The feeling of failure was washing over Tobias Black. He could barely look at himself in the mirror as he washed up; he hated how he looked. He was broken and blaming himself for what had happened to Ella. Maybe if they had never met, this wouldn't be happening. He was coming apart at the seams.
He punched the mirror as hard as he could and it cracked. He could see himself looking back at him through a shattered mirror with spiderweb veins on it.
"If I had been quicker," Tobias mutters to himself. "Those bastards wouldn't have taken her." He added as he yanked the sink off the wall—porcelain exploding across the floor in a million pieces.
Marcus and Ms. Cheng were being taken too. Everything was falling apart, and he was spiraling into a darkness he'd never wanted to touch. Those things at the garage had drained him more than he'd expected. Right now he was weak, and weakness was a luxury he couldn't afford. He had two days to save Ella. Today was almost gone, and they weren't any closer to getting her back.
He didn't know if he was angrier at himself or drowning in guilt—probably both. He stared at the broken sink scattered across the floor and stepped over it, then noticed his knuckles were bleeding heavily. Blood dripped down his wrists in dark rivulets. He looked around for something to wrap his hand in, but there was nothing. His dirty, blood-stained shirt caught his eye. He ripped off a section and wrapped his hand tightly, then stripped off the rest and changed into fresh clothes.
But there was something else gnawing at him—the letter. His mother's handwriting, unmistakable and recent, even though she'd been dead for years. The ink was fresh. The loops and curves were exactly as he remembered them. And that meant people had been lying to him. Ever since he'd come back to this cursed town, it had been nothing but mysteries and unanswered questions. Secrets piled on top of secrets. And now this—proof that someone had been keeping the truth from him all along.
"Everything okay?" Raven called from outside the bathroom, knocking a few times between the crashes and thuds echoing from within.
Tobias opened the door. He'd changed into fresh clothes, but he just stared at Raven for a moment, jaw clenched, before he spoke.
"Yeah. Everything's peachy," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Tobias walked past Raven without another word, leaving the bathroom door wide open. The busted sink lay in pieces across the floor—a monument to his rage. But he was done with destruction. Now he had work to do. Planning. Strategy. An assault against The Graves and their allies.
He made his way to the pool table, his mind already mapping out the attack.
"You shouldn't be up and walking around!" Kara said, her voice sharp with concern as she spotted him.
"Deal with it," Tobias replied, his tone gruff and final. He reached the pool table and spread out the layout of the house before him, studying it intently. His eyes traced the corridors, the rooms, calculating where Moira would station her goons and guards. Every detail mattered. Every advantage counted.
Raven joined him at the pool table, their eyes meeting briefly before they both focused on the maps spread before them. Red X's marked the spots where Raven suspected guards or goons might be positioned—educated guesses based on what little intel they had. But that was the problem. They had no idea if these men rotated shifts, no way of knowing when the house would be most vulnerable.
It was a blind assault built on assumptions.
"We really don't know where any of these guys are," Raven said, his gaze shifting to Tobias. "This is pretty much a guess."
They exchanged glances again—a silent acknowledgment of how thin their plan really was. Tobias's fingers started drumming against the table, a restless, agitated rhythm. His jaw clenched. His shoulders tensed. He looked like he was about to explode, like the rage he'd just unleashed in that bathroom was clawing its way back to the surface, demanding an outlet.
Today was the first act of war.
The Graves had made their move, and now it was time to make theirs. It was like chess—calculated, strategic, brutal. They were all pawns on this board, expendable pieces in a game they didn't fully understand. But there was one difference between them and the Graves: they knew who the queen was.
And they were coming for her.
"We got any allies in the police?" Tobias asked, his mind already working through possibilities. If they had contacts at CHPD, they could get someone on the inside of The Graves' operation. Someone embedded. But could they pull it off in less than a day without raising suspicion?
"There's Cletus," Raven said, pausing as if weighing the idea even as he spoke it. "I doubt they'd let him in like that. But everything's worth a try."
Tobias nodded, understanding exactly where Raven's head was at. They had less than forty-eight hours to set this entire plan in motion. And they'd already lost half a day to the assault on the cannery and what had happened at the garage—time they couldn't afford to waste.
"Rough day for all of us," Raven said, swallowing hard. His jaw clenched as he prepared to tell Tobias what had gone down here.
"Moira sent her goons here. I nearly didn't make it out alive." He paused, his voice dropping lower, edged with anger. "She knows where we are, and right now I feel like she's fucking with us. A cat and mouse game. We're the mouse to her cat."
Tobias's expression darkened as he processed this. Another attack. Another close call. Moira wasn't just hunting them anymore—she was toying with them.
"Gonna need to go get something to eat soon," Tobias said as his stomach growled. This might just be a good reason for him to get out of the cannery and clear his head. Everyone knew him in the area and he didn't want to deal with that drama right now.
Erick sat behind his desk, a full cup of coffee steaming next to a bunch of paperwork. There was some chatter out in the other room. His phone buzzed; he didn't really notice it at first and then he glanced over at it. He saw the name pop up: GRAVES.
"Shit," he muttered as he grabbed the phone, navigated to the missed call log, and abruptly called the number back.
What could they want? He already handed his daughter over on a silver platter and he wasn't even sorry about that. This town needed the Graves's money and power and he'd do anything to make that happen.
Now this felt like an "we need to talk" situation from a potential ex-girlfriend or wife. The line clicked.
"Hello?" Erick asked. The voice on the other end of the phone was Moira Graves, and he knew what was going to happen next. He kind of assumed that she wanted more police power to combat The Black Boy. "Yeah, Miss Graves. I'll have the manpower to do that. Don't you worry."
Tobias drove about five miles west of Corveth Harbor. He was just looking for a simple place to find dinner at. He found this mom-and-pop looking restaurant. It was small, and the parking lot only had a few cars in it. The cars looked pretty beat up; a few of them had rust on them and one of the cars had a cracked windshield. Now this is a place he might be able to blend into. He pulled into the parking lot and found a parking spot in the farthest corner away from the other cars.
He sat in the truck for a few minutes and watched people walk in and out of the place, and it looked like they were blue collar looking people. Maybe he wouldn't run into the assholes that he had to deal with in Corveth Harbor here. His phone was in the passenger seat and he looked over at it as it lit up. Maybe that could wait for half an hour or forty-five minutes.
"I remember coming to places like this with my mother," Tobias said as he opened up the driver's side door and got out. He fished out a cigarette and smoked it while he was walking towards the entrance to the restaurant.
He slowly walked towards the entrance, and this was nice. No mobs of people and no one was going to attempt to kill him. He stepped up a few of the steps and then grabbed the door, opened it and walked in. It was a medium-sized room. The main room looked like a corner store. A few coolers filled with sodas and energy drinks, a nice old lady behind the counter. She had grey hair and round glasses. He didn't know how it worked here.
"Seat yourself," the old lady said as she never looked up from her crossword puzzle.
He walked into the dining area and took a booth in the back of the room. There were not that many people seated anyway; a waitress had come by as soon as he was seated and dropped off a menu, and then she went to attend the few other customers in the place. He took the menu, opened it up, and flipped through it.
The menu was only two pages, and it was filled with different versions of burgers that they had. He noticed a few appetizers and oddly a few pizzas. So was this place trying to be Pizza Hut or McDonald's? He noticed that on the drinks section of the menu that you could get stuff from the cooler including beer. That was a nice touch.
His Crow senses flared to life. An acrid smell cut through the diner's greasy air—sulfur mixed with the sharp tang of gunpowder. His jaw tightened. Someone had fired a weapon recently, and the scent was still fresh. He didn't understand why he could detect it so clearly, but his instincts screamed at him to pay attention.
His eyes snapped toward the front of the store. Was someone hurt? In danger?
Then he heard it—footsteps crossing the threshold. Heavy. Deliberate. Someone had just walked in.
Tobias's gaze locked onto the entrance, every muscle in his body coiled and ready.
Whatever was happening out front, he hoped it wouldn't interfere with his meal. He needed to eat.
The waitress returned to his table. Tabitha—blonde, green-eyed, wearing a plaid mini skirt and white top—smiled as she approached with her notepad ready.
"You ready to order?" she asked.
Tobias forced his attention back to the menu, pushing aside the tension coiling in his chest. "Yeah. Double bacon burger, fries, and a White Monster from the cooler."
He watched her jot down the order, her pen moving quickly across the pad.
His Crow senses flared again—sharper this time. An aggressive voice cut through the ambient noise of the diner, raw and slurred. The drunk who'd just stumbled in was leaning toward the hostess stand, his words dripping with venom.
"That bitch working tonight?" he demanded, his tone carrying the kind of menace that made the air feel thick.
Tobias's stomach dropped. Every instinct he possessed screamed danger—not the kind that came from a gun or a threat to strangers, but something far more personal. Something that made his Crow side want to rise up and take flight.
He didn't move. Didn't turn around. But his entire body went rigid, waiting.
Tabitha disappeared toward the kitchen with his order. That gave him maybe five minutes before she returned—five minutes before witnesses multiplied and things got complicated.
Tobias rose from his seat with deliberate calm and walked to the front.
The drunk had the old hostess cornered against her stand, one meaty hand braced on the counter. He didn't notice Tobias until it was too late. Tobias grabbed the back of his head and drove it down hard against the desk. Once. Twice. The third time, the man went limp.
Tobias stepped over the unconscious body without breaking stride, moved to the cooler, and grabbed a White Monster. He cracked it open on his way back to his seat, stepping over the drunk again like he was nothing more than furniture.
"Someone should clean that up," he said to the old lady, his voice pleasant despite the blood now pooling on her desk. "And call the cops."
Then he sat back down, took a long pull from the Monster, and waited for his burger.