it in the men around him like a crop.

But I know this look in particular because there is a specific tradition of seemingly random shooting up of public spaces, and it belongs to one family in this city—it is not mine.

The Russians.

The car idles.

I stand up fully, gun hanging loosely at my side, finger still along the barrel and prepared. He doesn’t move a muscle, but he stares at me.

One second.

Two.

Long enough to be a message.

Long enough to saywe were here and you saw us and there is nothing you did about it; nothing you can do about it.

Then he smirks, tilts his chin up in a quick motion. He pulls his arm inside the vehicle and the driver pulls into traffic, unhurried, and rounds the corner and is gone.

I breathe, tuck my gun into the holster and look down.

Glass everywhere. The lavender matcha latte is probably on the floor back behind the counter. Cups are cracked, coffee and milk mixing with shards of ceramic and clear glass. Pastries and food sprinkled among the wreckage.

The almond croissant she ordered because today felt different, because today she was trying the thing she’d never tried.

Gio has her.

She’s safe.

I don’t look at the material damage for long.

I move to the woman with the boy first. Crouch down, run a quick check on her eyes, her arms, the boy’s head, his hands. She shakes her head before I ask.

They’re okay. The boy is still holding her sleeve.

“You did good,” I tell her. “Kept him down. You did exactly right.”

Her eyes fill.

I move on.

The older man near the door has a cut across his forehead from the glass, bleeding freely but not deep. I press a napkin from the ground against it and guide his hand up to hold it. He’s shaking but upright.

Good.

The server who was behind the counter when it started is against the back wall, arms wrapped around herself; unhurt, eyes wide and watching.

A couple near the window—woman gripping the man’s arm hard enough to whiten her knuckles, both shaken, neither bleeding.

I move through all of them.

Every one.