An hour later—still deep night, storm chewing gutters—he slipped south toward SoDo. Porter Gunsmith & Repair sat dark between a closed locksmith and a mural that claimed the Mariners would rise again any day now.
The front sign read CLOSED, but a crack of light at the back door glowed like a favor being cashed in.
Caleb Porter looked up from a spotless work table, sleep creasing his cheek, when Silas banged through the rear door. Caleb had the build of a one-time linebacker and the temperament of a cautious accountant.
He wiped a hand down his face, jaw clicking awake. The bell above the door hadn't finished ringing before he slid a ceramic mug across the counter.
Gun oil and old coffee hung in the warm air; rain ticked off the metal roof.
"Storm got louder," Caleb said, which was his way of saying you look like hell.
Silas's fingers tightened on the mug until the ceramic warmed his knuckles.
Silas wrapped his hands around the mug, letting the heat soak in. "Need to pick up the Riverstone nine-mil piece."
Caleb's brows ticked. "Paperwork's ready. You sure you're not just mad enough to do something dumb?"
"Mad enough," Silas said, "and not dumb enough to go in unarmed." The pen quivered against the paper when he took it.
Caleb nodded like he appreciated the honesty and pulled a form from the drawer. "Respect the tool, respect people. Sign here, initial there. You read about the Rainier courier?" Caleb pushed the form over, index finger on the signature line.
Serials and ballistics will sing your name if you pull this trigger, the unspoken part read.
"Yeah." Silas scrawled his name, pulse ticking in his wrist. Using hush money to buy a gun—nice symmetry, his brain needled.
"You think it's connected?"
"I think people get shot when they ignore drills." Caleb slid the Riverstone C9 Compact across the counter.
Matte black, seven inches nose to tail, four-inch barrel, the kind of nine-millimeter piece that fit a city fight without making a scene.
The metal felt colder than the rain outside. "You fire it?"
"On the range. Three times. Didn't miss." Ballistics will tie this to me if I screw up, he thought, and didn't put the gun down.
Caleb's mouth jerked. "Good. Keep it dry. Rain like this wears away idiots." He glanced at the security camera over the door—a polite reminder the footage would outlive them both.
Silas counted out cash—tip money, guilt money, whatever story he needed to tell himself.
Caleb watched it vanish into the register, then bagged a box of ammo and a cleaning kit like an indulgent uncle who secretly feared his nephew's life choices.
"Anything else before you go playing vigilante?" Caleb asked. His jaw bunched, molars carving the question into a warning.
Silas slung the satchel over his shoulder, the weight of the Riverstone resting on his ribs. "Yeah. Need a city that minds its own business." He managed half a smile. Caleb didn't try to talk him out of it.
That was why Silas trusted him, even when the camera over the door stared like a future witness.
He left the shop with the satchel tight under his arm. Rain had downgraded from Biblical to Merely Miserable. Neon from a pawn shop blinked across puddles.
His brain finally stopped playing back the moment in the suite and moved on to quiet, lethal planning.
If I miss, I'm the Rainier headline. If I hit, I'm the guy ballistics will hunt.
He walked past the rail yard, the smell of diesel and rust rising up like ghosts of double shifts, and curved toward the waterfront. Sienna's text beeped again—Still at the art gallery, promise. ♥ The gall almost made him laugh.
He muted the conversation instead.
By the time he reached his apartment, the old brick building towered like it knew secrets. Floorboards creaked under soaked socks. He let himself in, tossed the soaked hoodie over a chair, and laid the Riverstone on the coffee table.
Damp fabric clung to his skin; the heater ticked like a countdown.
The gun shone under the weak lamp like a promise he had not decided how to keep. He picked it back up, the polymer grip digging into his palm, begging for something warm to stain it.
He showered, dressed in dry clothes, and sat on the couch with the satchel strap wrapped around his hand. The lamp warmed his cheek; his other hand shook until he fisted it in the strap.
Two choices, he thought. Go to bed, wake up, pretend this was a misunderstanding. Or follow through on the promise his gut had been hammering for weeks.
He imagined Evan's smug face, Sienna's lie, and the guards who had not even considered him a threat—and Mira reading him his rights if he slipped.
He sat there long enough for the coffee table light to burn a square into his vision. Killing a man was a line he'd mocked on TV, not one he crossed.
Walter White had hesitated, he reminded himself. So did every decent person before they stopped being decent. And every decent person risked handcuffs if they carried the wrong tool into the wrong camera's view.
A minute later the tremor in his hands faded and the decision landed, cold as the rain.
He stood, slid the nine-mil piece into an inside holster, and checked the satchel: extra magazine, gloves, mask, the bill from the guard folded into a tiny provocation. Rain battered the window; freight horns moaned somewhere beyond the industrial district.
The city whispered that decent people stayed home. Silas decided he was done being decent. He pictured Evan's blood steaming on wet concrete while those guards slipped in it—and the camera domes filming whichever way this went.
He killed the apartment lights, stepped into the hallway, and locked the door. The Riverstone's weight centered him. Outside, Seattle shone with neon and rain, oblivious to the courier it had just shoved over the edge.
Silas pulled up his hood, set his pace toward downtown, and let the anger resolve into something cold and precise.
Evan Royce was still breathing. Silas intended to fix that.
Silas Quinn crouched halfway down the Crown Pike's service stair with rain dripping off his hood and landing on the aluminum steps.
The stair clung to the hotel's backside, dropping from the loading dock—where laundry trucks came and went—into the rear alley squeezed between the hotel and the parking deck.
Two hours of prep had already soaked him through, but the cold helped. It kept his mind sharp enough to track details the way the guards tracked tips.
He had followed a porter through the loading dock earlier, committing the path from the laundry cages to the private elevator.
Now the dock lights were down to a dim security glow, and the alley smelled bad of wet cardboard, oil grease, and the lemon detergent breathing out of the laundry vent.
The Riverstone C9 rested against his ribs beneath the jacket—seven-inch slide, four-inch barrel, matte finish still factory-fresh. It still smelled like machining oil and optimism.
He crouched on the stair, knees tucked so his shadow stayed behind the railing.
The Red Crane satchel hung across his chest, packed the way he'd rehearsed. Extra magazine and rubber gloves filled the front pocket.
A plastic rain poncho—a disposable sheet to wipe evidence—sat next to the folded hush-money bill from the guard. Two protein bars rounded out the kit for later.
A loop of duct tape held a compact flashlight he could pinch between teeth if the alley lights died, though he prayed it would stay latched.
Silas wiped rainwater off his thumb and reached up to the bubble camera guarding the service entrance. A smudge of cheap lip balm striped across the lower half of the dome, enough to haze the lens without flagging maintenance.
Dollar-store sabotage counted as long as it fooled the footage.
He checked the reflection in a puddle to confirm the glare distorted the left side of the alley, then smeared the remaining balm onto the stair rail so the scent wouldn't stand out.
The service door beside him thrummed every eight seconds as the freight elevator cycled—eight seconds of vibration, three seconds of quiet, repeat. He matched the pulse by tapping the stair tread with two fingers.
Ding, chatter, scribble, hush, door swing. Eight seconds. Three seconds. Eight seconds. Three seconds.
Silas exhaled slowly through his mask, letting the rhythm steady his nerves. He had run the plan a dozen times in his head, but now that the moment was here, doubt crept in. What if Royce had changed the schedule?
What if the guards were on higher alert? What if— His brain loved building worst-case dioramas.
He needed more cover, so he dragged an empty soda crate and a soaked recycling bag closer to the locked service gate.
The crate leaned at just the right angle to break the line of sight from the lobby camera across the alley. He added a chipped coffee cup to the top, pretending a lazy employee who'd stashed trash mid-shift.
He stepped back, checked the angles, and nodded. The setup looked casual enough to pass a quick glance.
Another delivery truck rattled past the alley mouth, splashing rainwater up the curb. The driver glanced over, saw a hunched courier on break, and dismissed him.
A housekeeper wheeled a creaking cart down the hallway on the other side of the door; the scent of bleach rode the damp air for three whole breaths before fading under diesel exhaust.
Silas filed each stimulus away, not because it mattered now, but because it might matter if he needed to come back and finish what tonight started.
He flexed his fingers inside the gloves until feeling returned. The sedans sat, their exhaust hugging the ground like low fog. Somewhere above, a guest laughed, muffled by layers of carpet and money.
He catalogued every injury he expected to take. Bruised ribs, maybe a broken nose, definitely a baton bruise. He accepted them all because the alternative was living with that penthouse image carved behind his eyelids.
He thought about the time he and Sienna had eaten contraband sushi in this same alley after a double shift—how she had stolen his chopsticks, how they'd made promises about someday.
The memory clawed at him until he weaponized it.
Royce was late. Five minutes past his usual swagger.
Silas ran the contingencies anyway—if Royce stayed upstairs, he'd dump the plan, sell the gun, and rent a storage unit just to keep distance between himself and the inevitable fallout.
But the freight elevator kept humming, and the guards kept their lazy watch. No evacuation, no panic. Just delay.
The lock rolled back three full clicks. Guard silhouettes shifted behind frosted glass. Silas let out a breath, rolled his shoulders, and braced. He had one clean lane and a single breath to make it matter.
The door latch snicked. Warm light spilled at the seams. Silas tightened his grip and counted one… two… three—