CHAPTER 108

CHAPTER 108
"Why are we here?" I demand, my voice cracking into the quiet of the graveyard.

Tony doesn't answer.

He just keeps on walking. Broad shoulders tense, fists clenched as if biting back words—or memories.

I go anyway. Not from a place of no fear, but because I'm in too far now. Far into the unraveling of who he is. And maybe, some part of me asks, if I step with him into his specters, I can decipher my own.

Gravestones at attention like bystanders to either side of us, names etched into time and granite. The wind is chilly for a spring morning. Nothing about this place is gentle, except maybe the way Tony's stride hesitates when he stops in front of a headstone strewn with dead roses and cigarette butts.

"Anthony Zacks Sr."

There it is. I shut my eyes.

"Your father," I whisper.

Tony doesn't nod, doesn't speak. He just stands, hands in the pockets of his black jacket like a kid who wasn't one for very long.

"I didn't even know you ever came here," I say, trying to reconstruct a man I never knew from a boy I can barely read.

He kneels slowly, brushing the leaves off the stone. "I don't," he finally grunts. "Not since the funeral."

I glance at the grave. The year of death is like a punch to the chest—2007.

"You were just a kid," I whisper.

"Eight," he says factually. "Found him in the garage. Blew his brains out through his mouth."

My breath hitches.

Tony gazes forward. "I didn't cry. I waited for my mom to come home in the hall for hours. I said he slipped."

I sit beside him on the wet grass, unsure whether I should inquire about what I really need to know.

"What happened?"

He swallows. "He was NYPD. Narcotics. Got in too deep. Came across bad deals, drugs missing, cops covering for cops. Said he had proof." Tony's voice is a whisper, as though the wind could carry the words to the wrong person. "And then. boom. Suicide. Nice and tidy. No investigation. No backup."

My mouth dries out. "You think he was killed?

Tony looks at me. “I’m saying someone made sure he wouldn’t talk.”

A bird screeches in the distance.

He reaches into his coat and pulls out something folded. Carefully. Like it’s sacred. He hands it to me.

A photo.

Black-and-white. Blurry but focused enough to capture a moment. A man—tall, lean, camera slung over his shoulder—talking to a uniformed officer. A name badge visible on the cop’s chest: Zacks.

I recognize the photographer. I've seen that face in our living room when I was growing up. 

My dad. 

My voice cracks. "This. this was a week before he died." 

Tony nods. "I found it after your internship submission was released in Queens Arrows. Your dad was onto something enormous, wasn't he?

I nod slowly, the pieces suddenly starting to fit together. "He told me he was working on a story about corruption in the force. He said there were good cops who were being buried."

"Perhaps your father was trying to assist mine," Tony suggests.

My hands tremble. "Then why didn't he publish the story?"

Tony looks away. "Perhaps he ran out of time. Perhaps he was scared. Perhaps he was silenced."

Silenced. The word hangs like a hangman's noose.

I whisper, "You think our dads were involved."

Tony exhales, eyes black. "Maybe we were always going to crash, Mackenzie."

I don't know whether it's accusation or confession. Maybe both.

I fold the photo carefully into my jacket, my fingers brushing his for a second too long. His touch burns, even here. Even now.

"I didn't know," I say. "Any of this.".

He shrugs. "Nobody wants to talk about the skeletons in the city's closet. But they never went away. They just got better at hiding."

I think about my internship. The doors it has opened. The stories I could chase. The truths I could ignite.

Tony's eyes cut to me fiercely. "You gonna run with this?"

I hesitate. "I don't know."

He stands, towering over the grave. "If you do, you'd best be ready to bury more than a story."

I stand with him. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a warning," he says, his voice low. "You dig into this, and you're digging into bloodlines. Not just mine. Yours too."

I nod. "Maybe it's time we both stop running from ghosts."

His mouth twists like he's going to smile—but doesn't.

Come on," he mutters. "Let's go before Wells traces my phone and thinks I'm getting it on on gravestones."

I smirk despite myself. "Romantic."

Tony smiles back. "I try."

But his eyes return to the tomb. His father's name. A silence that only he can hear.

When we're walking away, I look back once.

And I could swear, in the wind, I hear the click of a shutter.

Like my father is still watching.
Still waiting.
Still wishing the truth be told.