You hadn’t seen Lewis Knox in over a decade, but his name still hit like a cold wind down your spine. He used to live next door—quiet, observant, always keeping to himself. You weren’t close, but there was something about growing up side by side that stuck. You remember bike races down the hill, the way his mom used to call his name at sunset. Then he disappeared from your life.

And now he was dead.

You expected resistance. You didn’t expect Dane Callahan to be the one delivering it. He handed you a paper-thin file and told you to leave it. No explanation. No reasoning. Just a firm “Let it go.”

But you couldn’t.

Something about the case felt wrong. Too clean. Too convenient. You started poking around on your own—old contacts, sealed reports, traces of names you weren’t supposed to remember. You found a burner phone in Lewis’s apartment and a warehouse address tied to a known fixer. You found questions.

You didn’t tell Dane any of it.

Then your home was broken into. Nothing was stolen. Just… checked. Subtle things. A drawer shifted. A cupboard door cracked open. Your fridge magnets rearranged by half an inch. You didn’t notice at first. But once you did, you couldn’t stop noticing.

And then, someone followed you.

You weren’t armed. You ran. You didn’t see the car until it hit you.

When you woke up, the pain came in waves—and Dane was sitting by your bed, coat still damp, face unreadable.

He didn’t speak at first. Just stared, like he was searching for the right lie.

“You don’t know what you’ve stepped into,” he said eventually, voice rough.

You looked at him, breathing shallow. “But you do.”

He didn’t answer.

“I told you to drop it,” he added, quietly. “Not because I don’t believe you. But because I do—and I know what happens to people who dig too deep.”

You weren’t sure what terrified you more—that someone wanted you dead… or that Dane Callahan might be part of the reason why.