Chapter 5 A Name For the flame

Warehouse 17 didn't look like much.

A ribcage of rusted metal and broken promises, tucked along the river like a corpse the city forgot to bury. Midnight painted it in cold blue light, shadows rippling over the water like they knew her secrets.

Caroline arrived early. Not out of nervousness. Out of habit.

Patience had kept her alive longer than luck ever would.

She circled the perimeter once-slow, deliberate. Counted exits, angles, shadows that could hide a man with a rifle. There were no guards. That was the message: we're not afraid of you.

Good.

She wasn't here to make them afraid.

She was here to make them remember.

Inside, the air hung thick with old oil and older blood. Footsteps echoed like gunshots on concrete. The place had a pulse. A hush that lived in places like this, where plans were made and bodies disappeared.

The light came from a single halogen lamp strung up over a folding table. Cheap. Disposable. Like everything else the Scorpion touched.

He was already there.

Tall. Immaculate. Not flashy-controlled. A black suit tailored like armor, hands folded on the table like a man used to signing death warrants with a nod. The silver scorpion pin on his lapel caught the light just enough.

He looked up as she stepped into view. Smiled.

"Cara."

Only three people alive called her that now. One was in hiding. One was dead.

And this bastard.

"You're early," he said.

"You're dying," she replied. "We all have our timing."

He gestured to the chair opposite him. "I appreciate punctuality."

She sat, slowly. Not because of him. Because every second in this place mattered.

He studied her. Like he'd waited years for this, too. "You've been busy. Ports. Docks. Union hands whispering your name. You pulled apart half my supply line with a pen and a handful of leverage."

"Not hard," she said. "Rot doesn't hold up well under pressure."

He chuckled. The sound had no warmth.

"I could've had you killed."

"But you didn't." Her voice was low. "Because you need something."

There it was. The flicker. Not fear. Calculation.

He opened a folder-thin, crisp, deliberate-and pushed a single sheet across the table. A name. A photograph. An old one.

The girl in the picture was smiling. Maybe thirteen. She looked like Caroline used to. Before the fire. Before the screams. Before her world burned and her father's voice was silenced.

Caroline didn't blink.

"That was taken three weeks before the Montclair job," he said. "You know the one. Warehouse explosion. Two dead. Arson ruled accidental."

Her voice was ice. "It wasn't."

"No." His fingers drummed once. "It wasn't."

He leaned forward, slow.

"I didn't order that fire. I was there, yes. But it wasn't my hand on the lighter. You've been hunting me for eight years, but the man you want? He's still out there."

She said nothing.

He kept going.

"I tried to stop it. Your father was in the way-of someone bigger. He knew something. And the people who wanted him gone? They're still moving pieces."

"And now you want to help me?"

"I want you to stop cutting into my business. And in exchange-I give you him."

Silence stretched between them.

Caroline reached into her coat. The man across from her tensed-but she didn't pull a gun. She pulled out a voice recorder. Set it on the table. Clicked it on.

He smiled again. A predator's smile.

"Not stupid, are you?"

"No," she said. "But you might be."

She stood.

"I'll take your name. I'll take your lead. But if it's a lie-if this is some long con to stall me, mislead me, send me chasing ghosts again-"

Her voice sharpened.

"I won't just burn your empire."

She leaned in.

"I'll salt the goddamn earth."

She left without another word.

The Scorpion watched her go, the faintest tremor in his jaw betraying what he wouldn't say aloud:

She was no longer just a threat.

She was a reckoning.