Chapter 3 Ghost and graves

CHAPTER THREE – GHOSTS AND GRAVES

The next morning, Vanessa stood in front of her closet, holding a navy blazer that still had Mia's scent in the lining.

She put it back.

She hadn't worn anything of her sister's in over a year. Not because she couldn't-but because it made the grief too loud. Mia had always dressed better. Spoke braver. Died younger.

Today felt different.

Today, she wasn't just grieving.

She was going to do something.

Marcos watched her from across the street again-his usual spot, tinted windows up, heart ticking in a way it hadn't in a long time.

Vanessa came out wearing all black. Not fashionably. Just clean. Focused.

She had a notebook in her hand and a look on her face like she didn't care if the world burned, so long as it left answers in the ashes.

Where are you going now, princesa?

He followed her through the city's edge, past traffic lights and peeling street murals, until she reached a quiet cemetery. Not the one from before. This one was older, tucked behind a broken gate and a wrought-iron fence that had rusted with time.

She knelt again. Not at Mia's grave.

At another.

Daniel Greer.

A former dock worker who died a week after Mia.

Overdose.

Officially.

But Marcos remembered the name.

Greer had once moved product for Portside. Small-time. Never trusted.

He was supposed to have been cut loose. Not dead.

Now here he was, carved in stone, next to a plastic bouquet of sun-faded roses.

What the hell are you chasing, Vanessa?

She didn't stay long.

Just placed a note on the grave and whispered something before walking away.

Marcos waited a moment, then stepped forward.

The note read:

You saw her that night. I know it. Someone made you disappear. I'm sorry no one asked why.

No anger. Just sorrow.

Marcos folded the paper and slipped it into his coat.

That afternoon, he went to see someone he hadn't spoken to in two years.

Elias Romano-his oldest friend. The only one who hadn't tried to kill him yet.

They met in the back of a boxing gym owned by a former enforcer-turned-trainer. No cameras. No questions.

Elias looked older. Rougher. But his hug was the same.

"Shit, man. I thought you were dead," Elias muttered, stepping back and looking him over.

"Not yet," Marcos said.

"If you're here, that means something's wrong."

"I need a name."

Elias frowned. "We giving or taking?"

"A dock worker. Daniel Greer. He died a week after Mia Maren. You remember?"

"Yeah. OD. Trash in and out."

"No. He was silenced."

Elias raised an eyebrow. "You're chasing ghosts now?"

"No," Marcos said. "I'm following one."

That night, Vanessa sat on her couch with Mia's old camera in her lap. She wasn't sleeping much these days. The tea didn't help. The quiet was worse. The silence used to scare her. Now, it just made space for guilt.

She'd sent an email to Mia's old boss earlier. He hadn't replied. She knew he wouldn't.

People ran from truth when it knocked too hard.

But someone had followed her yesterday. She hadn't imagined that.

The man with the lighter.

He hadn't threatened her. Hadn't even touched her. Just walked by like he belonged in shadows.

And still, she couldn't stop thinking about him.

There was something in his eyes-tired, haunted. As if he'd stood in too many graves and still couldn't name which ones he'd dug.

"Who are you?" she whispered, not expecting an answer.

Marcos lit a cigarette he wouldn't smoke.

Sat alone on the balcony of his temporary apartment-low-rise, cheap, nondescript.

He stared at the sky like it owed him something.

"What the hell were you doing with Greer, Mia?"

A photo lay on the table beside him. From Elias. A grainy security cam still from the docks.

Mia. Late night. Talking to someone. A man in a De Luca suit. Not him.

"Who sent you there?"

His phone buzzed. A text.

From: UNKNOWN

She's getting too close. You were supposed to handle it.

Another buzz.

We're sending someone else.

"No.....fuck!!"

He said it out loud. A whisper. A decision.

Not this time.

Not her.