The Edge of the Frame

The Edge of the Frame


I didn’t go home.

Didn’t go to Rina’s safehouse either. I ended up at a twenty-four-hour diner three blocks from the warehouse, still smelling like gasoline and gunpowder, with blood drying on the inside of my jacket sleeve. Not mine.

The waitress asked if I wanted coffee. I nodded. She didn’t ask questions. God bless her.

I sat in the corner booth, vinyl cracked from years of weight and grief, and stared out the window like the answers might walk in and sit across from me.

Roxanne was dead.

Vanessa was alive.

And Damien… he knew. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was still caught somewhere between memories and denial. All I knew was the look on his face when I cut Vanessa free—like I’d carved something out of his chest that he didn’t know was missing.

I didn’t save Vanessa for him. I saved her because that’s not who I am.

Not anymore.

My phone buzzed against the table. I didn’t check the screen. I already knew it was Rina. I could hear her voice in my head, cussing me out in two languages and asking if I was okay in a third. I let it ring.

I needed the silence more than I needed answers.

Because deep down, I already knew what was coming.

There’s a moment after a fight—when the adrenaline fades and your body remembers it’s made of flesh, not fire. That moment hit me all at once, like a crash I’d been bracing for since I came back from the dead.

The diner was warm, but I was shaking. Maybe from the cold, or maybe from the weight of everything I hadn’t said.

A family of four came in and took the booth across from mine. Mom. Dad. Two little boys fighting over syrup packets. I watched them like they were on TV, like I wasn’t even in the same world.

And for the first time in a long time, I thought about what might’ve happened if I’d stayed dead.

Would anyone have missed me?

Or would Westwood have swept it under the rug like another failed charity project?

My coffee came. I held it in both hands and let the heat bleed into my fingers. It didn’t help much.

The door jingled open again. I didn’t look up.

Not until I heard the voice.

“I figured I’d find you here.”

Damien.

I didn’t answer. Just sipped my coffee and stared ahead, like if I stayed still enough, he’d vanish.

He slid into the seat across from me anyway.

“You’re bleeding,” he said softly, glancing at my jacket.

“It’s not mine.”

He nodded like he already knew.

We sat in silence for a long time. The kind that fills your ears like water, until you feel like you’re drowning.

“You didn’t have to save her,” he finally said. “Vanessa.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because she didn’t know,” I said, meeting his eyes. “She didn’t choose this. She was just collateral.”

Damien leaned back, jaw tight. “You could’ve let her die. No one would’ve blamed you.”

I looked down at the coffee, now cold. “You would’ve.”

He didn’t deny it.

Outside, the city kept pretending it was normal. Cabs honked. People walked by with coffee cups and headphones and too much purpose in their stride. Like the world wasn’t on fire just beneath the surface.

“I remember everything now,” Damien said suddenly.

I blinked. “What?”

He nodded slowly, eyes dark. “The parking garage. The blood. Your voice begging me not to let you go. I remembered it all last night.”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

“And yet, you still work for him,” I said quietly. “Still wear the same suit, sit in the same meetings, sign the same deals.”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” he admitted. “I thought I was protecting what was left.”

I laughed, bitter. “There’s nothing left. Julius is poison. This whole company is.”

“Then burn it down,” he said. “With me.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“I’m done pretending,” he said, voice rough. “Done looking the other way. If you’ve got files, proof whatever you’ve been collecting I want in.”

“Why now?” I asked. “Because I saved your fiancée?”

He winced. “She’s not anymore.”

Of course not. She’d seen too much.

“You want to help?” I asked, voice low. “Then prove it.”

“I will.”

“Because if you lie to me again, Damien, I swear to God”

“I won’t,” he interrupted. “Not anymore.”

The waitress came by, asked if he wanted anything. He ordered coffee. Black. Just like old times.

We sat there like two people who used to be something, once. Before blood and lies and a company built on ghosts. I didn’t know if I could trust him.

But for the first time, I saw something real in his eyes.

Regret.

Not for what he did.

But for not doing anything sooner.

He pulled out a flash drive from his pocket and slid it across the table. “This has the original board votes from Project Artemis. Names. Approval dates. Signatures. My father kept a backup off-site. I found it last night.”

I picked it up slowly. It was warm.

He had risked everything.

“Why give this to me?”

“Because you’ll use it,” he said. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“You sure about that?”

He looked at me hard. “I’m not sure about anything. But I know you came back for a reason. And if there’s still any part of the man you loved left in me…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He didn’t need to.

I stood up.

“I need to go.”

He didn’t stop me. Just nodded. “Be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” I said.

But we both knew that was a lie.

As I stepped into the cold morning air, flash drive in my pocket and heart somewhere between then and now, I knew this wasn’t the end.

It was the beginning of the war.

And this time?

I wasn’t walking into it alone.