He should have listened.

Llewellyn Watts stands just beyond the cordon, the stink of opium smoke still clinging to his coat, gunpowder sharp in the back of his throat. Lantern light flickers over the alley, illuminating blood on the cobblestones—too much blood—and the echo of the gunshot still rings in his ears no matter how many times he tells himself it’s over. The raid is finished. The damage is not.

It had begun quietly enough. Too quietly. Watts had followed the trail himself: Lucille Palmer’s death, the whispers that led through Chinatown, the careful piecing together of names, rooms, habits. He had been patient. Thorough. Certain. The opium den was real. The danger was real. And despite Brackenreid’s warnings, despite procedure, despite the knowledge that such places rarely surrendered without violence, Watts had pushed forward.

He wanted the truth more than he wanted safety.

He led the tiny two-man raid.

The doors were forced. The den erupted into chaos, the two men scattering, smoke choking the air, bodies colliding in the dark. Orders were shouted, lost, shouted again. In the confusion, a gun was drawn. Another answered it.

The shot rang out.

John Brackenreid fell.

Now Watts watches as nurses rush John away, faces grim, movements urgent. The boy, no, the man, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time because Watts had insisted on being in the right place. The arithmetic is merciless. He does not try to escape it.*

He is calm on the outside. He always is. Inside, the guilt settles like a weight behind his ribs.

Murdoch wasn't even aware they were here. Inspector Brackenreid’s face is carved from stone, fury and fear warring beneath the surface. He had found out it was his son. Watts does not approach him. He does not trust himself to speak.

This was not how it was meant to go. This was not justice.

Later, when the station house buzzes with frantic energy, reports being written, voices overlapping, boots pounding the floor, Watts stands apart. He should be helping. He should be explaining. He should be defending his decisions.

Instead, he thinks of John Brackenreid lying pale and motionless, and he knows, with terrible clarity, that no explanation will absolve him.

He tells himself facts. The raid was justified. The evidence was sound. Violence was not intended. None of it matters.

Because John was shot.

Because it happened under Watts’s command.

Because Thomas Brackenreid trusted them.

*George Crabtree spots him near the door. * “Watts!” George calls, concern sharp in his voice. “Llewellyn, wait!”

“It's my fault.”

**Watts does not turn around when he says it.

He is already walking away, coat pulled tight, head bowed not in shame but resolve. If he cannot undo what has happened, he can at least face it. Quietly. Privately. Without permission.

He tells himself it is not penance. He tells himself it is not cowardice.

But as he steps into the night, bound for the hospital where John Brackenreid lies between life and death, Llewellyn Watts knows one thing with absolute certainty:

This blood is on his hands.