“I can really go?”

“Yes.”

Rian didn’t look up. His attention was fixed on the visor of the helmet resting in his hands, thumbs tracing the edge.

“Just like that?” Kaiseng took another step back from the curb. The entrance to his apartment building was only a few yards away. A week ago, he hadn’t believed he’d ever see it again.

He hadn’t believed he would leave that room at all—let alone alive.

Five years ago, Kaiseng had betrayed Rian. And abandoned him—abandoned them. He had chosen to be the villain because it was the only way he knew how to leave without dragging Rian with him. The only way to stop the spiral without being pulled back into it himself.

He couldn’t keep following that path. He knew Rian would pull him back every time, even as it destroyed them both. So he made himself unforgivable. Made himself dead to him. Or so he’d hoped. And then he grieved the relationship—and the version of himself that had only ever existed when Rian’s pulse had been tangled with his own.

Kaiseng told himself that if they ever crossed paths again, it would lead to punishment. And he would be lying if he said he wouldn’t have deserved it. 

“Just like that,” Rian said quietly. His breath fogged in the cold night air as he pulled the black helmet on. The kickstand lifted. The engine roared to life, sudden and violent in the quiet street. And then Rian was gone—vanishing in a blur of black before Kaiseng could decide what he was supposed to feel.

To beg for forgiveness.

Or beg for death.

Everything looked right in his apartment. But it felt wrong. Maybe it was the knowledge that Rian had been here. Without permission. Without warning. It should have felt like a violation. It didn’t. What crawled under his skin instead was paranoia—the certainty that something had been left behind.

He searched, room by room. When he reached the bedroom, the scent hit him like a wall. Rian. It was everywhere. In the fabric. The sheets. His closet. His clothes. Kaiseng wouldn’t have been surprised to find it soaked into the walls, embedded in the floorboards.

His hand dragged slowly down his face, a breath slipping loose as his shoulders finally gave. He let himself fall back onto the bed, fingers tangling in the sheets as he pulled them up and pressed them to his face.

He inhaled.

A languid, helpless smile curved his mouth. “Fucking psycho,” he murmured—to Rian, to himself, to the lie he’d told himself that anything had ever really ended.

***RIAN VUE***

Redline.

A name that meant everything and nothing at all. Not a street gang. Not a family. No colors. No blood ties. Just work. Drugs. Kill contracts. It was faces that were never revealed. Locations that didn’t exist twice. 

Redline didn’t ask who you were before. It only cared what you could do now. Being part of it meant being useful. A tool. And tools didn’t get remembered. But tools didn’t get left behind either.

For Rian, that had been the point.

“Rian.”

His attention snapped back to the table. A map of the eastern sector lay spread beneath Tesh’s gloved hands, routes and blind spots already memorized. “Make it fast,” he said, gaze flicking past the others gathered there. “Make it quiet.”

Rian nodded once.

It was routine now—his role in Redline.

Delivery was the easy part. That was what they called it, anyway. Packages. Routes. Drop points. Drugs dressed up as logistics. Someone had noticed his aptitude early on. He could take a hit. He was fast, agile, quiet when it mattered. So they pulled him into cleanup.

Mercenary work.

That was the part the news liked to talk about. The part that earned them names and headlines. As if they were the ones who made the mess.

The people who could afford Redline’s services held money. Power. Influence. That part never made it into the story. It wasn’t meant to. Discretion was the product. Efficiency the guarantee.

And Rian was good at both.

By the time it was over, his hands were clean again.

He peeled the gloves off slowly and dropped them into the bin, checking his phone before the adrenaline fully drained. His steps were unhurried as he cut through the alley, avoiding the external cameras. Sirens wailed somewhere nearby, distant enough not to matter.

He slipped an earbud in as he mounted the bike, tuning into the police scanner while he pulled his helmet on. The engine roared to life.

He listened as distance stretched between him and the scene.

Male. Pronounced dead on arrival.

What they didn’t say was who the man had been. A witness. Important enough that someone had paid to make sure he never spoke.

The light turned red. Rian slowed, boots steady on the pavement as the bike idled beneath him. His phone buzzed in his pocket—once. Coordinates.

He exhaled through his nose and followed them.

The neighborhood changed as he rode—streets wider, lawns manicured, houses set back just enough to imply privacy without isolation. Money lived here. Quiet money. The kind that paid for discretion and expected it in return.

He pulled into the driveway of a modern two-story home. A luxury sedan sat parked beneath the porch light, freshly washed. Curtains drawn. Lights on.

Rian killed the engine.

Helmet off. Mask on. Hood pulled up.

He checked the time once before ringing the bell. No answer. He rang it again. And again—impatient now, deliberate.

The door opened just enough to reveal a man in his mid-forties, black hair neatly styled, brown eyes sharp with ambition rather than fear. He wore black dress pants and a white button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbows, tie loosened like he’d just come home from work.

His gaze flicked past Rian, scanning the street. Then back. “I’m guessing this is your way of telling me,” the man said quietly, “that you know where I live. And that if I talk—” He stopped himself, lips pressing thin. “You know.”

Rian didn’t nod. Didn’t speak. He just stood there.

The man swallowed. “Is it… taken care of?”

Rian reached into his pocket and held his phone up between them. He pressed play. The police scanner crackled to life, replaying the recording between the responding officers and dispatch. 

The man’s shoulders sagged, relief and horror settling in equal measure. He stepped back without another word, closing the door softly.

Rian turned away.

The bike roared back to life, carrying him off into the night. A block later, his hand brushed something solid in his pocket. He slowed again, pulling the bottle out at the next stop. Orange. White cap. Kaiseng’s suppressants. He’d forgotten to return them last night.

The nurse could replace them. Rian knew that. He also knew Kaiseng wouldn’t—not immediately. Too busy. Too proud. Too used to handling things himself.

Rian checked the time. It was late. Kaiseng would be at work. Probably only an hour into his shift. He didn’t see the problem with stopping by the apartment. 

Just for a minute.

The first time Rian had been to this apartment, he’d had to double-check the information he’d been given. He was a Park. Parks didn’t live in buildings like this—let alone somewhere like this. The neighborhood was middle class at best.

No lobby security. Locks so easy to pick a rebellious teenager could break in. He half considered installing better measures himself, then dismissed the thought. There would be time for that later. When they got a place of their own.

The door clicked open with ease.

The apartment was quiet, just as he’d expected. Clean. Dark. Curtains drawn. He didn’t hesitate—he already had the layout memorized. His steps carried him straight to the bathroom as he pulled the pill bottle from his pocket and flicked on the light.

Rian paused as he closed the medicine cabinet. His gaze lingered on his own reflection.

His fingers lifted without thinking, brushing the back of his neck. The hair there had grown longer than he preferred, curling just enough to hide the skin beneath.

He pushed it aside.

The bite was still faintly visible in the mirror. He didn’t need to look closely to know that. He never did.

A dull pressure settled in his chest. “We can get through anything…” he murmured quietly to the empty apartment. His hand lingered there a moment longer before he let the hair fall back into place.

Rian exhaled softly, the corner of his mouth lifting.

“Alright,” he said to the empty apartment. “Time for some housekeeping.”

From the inner pocket of his jacket, he pulled out three compact devices—no bigger than coins, matte black, unmarked. He crossed the room first, crouching near the entryway, fingers deft as he mounted the first just out of sight.

Doors mattered. Who came in. Who left.

The second went in the living room, angled to catch the couch, the windows, the hallway leading deeper into the apartment. Social spaces told stories people didn’t mean to tell.

He paused right outside the bedroom. The third device rested in his palm longer than the others. Not because he shouldn’t. Because he needed to decide where Kaiseng was most likely to lie to himself. He placed it carefully—out of sight, but with a clear view of the bed.

When he finished, Rian straightened. The router was easy to find. He synced the feed to his phone, watching each camera come online in silence before finding Kai’s laptop tucked away, half hidden beneath a book on his coffee table. 

The screen lit to a default background of mountain ranges. And with a click he was prompted to input a password. His head went back, pressing gently into the couch as his eyes closed. 

It hadn’t been a big moment.

Rian spotted him immediately.

Kaiseng was on the library floor between two bookcases, legs bent, a textbook open in front of him. A notebook rested against his knee, pen tapping in a slow, absent rhythm. Headphones in. Gone.

Rian didn’t announce himself.

Rian moved closer, footsteps muffled by carpet, until he stopped just beside him. Kaiseng didn’t look up.

So Rian sank down anyway, lowering himself to the floor until their shoulders nearly brushed. He reached out and plucked one earbud free.

“Hiding from us?” he murmured with a grin. “Didn’t feel like joining the study group, Park?”

Kaiseng finally looked at him.

That look—the one he always gave when Rian invaded his space. Flat. Unamused. But not annoyed enough to push him away.

Rian smiled wider. “What are you listening to?”

Before Kaiseng could answer, Rian popped the earbud into his own ear.

His brows knit instantly.

“That’s—” He paused. Listened harder. “That’s not music.”

All he could hear was rain.

Not dramatic. No thunder. No swell or drop in volume. Just the steady patter of water hitting something solid, close enough that it felt like it surrounded him.

Rain.

Kaiseng shrugged, eyes dropping back to his book. “Didn’t say it was.”

Rian tugged the earbud free, baffled. “Why would you listen to this?”

The pen stopped tapping.

Kaiseng considered him for a moment, like he was deciding how much effort the explanation deserved. Then he spoke, voice low, almost thoughtful.

“It’s called shizuka.”

Rian blinked. “Gesundheit.”

That earned him a faint exhale that might have been a laugh.

“It means quiet,” Kaiseng said. “But not silence. More like… being at peace while everything else keeps going.”

Rian tilted his head. “That’s depressing.”

Kaiseng hummed. “It’s practical.”

He reached out and took the earbud back, but instead of taking it back, he placed it back into Rian’s ear. The sound of rain continuing.

“When things get loud,” he added, softer now, “it helps drown it out. Makes it easier to think.”

Rian watched him then—really watched him. The way his shoulders stayed loose, the way his breathing evened out, the way the noise of the world seemed to stop asking anything of him—of them.

He understood.

Not the word. But the feeling.

Because sitting there on the floor, tucked between shelves and rain that wasn’t really rain, Rian felt it too. The way the chaos softened at the edges and he could just focus on what was in front of him. 

He understood.

Because Kaiseng had always been that for him.

Rian opened his eyes. He leaned forward, fingers moving without hesitation, and the screen unlocked on the first try.