Chapter 5 Scars and Smoke

Ford's POV

Ford drove with one hand on the wheel and the other curled loosely around a cigarette he never lit.

He didn't smoke. Not anymore.

But he liked the burn between his fingers. The memory of fire.

The streets blurred past his window, wet with last night's rain. Even this late, the city pulsed beneath the asphalt sirens like lullabies, red lights blinking like eyes that never closed. He could still feel the weight of her in his house. Not her body. Her presence.

She didn't belong there.

But she hadn't looked out of place. That unsettled him.

She wasn't a criminal. Not really. Her hands hadn't moved like a thief's. She hadn't known where the cameras were hadn't even tried to disable them. She wasn't casing the place. She came to steal, and she was lucky to find the bag of money where he's stashed it. He should've moved it to a more secure place, but he'd gotten lazy.

Desperation, not strategy.

He'd seen it before. Hell, he'd worn it once.

Not recently.

Not since the badge became armor and the bribes became currency. Not since he learned the only people who survived in this city were the ones who understood that morality was a luxury.

She had no luxury. Only desperation.

She hadn't told him some sob story. Hadn't cried or pleaded or even tried to seduce him the way some did when cornered.

She watched him. Calm, almost. Like a wild animal sizing up a trap.

That kind of poise didn't come from nothing.

It came from scars. He knew the look. He saw it in mirrors.

The precinct came into view. Grey brick. Rotting from the inside out. Just like everything else in his life. He pulled into the underground lot and killed the engine.

He didn't move.

He sat in the silence of the car and thought about her leg. The way the blood had soaked through her jeans. The way she said "I'll leave" like she meant it, even though she hadn't moved.

He hated that he'd noticed how thin she was under the attitude.

Hated that something in him had shifted the moment she didn't scream.

Because screams were expected. Predictable. Manageable.

Silence was dangerous.

It meant calculation. It meant survival.

And that that was what disturbed him the most.

Ford had built an empire on fear. He'd watched hardened men piss themselves when he stepped into a room. He knew how to strip people bare without raising his voice, how to leverage weakness like currency.

But her silence didn't feel like submission.

It felt like a mirror and he hated seeing himself in someone else. He lit another cigarette.

Didn't smoke it. Just let the fire burn, until it singed his fingers.