Chapter 16: BLAST FROM THE PAST

Chapter 16: BLAST FROM THE PAST
The NYPD’s 17th precinct wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t even pretending to be. The lobby smelled like burnt coffee and paper that had been through too many hands. Phones rang somewhere in the distance. The kind of hum that made you think nothing ever actually stopped here, just changed forms.

Steve walked through it like he’d bought the place. His pace was smooth, unhurried. Dante moved beside him, eyes skimming over every doorway, every uniform, like he was mentally tagging who could be a threat and who’d be too slow to matter. I trailed behind them, which was fine by me... let the billionaire and his handler soak up the attention.

We were waved past the front desk without a single ID check, which told me two things: one, Steve’s name opened more doors than any badge, and two, this meeting was already on everyone’s radar.

The desk sergeant gestured us toward a glass-walled conference room at the far end of the hall. Steve pushed the door open without knocking, and that’s when I froze.

Mark O’Brien.

Uniform. Badge. The same jawline that had made sixteen-year-old me completely forget how oxygen worked. His hair was shorter now, a little darker. Shoulders broader. A faint scar at the corner of his left eyebrow I didn’t remember. But those eyes... hazel, warm in a way that made you think you could confess anything and he’d still look at you the same, hadn’t changed at all.

And then he smiled.

Not the polite cop smile I’d seen him use with other people. No. This was the same crooked, lazy half-smile that had once made me trip over my own shoelace in the high school hallway and pretend it didn’t happen.

“Laura Bane,” he said, leaning back in his chair like the name fit his mouth a little too well.

“Mark O’Brien,” I answered, trying for casual and probably failing. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

His gaze flicked past me to Steve, who had taken the seat across from him without so much as a hello, then back to me. “Guess we’re both full of surprises.”

Dante stayed by the door, silent, hands in his pockets, the picture of “try me.” I couldn’t tell if he was sizing Mark up as a cop, a man, or a threat, but knowing Dante, probably all three.

Mark gestured to the chair beside Steve. “Sit. Let’s get started.”

I sat, the wood cool under my palms, and tried to ignore the faint tension pulling at the space between Steve and Mark. Not hostile, yet... but the kind of quiet sizing-up that felt like the start of a poker game.

Mark slid a stack of files across the table, crisp and neatly ordered. “These are the incidents from the last six months,” he said, voice steady, clear, not overplaying the drama. “Every single one was preceded by a warning. No exceptions.”

“Warning,” Steve repeated, flat as granite.

Mark didn’t blink. “Written. Delivered. Sometimes by mail. Sometimes hand-delivered. Always exactly seventy-two hours before the attempt.”

“Attempt,” I said.

“Yeah,” Mark said, eyes holding mine for a beat longer than necessary. “So far, attempt.”

I flipped through the pages. Dates. Locations. Summaries short enough to be chilling. Some I recognized from the news... an explosion that never reached its target, a sniper spotted just before firing. Others were quieter, the kind of incidents that only made it into internal reports. Close calls that were still too close.

“They’re methodical,” Mark continued. “They don’t rush. They don’t improvise. They get close enough to make the message clear… and then they pull back.”

I frowned. “Why pull back?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Mark said, his mouth twitching like he almost smiled.

Steve stayed quiet, but I could feel him. Not just his presence, him. Like gravity, heavier the longer I sat next to him.

Mark tapped the last folder. “That seventy-two-hour window? It’s never wrong. Which means this latest warning... those cards you both got—sets a clock. If the pattern holds, something’s coming.”

My stomach tightened. “When?”

He didn’t check his notes. “Two days.”

Steve’s face didn’t shift an inch. If I hadn’t been watching, I’d think he’d stopped listening. But his gaze flicked briefly to Dante, who gave the smallest nod I’d ever seen.

Mark leaned back. “And there’s something else. Another pattern.”

“Go on,” Steve said.

Mark’s eyes landed on me, and for the first time since we walked in, I felt cold crawl up my spine. “You’re not going to like it,” he said. “Each threat has been getting closer.”

I frowned. “Closer how?”

His voice was calm. Too calm. “To Steve’s inner circle.”