2026-07-15 17:31:11The parking garage beneath Pinnacle Corp was quiet at six in the evening, most employees already gone. Curry leaned against his car with a cigarette pinched between his lips, watching smoke curl into the fluorescent light as he kept his eyes on the elevator doors across the lot.
A familiar figure soon emerged. Mika walked with her usual composure, heels clicking a steady rhythm on concrete. Curry pushed off the car and started toward her, but before he could close the distance, a Mercede
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"Nothing serious, you free tonight? I was going to ask you to come have a drink at this bar," Curry said, drawing on his cigarette with an easy calm that belied the tension thrumming through the room.On the other end of the line, Brock Tiernan let out a warm laugh tinged with embarrassment. "Sorry, man, I'm not in Bayhaven right now. I headed back to my hometown for a couple of days because my mom got sick, so I'm here making sure she gets proper treatment.""If she's not doing well, bring her out here and I'll take a look at her myself," Curry offered without missing a beat."Listen, the reason I'm calling," he continued, his tone shifting just enough to signal this wasn't purely social, "I got into it with someone at a bar tonight. He claims he's one of yours, Draven Clan, and he even threatened to kill me."The room seemed to contract around those words. Curry kept his posture relaxed against the leather booth, smoke curling lazily from between his fingers.
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The kick landed like a thunderclap, and every person in the Spade Lounge felt it reverberate through their bones.Nobody there was unfamiliar with Hollis Fenwick. Anyone who frequented the bar circuit knew exactly who stood behind him, and that knowledge had kept Hollis untouchable for years. He'd bullied, extorted, and humiliated people in these very booths without a soul daring to protest. So when his body hit the floor with blood streaming down his face, more than a few silent victims felt something loosen in their chests for the first time in years."You're finished." Hollis smeared blood across his face with the back of his hand, his voice raw with fury. "I'm going to kill you tonight.""Don't waste my time talking." Curry withdrew his foot with casual indifference. "Stand up first, then we'll see." He dropped onto the leather sofa as if he owned the place, crossed one leg over the other, and reached for a glass of soda water. He took a slow sip without so much a
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"You've got the wrong table, man. We've just been sitting here drinking." Preston Chadwick frowned as the group pushed through the crowd, his voice carrying a measured calm that didn't quite match the tension settling into his shoulders."Shut your mouth. Nobody asked you." The guy at the front of the pack, a wiry twenty-something with a silver stud in his left ear, leveled a telescoping baton at Preston's face. The steel caught the neon lights and threw a thin blue streak across the booth. "Say one more word, and I'll open you up right here."Preston swallowed hard and said nothing. He knew the type, street kids who didn't measure consequences or calculate risk the way businessmen did, who'd crack a bottle across your teeth just to prove a point."That's him!" The tattooed kid from the restroom came scrambling out from behind the group, still reeking of whatever filth had been festering in that trash can, his face twisted with humiliation as he jabbed a finger toward
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The girl yanked her arm free the instant the tattooed young man seized her wrist. "Get your hands off me!" Her voice cut through the bass-heavy thrum of the bar, sharp with alarm.That was all it took to set him off. His open palm cracked across her cheek before she could pull back, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the pounding music, though it rang loud enough for those standing nearby to flinch."You come out here to work and then play the innocent?" He sneered down at her, flexing his hand. "You want the money but none of the expectations? The world doesn't work that way, sweetheart."The two sentences landed harder than the slap. The girl crumpled inward, burying her face between her knees as tears streamed silently down her reddened cheek. Her shoulders trembled, small and pitiful against the grimy tiles of the corridor outside the restrooms.The tattooed man swung his glare outward, catching the half-dozen onlookers frozen mid-step. "The hell are a
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The last of the evening light stretched across Bayhaven City, painting the skyline in bruised shades of amber and violet. Pedestrians drifted along the sidewalks in loose clusters, their voices carrying the easy rhythm of a day winding down.Inside Roland Turner's office at Pinnacle Corp, floor-to-ceiling windows framed that dying sun like a canvas. Roland stood with his back to the room, hands clasped behind him, watching the city below without really seeing it."Mr. Turner, here's the file you requested on Curry Pitt."He didn't turn around. "Leave it on the desk and close the door behind you."The soft click of the latch was his cue. Roland crossed to his desk, lit a cigarette, and cracked the manila folder open. Smoke curled above the pages as his eyes moved line by line, nothing remarkable stared back. No family connections, no business affiliations, no hidden fortune."So what gives you the nerve to talk to me like that?" he muttered, flicking ash into
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"Since my dear brother-in-law insists on being so utterly unreasonable," Roland Turner said, flicking his wrist in a theatrical display of outrage, "then don't blame me for what comes next. Consider this matter closed. I'd love to see whether Pinnacle Corp collapses without Mika Turner holding it together."He kept his expression tight with manufactured fury, but behind that mask his mind was already calculating. Nobody in that room would believe a word Curry Pitt had said. As long as the performance stayed convincing, the leverage remained firmly in his own hands.And sure enough, the moment Celeste Vale caught the edge in Roland's voice, she rushed to smooth things over with a nervous, placating smile. "Come on, Roland, why lower yourself to his level? He's a former inmate who hasn't seen anything of the real world. Don't waste your anger on someone like that." She waved her hand dismissively toward Curry, her voice climbing an octave higher than necessary. "Give it a li
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