The burnt-out apartment reeked of charred wood, acrid smoke, and the lingering despair that clung to every wall like a stain that refused to die. Connie stepped over splintered beams and fallen drywall, clutching her coat tighter as the jagged glass shredded the soles of her boots.
The second-floor unit was barely standing, a skeletal ruin, but she knew it intimately, like a bruise she'd been pressing for too long. She hadn't lived here. But she'd haunted it. Watching through its windows. Memorized the rhythms of the building and the people who drifted in and out.
She had watched him come through this door.
Her skin, soft and deceptively delicate against the grime, carried a faint warmth hinting at her Korean heritage. She looked young, fragile even, the kind of porcelain you could crack with a whisper—but her eyes betrayed her. They always had.
Green. Sharp. Unnatural.
Eyes that didn't look so much as dissected. They stripped people bare, peeled lies like rotten skin, exposed the bones of truth beneath. Innocence didn't live in those eyes. Predation did—quiet, observant, patient. The world flinched before she even spoke.
Her black hair, unruly and slightly wavy, spilled around her face like falling dusk. Sometimes tied, sometimes loose; here it clung to her cheeks, damp from her breath and the cold. A cracked locket hung against her chest, hidden beneath her shirt. Warped by heat. By violence. She never let anyone touch it. No one dared ask.
And she didn't blink when she inflicted pain.
To Connie, pain was communion. Intimacy. Truth made physical.
But right now, it wasn't violence she wanted. It was proof.
"I need proof," she whispered, voice hoarse with exhaustion and obsession. "Something to show he existed. Something they can't erase."
She didn't know the old landlady, not personally. Only enough to know she'd been forced to care for Shade, forced into a role she didn't want, muttering rules down the stairwell that no one followed. But the remnants here, the smoke-stained clothing, the melted plastic frames, the smell of dead fabric, these were his. These were pieces of a life he'd hidden too well.
Connie's gaze cut across the ruin, eyes too sharp for her porcelain face. They didn't just search—they devoured.
She paused at the old woman's doorway.
The door hung off one hinge. Soot curled like dead vines along the wood. Ash drifted in lazy spirals as she pushed it open. A wave of moldy stench and burnt plaster washed over her.
The room had once been cluttered. She remembered glimpses of it through cracks in conversation, through Shade's silence, through hints he never intended to share. Now it was gutted, hollowed by fire and time.
Connie stepped inside.
The Chicago chill seeped through the wounded walls, biting through the worn fabric of her coat. Her fingers trembled as she dug through the remains, half-melted drawers, warped photographs, mounds of soot. Nothing survived intact. Nothing personal remained.
She tossed aside scorched blankets, cursed under her breath. "There has to be something."
But something else simmered beneath the surface of her frustration:
Dee.
Just thinking of him soured her tongue.
Dee with his heavy boots, his gravel voice, the weight he carried like he owned the streets. He'd shown up weeks after Shade disappeared, talking like he knew something, acting like the bosses had handed him the reins.
He was nothing but their ploy. Their puppet. Their pretty lie, dressed in leather and authority.
He wasn't Shade's equal. He wasn't even his shadow.
Yet he spoke to her like she belonged to him. Ordered her like she was another soldier. Another tool. As if he could command her simply because the bosses said he could.
She hated him for it.
He thought he was in charge of her.
He thought the gang's blessing meant she'd kneel.
He thought Shade's absence left her leaderless.
He was wrong.
Shade never gave her his real name. Never gave her past or future. He always kept his cards close, locked behind quiet eyes and a half-smile that said he didn't trust anyone—not fully.
But she knew this place.
She saw him come from here. More than once. Saw him slip up the back stairs and vanish inside like a ghost returning to a grave.
And she knew enough to know he didn't want Dee anywhere near this.
Finally, behind a toppled nightstand, Connie's fingers struck metal—cold, solid, defiant against fire.
A lockbox.
She dragged it free, breath catching. The hanger worked as a crude pick, scraping against the warped lock until it gave with a shriek.
Inside, nestled between blackened papers, was an envelope.
"For Aiden. Only if I'm gone."
The name punched the breath out of her.
Aiden.
Not Shade.
Not S.
Not any of the aliases he let slip like breadcrumbs.
Aiden.
Her body locked. Her pulse spiked. The room swayed, the cold sinking deeper into her bones.
So he had a name.
A real one.
And the old woman knew it.
Connie's throat tightened, rage and betrayal knotting together.
He hadn't trusted her with it.
She pressed the envelope to her chest, breath shaking—
—and froze at the sound of footsteps.
Heavy. Deliberate. Two sets. Navigating the broken hallway.
Connie whipped around just as two shadows filled the doorway, stray men from the street, their coats smelling of mildew and desperation. One limped, eyes sharp; the other murmured anxiously.
"Just keep moving," the mutterer said. "Ain't nothing left here."
But the limping one lingered. His gaze drifted across the room, then toward the blackened hallway.
"This was the kid's room," he murmured. "Quiet one. Stayed here before the fire. Always polite. Fixed things when they broke. Smart kid. Sharp as a knife."
Connie's jaw tightened.
They didn't know him.
Not the way she had.
Not even close.
She let them leave, their voices echoing down the stairs until silence reclaimed the ruin.
She inhaled sharply, then turned down the hall.
The air thinned. Dust floated like ghosts. Her boots scraped ash as she walked into the room she had feared to face.
Shade's room.
It was a husk of a life, blistered walls, collapsed ceiling, water-warped floors. The remnants of a dresser lay against the far wall, collapsed in on itself. A melted basketball slumped in the corner. The desk was half-eaten by fire.
Nothing personal. Nothing real. No photos. No trophies. No school papers.
He had left nothing behind.
Except absence.
"You were here," she whispered. "You lived here. Why did you leave nothing?"
The emptiness shredded her composure. Rage surged. She kicked the dresser, tearing it open. She flung burned drawers across the room, scattering their useless contents.
"Why didn't you leave anything?!"
Her voice cracked. Her hands clawed at the desk until plastic snapped and wood splintered under her palms.
"Where are you?!"
The room fell still, ash swirling like dying snow.
Then something glimmered.
A photograph, curled and scorched, half-hiding beneath the dresser debris.
Connie knelt, lifting it carefully, afraid it might crumble.
Two boys.
One unmistakably Shade, quiet eyes, guarded posture.
The other taller, smiling, arm around his shoulder.
Behind them:
St. Jerome Boys Home — Chicago, IL.
Connie's breath caught.
He had a past.
He had a name.
He had connections she had never been allowed to see.
And she knew—knew with a certainty that hollowed her chest—
Dee didn't know this photo existed.
He didn't know anything real.
He didn't know Shade.
Connie rose slowly, the photo cradled in her palm like the last ember of a dying fire.
She wasn't giving this to Dee.
Not to the puppet bosses who sent her.
Not to the man who talked like he owned her.
This was Shade's truth.
And she would guard it long before she ever answered to him.