Los Angeles. August, 1979.

The Pit’s neon sign spat sparks and bled a sickly red over the wet pavement of Sunset Boulevard in the suffocating summer of 1979. Chrome bumpers rusted in gridlock while the heavy smog choked the setting sun into the color of a fresh bruise. The air tasted of cheap gin and unburnt exhaust, carrying the undeniable weight of cracked asphalt and bad decisions. Jax Vane pushed through the heavy oak doors with damp leather clinging to his shoulders, while Lady trailed like a ghost in his wake. She did not belong in such a dive. Her platinum hair was pulled tight into a ponytail, and her pale skin looked almost translucent under the dead halogens. She had intelligent hazel eyes hidden behind oversized, violet-lensed aviators.

Detective Dalton sat hunched at the scarred wooden bar, nursing a flat highball while his badge collected lint in his breast pocket. He unconsciously rubbed the thick, puckered burn scar crawling up his left forearm—a permanent souvenir from the war. He and Jax went back to the sweltering jungles of the Mekong Delta. Jax had dragged Dalton out of a burning Huey in '72, carrying the bleeding soldier through miles of hostile jungle and leaving the detective with a heavy life debt. The phantom smell of sulfur still seemed to hang between them whenever they shared a room. Dalton caught Jax’s eye in the smoky mirror and offered a slow, exhausted shake of his head to warn him off.

"Keep your head down, doll," Jax muttered. He steered Lady through the thick smoke.

"Company," Lady murmured, her eyes flicking toward the smoky mirror. "Two fresh sedans just rolled up. Running deep. That means at least four boys, maybe five."

"I hate those odds," Jax said, scanning the room until he found Warren wiping down the grease-stained Formica counter with a filthy rag. Jax leaned in close. "Warren, I need an exit before this place turns into a slaughterhouse."

Warren squinted through the haze. "Vane. You got nerve. Who is the dame?"

"Business."

Lady studied the mirror. She watched like a Vegas card sharp. Warren palmed the crisp fifty-dollar bill Jax slid across the sticky wood.

"Back hallway through the supply closet. Vane, don't break the ice machine this time."

The heavy oak doors splintered inward before they could move, framing three Syndicate enforcers in dripping polyester suits. A heavy-set brute barked orders through a wired jaw while Dalton kept his eyes locked on his glass, refusing to look up and acknowledge the war spilling into his jurisdiction. Jax pulled a Zippo and a bundle of magnesium strips he learned to make back in Da Nang, tossing the makeshift flashbang behind the bar near the overproof bourbon. White fire scorched the retinas of everyone in the room, shattering bottles and sending the mobsters screaming into temporary blindness while Jax and Lady slipped out the back.

They hit the alleyway splashing through oil-slicked mud, tearing the canvas tarp off the Midnight Drifter—a matte-black '69 Charger hiding a scavenged 440 Magnum block. Jax cranked the ignition and let the V8 scream, the exhaust shaking the brickwork as they tore out into the Los Angeles night.

The Charger reeked of raw gasoline and cracked leather, though Lady’s expensive perfume managed to cut through the fumes like a ghost of her past. Jax Vane was no hero. He was a wheelman and a fixer who owed blood money. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles went bone-white, feeling the cold comfort of the .38 snub resting against his ribs in the shoulder rig.

Lady navigated the Los Angeles grid without a map, relying on the spatial memory pounded into her during her time as a hostess at a mob-owned flesh market called The Xylos. They had broken her down with plastic surgery and psychological conditioning to make her a flawless product for corrupt men, but Jax had dug her out of a back-alley dumpster six months prior and put a gun in her hand. She reached a pale hand to the back of her neck, tracing the nearly invisible seam where the conditioning had begun. The constant, low-frequency hum of memory—a static that usually paralyzed her—suddenly sharpened into a weaponized focus. Instead of merely following Jax's lead, she reached over and gripped the dashboard, her fingertips digging into the vinyl as she made a calculated, independent choice to deviate from their established extraction route. She chose to steer them toward the industrial graveyard of the rail yards, weaponizing the very geometry of her trauma to ensure they weren't just running, but disappearing on her own terms.

"Traffic thickens near the interchange ahead, so take the Sepulveda off-ramp to cut our exposure time," Lady instructed, watching the red and gold streaks of the Hollywood Freeway blur past the windows.

Jax yanked the wheel and sent the heavy muscle car drifting onto the exit ramp, tires screaming against the pavement until they reached an abandoned drive-in theater. Vince leaned against a rusted station wagon under the dead marquee, flicking the ash of a clove cigarette onto the cracked concrete.

"You bring heat with you, Vane," Vince sneered, flashing cheap gold teeth in the dark. "The Syndicate put a bounty on your skull big enough to buy a small island."

"We need clean papers," Jax countered. "We need a ride out of town."

"That costs real money," Vince said. "I need the Solano Sunstone, that yellow diamond the size of a pigeon's egg Baroness Vandra is displaying tonight at her gala in the Hollywood Hills."

Lady stepped forward, her stilettos cracking sharp against the asphalt. "I know the layout of the estate and the security rotation, including the jagged-tooth tumbler on the wall safe hidden behind the study painting."

The Vandra Estate crowned the Hollywood Hills, mocking the smog-choked gridlock of the city sprawling far below its balconies. Jax walked through the grand ballroom in a stolen tuxedo, feeding lies about a phantom three-picture deal to a fading Baroness while her guests drowned in expensive champagne. Two armed private security guards flanked the archway, their eyes lazily scanning the drunken crowd. Jax handed off an empty coupe glass to a passing waiter and slipped behind a heavy velvet curtain the moment their sightlines crossed, tapping his cufflink twice to signal the breach.

Lady drifted through the shadowed hallways with her heels silent on the thick Persian rugs, picking the lock to the study with practiced ease. She had already bypassed the infrared tripwires in the east wing, crawling under antique furniture with her breathing perfectly synchronized to the sweep of the exterior searchlights. She pressed a stolen stethoscope to the cold steel of the hidden safe, listening to the heavy tumblers click and thud into place until the door swung open to reveal the massive, flawless yellow diamond. The stone rested on a velvet pedestal, catching the ambient moonlight. She scooped it into a padded leather pouch, swiftly relocked the empty safe to delay the inevitable alarm, and vanished back into the corridors just before the midnight patrol rounded the corner.

Dawn broke over the Vandra estate hours later. Detective Dalton stood before the empty wall safe. He stared at the clean, surgical precision of the entry—no blown hinges, no wasted movement—and recognized the quiet competence of the man he used to share a trench with. Dalton didn't pull out his notebook to document a crime. He knew the theft of the Solano Sunstone meant his old squadmate had just painted a massive target on his back. He buttoned his trench coat and walked out, intent on catching up to Jax before the Syndicate did.

Jax discreetly tapped the real Sunstone, now tucked deep into the liner of his trench coat, before reaching for the decoy.

Down under the Santa Monica Pier, the black ocean water smashed against rotting wood while Jax tossed a velvet bag to Vince. The air was thick with salt and a suffocating tension. Jax didn't blink, his hand hovering mere inches from the lapel of his coat where the .38 waited.

"Papers first, and the cash," Jax demanded.

Vince signaled into the shadows, bringing two men out with racked shotguns. The sharp, mechanical clack of the pumps echoed loudly off the wet pylons. Jax’s jaw tightened, letting the silence stretch into a clear warning.

"Change of plans, Vane, because I keep the rock and sell your corpses back to the Syndicate." Vince’s smile didn’t reach his eyes as he took a cowardly step back, letting the hired guns take the front line.

Jax grinned as the velvet bag in Vince's hands ruptured, hissing a thick cloud of military-grade tear gas from the rigged canister hidden inside. Vince shrieked and clawed at his burning eyes while Jax and Lady sprinted back to the Charger, peeling out onto the Pacific Coast Highway with the real diamond glowing amber against the dashboard instruments.

They burned rubber heading south until the border swallowed them whole, crossing into a jurisdiction where a crumpled twenty-dollar bill tucked in a passport still meant something. They hid in the back booth of a Tijuana cantina called El Gato Negro, breathing in the scent of roasted chilies and stale urine. Jax nursed a tepid beer and watched the grease-stained paper bag holding the Sunstone, while Lady picked at the label of a tequila bottle with her manicured nails.

The heavy cantina doors crashed open, sucking the sweat from the room and replacing it with the sharp tang of gun oil. Prism stood blocking the Mexican sun. The Syndicate’s top cleaner didn't start his career on the streets of Los Angeles. He started in the Phoenix Program, crawling through the damp hell of the A Shau Valley slitting throats for intelligence officers. A Viet Cong wire garrote had crushed his larynx in '71, and a white phosphorus grenade burned the humanity out of his eyes a year later. Every breath he took sounded like gravel being crushed under a heavy boot—a wet, rattling wheeze that paralyzed his targets with fear before he ever raised a weapon. Now he hid the dead space behind custom mirrored aviators, forcing his targets to watch their own terrified reflections right before the end. He wore a pristine white suit that defied the dirt, with thick ballistic nylon woven tight beneath the silk.

"Found you," Prism rasped through the ruined cartilage of his throat, stepping inside.

Jax kicked the heavy pine table over for cover and drew the Colt Commander, hammering two rounds center mass. The slugs stopped dead against the hitman's Kevlar vest. Prism kept walking with terrifying, silent grace, drawing a polished bowie knife that caught the sunlight in a deadly arc. Jax spat, knowing any more bullets would be wasted. He snatched the nearby bottle of mescal, hurling it at Prism’s chest. The bottle ruptured, drenching the pristine white suit in liquor. Jax flicked his Zippo, igniting the jacket in a blue flare of flame, forcing Prism to pause and stamp out the fire, breaking his silent, terrifying momentum for a vital second.

Lady vaulted the bar to flank him, but Prism pivoted in silence and brought the heavy steel blade down. Blood soaked through her woven poncho as she screamed and clutched the deep gash in her shoulder, her knees buckling against the floorboards. Prism stepped over her, raising the mirrored steel to finish the job.

The back door of the cantina kicked open with the heavy thud of a detective's boot. Dalton stood in the doorway, the Los Angeles smog still clinging to his trench coat and a battered 12-gauge pump resting against his hip. He had tracked the scent of his old squadmate all the way from the Vandra estate, following the blood and the burnt rubber straight into the Mexican dirt.

"You always were sloppy with your brass, Vane," Dalton said, racking the slide.

The mechanical clack cut through the silence. It echoed in the small room.

Dalton fired. The heavy buckshot slammed into Prism’s ballistic vest. The sheer kinetic force of the 12-gauge shattered the assassin's ribs, lifting him off his feet and throwing him backward over a splintered table.

Jax didn't hesitate. He vaulted the shattered furniture, kicking the bowie knife away before driving the barrel of his .38 snub hard under Prism's jaw. He bypassed the thick nylon vest entirely, sinking the cold steel directly into meat and bone.

"Lights out."

The gunshot deafened the small room, painting the pristine white suit in a dark, spreading red. Jax waved the gun smoke away, his breathing heavy as he looked up at the detective standing in the doorway. Dalton lowered the shotgun. His eyes moved from the dead Syndicate cleaner to the bleeding woman on the floor, and finally settled on the grease-stained paper bag resting on the pine boards.

"You crossing me out, Dalton?" Jax asked, his hand still on the .38.

Dalton reached into his coat, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He lit one, the match flaring bright before he tossed it onto the blood-soaked floor.

"That was for the Huey, Jax. We're square."

Dalton turned his back on the million-dollar stone and walked out into the blinding Tijuana heat, leaving the ghosts of the Delta to bury their own dead.

Jax hauled Lady to her feet. He tore strips from his shirt to bind the wound.

"Grab the rock and let's go," Jax said, pulling her toward the waiting muscle car. "We can make Cabo by morning."

Neon and Cordite. Summer, 1981. 

The Sunset Strip choked on neon and cocaine. Bands climbed from the sleaze on ladders of eyeliner and Marshall stacks. The rock scene was alive, always hungry for the next big thing.

Detective Sergeant Jack Dalton stood over the open trunk, a cigarette burning his lips. Primer-gray Chevelle. Cold steel. Dawn couldn't break through the neon haze, leaving the alley to bleed a toxic pinkish-orange. Kids stumbled home. Guitarists dragged heavy amps across the concrete, and groupies hitched rides—all of them missing the corpses twenty feet down.

Dalton exhaled a gray cloud. Eleven years in LA homicide meant he knew the gutters. The Strip kept dancing until blood spilled. Then his phone rang.

He was tired of the cycle. Everybody was a fresh piece of evidence in a case he couldn't close—the permanent moral rot of the city.

5:44 a.m. Dalton stared at the bodies in the trunk. "Bad night, kid."

Johnny Riggs stood nearby. Ten years younger and wound tight, wearing cheap denim over a faded Led Zeppelin shirt.

Bass thumped, punishing the brick wall behind Gazzarri’s. Dalton scanned the alley: fresh spray paint, a tipped trash can, one black stiletto. Broken glass caught the rising sun. The Strip always stayed the same, smelling of stale sweat, cheap perfume, and piss.

"Jimmy Rat-tail," Riggs said. "Dime bags. Nothing worth a bullet."

"Wrong customer," Dalton said.

"Music?" Riggs asked.

"Always music."

Dalton struck a match. Riggs waved the busboy over. He was maybe seventeen, drowning in an oversized leather jacket.

The kid shook. "I just took out the trash."

"Time?" Dalton asked.

"Five."

"Company?" Riggs pressed.

“No. Heard yelling at four-thirty. A guy in a skull shirt. Tall, blond."

Dalton looked at Riggs. "That's half the zip code."

They spent the next hour working the scene, finding nothing but the usual filth until Riggs noticed the unique stamp on Jimmy’s dime bags—a tiny, stylized snake head. This wasn't local street trash. This was branded product, high-end cut. Dalton remembered hearing rumors of a new, organized crew tightening the Strip’s supply, calling themselves the Vipers.

The vinyl body bags zipped shut with a heavy rasp. James Rattaglia, aka Jimmy Rat-tail. Born 1958, Pacoima. Petty theft, bar fights, small bags. A career loser.

Back at the precinct, Dalton opened the file. The heavy paper rasped on his wooden desk as pale light cut through the blinds.

"Stiffed his dealers," Riggs said. "What about the girl?"

"Collateral." Dalton shut the folder.

The morgue ran bone cold. Bleach burned the nose, and the steel tables held the heavy weight of the dead.

Doctor Martinez lifted the first sheet. "Two close rounds. Clean execution."

"And the girl?"

Martinez pulled the second sheet. "Double-tapped."

Star looked even younger in death. Dalton stared at her pale face. Rachel. Nineteen. Waitress. She worked the graveyard shift at the Pantry diner, singing her original songs while she polished the counter. She had a crooked smile and dreamed of hearing her song played on the radio. Dalton had eaten burgers there—no pickles, no onions—and she always slipped him an extra slice of pie. Rat-tail had actively courted the gutter, but Star deserved to keep breathing. She had asked Dalton to hear her demo tape. He had made a promise. He broke it.

They hit the Strip. The name 'Widowmaker' kept popping up. A new band riding fast fame while crowds choked the sidewalks. Their guitarist was Lance Vega. Blond hair. The kind of guy who screamed in alleys.

They found the band at The Whisky a Go Go. The club bled red and green stage lights. Vega spotted them immediately.

"Cops?" Vega laughed, stepping up to the mic. "What?"

"Jimmy Rattaglia," Dalton said over the noise.

Vega shut up. He jumped off the stage, sweat ruining his heavy eyeliner. "I bought weed from him. Is he in trouble?"

"He's dead. Where were you at four-thirty?"

"Here. Rehearsing."

Riggs stepped up, invading Vega's space. "I hate metal, and I hate you. Lie to me, and I'll lock you up."

Riggs put a hand on Vega's guitar neck, stopping him from adjusting the strap. "We're not talking about weed, pretty boy. We're talking about a double homicide. Tell me who Jimmy was trying to score from."

"Jimmy found a score," Vega said quickly, his bravado cracking. "Big time."

"Where?"

"Crestview Hotel. Room 222." Vega swallowed hard. "Viper Crew. Victor Kane. He's a bad hombre."

Kane. Seventies dime bags turned eighties cocaine king. He was backed by Barstow biker muscle.

"Thanks," Dalton muttered.

The Crestview stank of stale smoke and cheap disinfectant. Dalton touched his hip holster, feeling the reassuring chill of cool steel. Riggs kicked the door. Wood splintered, and the deadbolt snapped.

Shadows choked the room. Three Vipers scrambled, snake patches flashing on heavy leather.

"Police!" Riggs shouted.

A scarred Viper flipped the desk for cover. A thick ledger hit the floor, pages fanning out. Submachine gun fire immediately chewed the doorframe, sending pine splinters flying. Dalton dove, drawing his .45 in mid-air. He fired back, putting two blind rounds into the drywall.

Riggs laid down suppressing fire, pinning the second man. "Cover!"

Dalton emptied his mag, filling the room with smoke and drywall dust. Riggs slid, his cowboy boots tearing up the cheap carpet, and snatched the ledger just as the balcony glass rained down around them.

A shotgun pumped in the kitchen.

"Down!" Dalton yelled. He reloaded and fired twice into the dark. One round found a shoulder; the second killed the overhead light.

Everything went black in an instant.

Scarface broke for the balcony. Riggs fired a steady 9mm rhythm, but the Viper shattered the remaining glass and vanished into the alley.

Silence returned, heavy and ringing. Dalton shook off the dust. Riggs gripped the book tight against his chest.

"Got it. Let's move."

They hit the fire stairs hard, boot heels hammering the rusted iron grating until the back alley swallowed them whole. The primer-gray Nova waited in the neon shadows. They piled in.

The engine screamed as Dalton punished the concrete, clearing the pillars and hitting the street. Riggs yelled over the roaring V8, tapping the ledger. "Tijuana pipeline."

The pursuit hit the main drag. Dalton drifted the Nova around a van, tires fighting for grip. Two SUVs closed in fast—heavy brush guards, tinted glass. A passenger leaned out the window. Automatic gunfire shattered the Nova's rear windshield.

"Bridge!" Riggs yelled, shaking safety glass from his hair.

Dalton watched the mirror. The lead SUV pulled alongside. Dalton slammed the brakes, letting the heavy truck shoot past, then cranked the wheel hard. The Nova's heavy steel quarter-panel clipped the SUV's rear tire. The truck rolled, raining a shower of golden sparks across the pavement.

The second SUV swerved to avoid the wreck. Dalton instantly cut the headlights and drifted under the concrete bridge, weaving through the thick support pillars. Darkness wrapped the car. He killed the engine.

Silence descended, broken only by the ticking of the cooling engine block. Riggs put a penlight between his teeth. The narrow beam hit the ledger's pages, illuminating the ink. Dates. Coordinates. Cartel contacts. Ten years of distribution logic. Jimmy Rattaglia's frantic math filled the margins in red ink—blackmail numbers.

"He tried to squeeze Kane," Riggs said around the flashlight, turning the page. "Kane owes the cartel ten million."

Kane was dead meat.

"The Cartel wants their cut," Riggs muttered. "No ledger, no proof of where the product went."

"Kane just lost his lifeline," Dalton said.

The Nova sat in the industrial darkness, watching a corrugated metal warehouse down by the rail yards. Dalton lit a cigarette, the brief match flare highlighting the crook of his broken nose.

"Sloppy," Dalton said, exhaling smoke into the humid air. "Arrogant."

Riggs leaned forward over the steering wheel. "Look."

A Lincoln Continental with a mirror shine rolled up. Three Vipers stepped out, heavy in leather and silver chains. A Ford Bronco parked behind it. Four Cartel shooters with cold, spaghetti-western faces climbed out. The warehouse door rolled up, spilling yellow light onto the oily asphalt. They all went inside.

Dalton and Riggs moved through rusted dumpsters and stacked shipping pallets. Riggs boosted Dalton onto a pile of tractor tires so he could look through a grime-caked window. Inside, a folding table sat under a harsh bulb. Victor Kane drummed his fingers nervously on a metal briefcase. Across from him stood the Cartel boss in a bolo tie and polished black boots.

Four kilos wrapped in brown tape. Stacks of green cash.

"Now?" Riggs whispered.

"Wait. Let them trade."

Then hell broke loose. A Viper pulled a switchblade, looking to cut a kilo for a taste. A Cartel enforcer shoved him hard, and the knife clattered to the concrete floor.

"Watch the leather, Pancho!" the biker snarled.

The Cartel boss didn't argue; he just cleared a .45 from his waistband.

"Shit," Dalton hissed, dropping from the window.

The first shot cracked. An Uzi answered, tearing through the power box and killing the lights. Muzzle flashes strobed wildly in the pitch-black warehouse, bullets chewing through the corrugated metal walls and pinging off the dumpsters outside.

Dalton and Riggs returned to the Nova. Dalton popped the trunk. The steel groaned, revealing two heavy 12-gauge pump shotguns. Dalton racked his slide while Riggs stuffed extra buckshot shells into his denim pockets.

Dalton grabbed the radio and called for tactical backup. 

"We should let them kill each other," Riggs muttered.

They flanked the rolling bay door, listening to the screams and the relentless automatic fire inside.

"LAPD!" Dalton yelled, kicking the pedestrian door wide open. "Drop it!"

Three Vipers spun toward the entrance.

"Cops!" Kane screamed, diving for the concrete.

Uzi fire instantly chewed the doorframe, sending splinters into Dalton's cheek. Riggs stepped out and fired the 12-gauge, the thunderous boom echoing off the high ceilings. Return fire sparked wildly off the floor. A Viper screamed, dropping his weapon to clutch a shredded leg.

"Cover!"

They dove behind a stack of wooden crates. Pine shredded under the crossfire, filling the air with flying splinters and thick sawdust. Dalton fired blind over the top. A stray round chipped the concrete inches from his boots. Riggs was sweating, running purely on adrenaline. The script had flipped; the cops were pinned.

"Stay low," Dalton growled. "Make your shots count."

Automatic fire hammered their position, the bullets converging until the wood began to structurally fail.

"Two shells left!" Riggs yelled over the din, firing a blind blast to keep heads down. Bullets stitched the crate a foot above him.

Heavy smoke and raw cordite filled the warehouse. Across the floor, Kane hid behind a forklift, his bloody hands fumbling to jam a fresh magazine into his pistol. From the catwalk, two Cartel shooters moved down the metal stairs, flanking the cops.

Then, white light erupted.

Flashbangs hissed and cracked, shaking the foundation like thunder. The rear loading doors simply vanished as explosive breaching charges shattered the noise.

"LAPD SWAT! Drop your weapons!"

SWAT operators flooded the room in blue jumpsuits and heavy Kevlar, moving with surgical precision. The Cartel boss stubbornly raised his .45. A single, surgical round dropped him mid-draw. Kane threw his hands up and surrendered. Uzis clattered to the floor as the surviving gunmen hit the concrete.

Dalton stood slowly, raising empty hands. "Hollywood Division!"

SWAT swarmed the floor, boots kicking the dropped shotguns away from the suspects. An eerie silence returned to the warehouse, broken only by the thwack-thwack of police choppers cutting through the sky outside and sirens bleeding closer.

Dalton slumped against a forklift. He pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes, his hands finally showing a slight shake. Riggs leaned next to him, rubbing a graze on his forearm.

"Cutting it close."

Dalton struck a match. "Welcome to Hollywood."

Parker Center. 3:00 AM. Red neon bled through the frosted glass of the interrogation room. Victor Kane sat cuffed to the table, heavy steel holding his wrists.

Dalton threw the Rattaglia folder down; it slapped the metal table with a sharp crack. "Jimmy and Star," Dalton said. "A trunk execution."

Kane smiled lazily. "No idea what you're talking about."

"We have the ledger," Riggs said, stepping into the light. "We found the drywall dust on your leather jacket, Kane."

Dalton dropped the crime scene photos between Kane's chained hands. Blood pooling on the pavement. Dalton blew smoke over the table. "Jimmy stole the book."

Kane's jaw tightened visibly.

Riggs stepped up, leaning close. "Every gram. Every kickback. It's all in there."

"A rodent can't blackmail me," Kane spat.

"He mailed page forty-two south to the border," Riggs said softly. "That page was the master distribution key, showing their cut and yours. You skimmed fifteen percent off the top."

Kane turned a sickly gray under the fluorescent lights.

"The Cartel came up to audit you," Dalton said. "And they count with bullets instead of calculators."

Rage twisted Kane's face, the veins popping in his neck. Riggs slapped the metal table hard. "And we have the original ledger."

"Checkmate," Dalton said.

"You're dead men," Kane hissed, rattling his cuffs. "That book will burn the Strip to the ground."

Dalton stood, adjusting his coat. "Call the DA."

Riggs left the room speechless. Dalton looked down at the ruined drug kingpin. "Central Jail awaits."

Smog choked the Los Angeles sunrise. By noon, the D.A. was reading the names. Ink spilled blood across the city. Kane never made it to his trial. A sharpened toothbrush found his throat in County lock-up, ensuring the Cartel balanced its books.

Riggs tossed the morning report onto Dalton’s desk. "Kane’s out of the picture. Someone in County gave him a new windpipe with a plastic toothbrush."

Dalton didn't look up from his coffee. "Saves the taxpayers a trial. The Cartel doesn't believe in appeals."

"Clean and simple," Riggs muttered, leaning against the doorframe. "The Strip just keeps on spinning."

A week later, The Whisky’s neon sign flickered as usual. Kids lined the pavement, chasing loud music and fast fame.

"The world's changing," Dalton said, watching from the primer-gray Nova. "The bodies will only stack higher."

Riggs leaned on the passenger door. Fresh Bondo and paint hid the recent bullet holes. "At least we still got the car," Riggs said, patting the hood.

The Strip screamed around them. Inside the club, Widowmaker played to a packed house. Dalton just watched the line of oblivious kids.

"You good?" Riggs asked, sensing the veteran's silence.

Dalton struck a match. "Ask me tomorrow."

"Star deserved better," Riggs said quietly.

Dalton flicked his cigarette into the gutter, the red embers shattering against the cold concrete. The neon burned overhead. He turned his back on the music and disappeared into the darkness.

End Of File

A