Page 5 of Madness & Mercy

“If I need backup,” I say, “I’ll be dead.”

And I hang up.

This isn’t a conversation anymore.

It’s a reckoning.

And whoever that man is, the one watching me like he’s already counted my bones?

He’s about to find out what happens when you mess with the king.

You get seen.

You get followed.

And then you fucking disappear.

Just like everyone else.

The Benz idles three storefronts down from the corner café, windows steamed, a neon sign flickering like it’s half-asleep. I park in a red zone and kill the engine. If someone wants to ticket me, they’re welcome to try.

I lean back, my eyes narrowing through the windshield.

There you are.

Tucked into a corner table near the front. Mug in hand. One elbow on the table, the other slung over the back of the seat like he’s got all the time in the world.

He looks casual. At ease.

It’s a fucking performance.

He’s watching, even when he’s not looking. I can see it in the angle of his head, the way his eyes skim the café window every few minutes like he’s just admiring traffic. Like he doesn’t know I’m parked right here, staring at him.

Except I think he does.

His thin-framed glasses are half-fogged from the steam drifting off his cup. His jaw is unshaven, a few days past respectable, and there’s a scar just beneath his right cheekbone, faint, but not accidental. Old damage. The kind that leaves a man either careful or reckless.

This one’s both.

He’s got that ex-detective look. Thin, but broad-shouldered. Solid build under the worn leather jacket that probably hasn’t seen polish in five years. There’s still some weight to him. Ex-military maybe. Ex-cop, more likely. Definitely not just some hired eye.

He’s not twitchy. Doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t sip like a man in a rush. He just watches the world pass by, like he’s waiting for a ghost to walk through the door.

Or for a king to walk through the fire.

I pull out my phone and call Luca.

He answers on the first ring.

“Already here,” he says calmly, like he’s just giving me a traffic update.

My eyes flick toward the black SUV idling a block down, mirrors tilted just enough to see the café windows.

“You’ve got eyes on him?” I murmur, keeping my gaze locked on the man through the windshield.

“Since he walked in.” A pause. “Didn’t notice me.”

“Or he did and doesn’t care,” I mutter. “Either he’s cocky, or suicidal.”