The front door was unlocked.
Marco Reyes stepped into the foyer of his home. He didn't call out. He didn't draw a weapon. He stood on the welcome mat, his Gucci loafers sinking into the plush fabric, and listened.
Silence.
It wasn't the quiet of a sleeping house. A sleeping house breathes. The refrigerator hums, the floorboards settle, the air circulates through the vents with a soft, rhythmic pulse. This silence was different. It was absolute. It was a vacuum that sucked the pressure out of the air, leaving a ringing void in his ears.
The smell hit him next.
It was a complex, horrific layering of scents. Beneath the top notes of his wife's lavender potpourri and the lingering aroma of roasted chicken from dinner, there was something metallic. Something sharp and coppery. And beneath that, the stinging, chemical reek of burnt gunpowder.
Marco walked forward. His movement was slow, dreamlike. He felt like he was wading through deep water.
He reached the bottom of the stairs.
Flashback.
Sunday morning. Bright sunlight streaming through the transom window above the door. Marco is sitting on the bottom step, tying his shoes. He hears the thundering of small feet.
"Papa! Papa, look!"
Mateo, seven years old, comes hurtling down the stairs, a plastic superhero cape tied around his neck. He jumps from the third step, fearless. Marco catches him mid air, swinging him around. The boy smells of milk and sleep. His laughter is a high, bright bell.
"I'm flying, Papa! Like the rocket!"
Sofia, five years old, peeks through the bannister, shy but smiling. "Me too? Can I fly too?"
Present.
Marco looked up the stairs. The bannister was chipped. A bullet had taken a chunk out of the polished wood, exposing the raw, pale grain underneath.
He climbed. His hand trailed along the wall, his fingers brushing the framed photos. A wedding picture. A baptism. A vacation in Mallorca. The glass on the vacation photo was shattered, a spiderweb of cracks obscuring his wife's smiling face.
He reached the landing.
The hallway light was still on, casting long, harsh shadows.
Mateo lay on his side near the door to his room. He looked small. He looked like a pile of laundry dropped and forgotten. The superhero cape, his favorite bedsheet, was tangled around his legs.
Marco fell to his knees. The impact jarred his teeth, but he didn't feel it.
He reached out, his hand trembling, and touched the boy's shoulder. It was warm. He was only minutes late. Minutes.
He turned the boy over.
Marco didn't scream. His throat locked, the muscles seizing so hard he couldn't breathe. He stared at the face of his son, at the surprise frozen there. Mateo hadn't died fighting. He had died confused.
Marco brushed the hair from the boy's forehead. He wiped a smudge of soot from his cheek. He arranged the boy's limbs, straightening them, trying to give him some dignity in the chaos.
He looked across the hall. The pink room.
Sofia.
She was curled up near her dollhouse. She looked like she was sleeping, except for the dark stain spreading across the white carpet.
Flashback.
"It's a tea party, Papa. You have to drink."
Sofia holds out a tiny, empty plastic cup. Her eyes are serious, demanding compliance with the rituals of her imagination. Marco, dressed in a three-thousand-dollar suit, sits on the tiny chair, his knees hitting his chin.
"Delicious," Marco says, sipping the air. "What flavor is it?"
"It's star flavor," she whispers.
Elena leans against the doorframe, watching them. She is wearing one of Marco's shirts, holding a mug of coffee. She looks tired but happy. The house is warm. The world outside, the business, the violence, the Summit, does not exist here.
Present.
Marco crawled across the hallway. He didn't stand up. He couldn't. He crawled on his hands and knees through the blood of his children.
He reached Sofia. He touched her hand. It was limp. The "star flavor" tea cup was lying on its side next to her head.
He sat there for a long time. The hallway stretched out around him, a tunnel of horror. He saw the bullet holes in the walls, high, wide, frantic. He saw the gouges in the floor.
This wasn't a hit. This wasn't a professional clearing a house.
He traced the trajectory of a bullet that had missed by three feet, burying itself in the linen closet.
Panic, Marco analyzed, the cold part of his brain waking up. The shooter was shaking. The shooter was crying. This wasn't a soldier.
He stood up. It took effort. His legs felt heavy, like they belonged to someone else.
He walked to the master bedroom.
The door was kicked in. The lock plate was torn from the frame.
He stepped inside.
The smell of feathers was overwhelming. The air was filled with down, floating in the gentle current of the air conditioning like snow in a shaken globe.
Elena was half off the bed.
Marco walked to her. He didn't look at the ruin of the mattress. He looked at her face. Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she had died asking a question.
He knelt beside her. He closed her eyes with his thumb. He kissed her forehead. Her skin was cooling.
He looked around the room. The bedside lamp was shattered. The mirror on the vanity was cracked.
He saw something on the floor, near the window. A footprint.
It was a muddy smear on the cream carpet. A shoe print. But there was something else mixed in with the mud. A faint, yellow residue.
Marco touched it. He brought his finger to his nose.
Sulfur. Industrial solvent.
He looked at the footprint again. It was narrow. Expensive sole. A dress shoe.
He stood up and walked to the wall where three bullets had impacted in a tight, erratic cluster. The shooter had fired blindly. The shooter had flinched.
Flashback.
The Summit. The smoke. The insults.
John Corvini sitting like a statue. The empty chair.
Kevin Corvini. The boy in the silver suit. The boy who twitched. The boy who smelled of chemicals and fear. The boy who looked at his father with desperate, hungry eyes.
Present.
The grief that had been crushing Marco's chest began to change. It hardened. It crystallized.
The tears that had blurred his vision dried up, leaving his eyes burning and clear.
He wasn't looking at a tragedy anymore. He was looking at a mistake.
Kevin Corvini had come here to be a legend. He had come here to prove he was the "forest fire." But fire leaves ash. Kevin had left evidence. He had left a signature of incompetence.
Marco walked out of the bedroom. He walked past Sofia. He walked past Mateo. He didn't stop to touch them again. He couldn't. If he stopped, he would die with them.
He walked down the stairs, his footsteps heavy and deliberate. He walked through the foyer.
He stopped at the mirror by the door, the one Elena checked her lipstick in before they went out to dinner.
Marco looked at himself.
The man in the mirror was pale. His eyes were dark hollows. His silk shirt was stained with the blood of his son from where he had knelt.
The arrogance was gone. The swagger of the "Spanish James" was gone. The man who drank tequila and mocked John Corvini was dead upstairs.
What was left was something simpler. Something purer.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver case. He took out a cigarillo. He placed it between his lips.
He struck a match.
The flare illuminated his face in the dark hallway. It highlighted the blood on his shirt. It highlighted the absolute, flat emptiness of his eyes.
He didn't light the cigar. He watched the flame burn down the wood, getting closer and closer to his fingers. He didn't blow it out. He let it burn until it seared his skin, until the pain was sharp and real.
Only then did he drop it.
Marco opened the front door and walked out into the night. He left the door wide open. He left the lights on. He had no home to protect anymore. He had no family to hide.
He had nothing left to lose.
And a man with nothing left to lose is the only thing more dangerous than a ghost.