The man wore a disturbing scowl, one deep-set into him like he’d been born that way, with eyes like ice as he raised a gun.

A shot broke the silence and Aina gasped, her back slamming against the wall as her mother fell to the floor with a red mess instead of a head. A smattering of four bullets made her jump with each shot. Her father’s body swayed wildly. As he hit the floor, Aina slipped through the back door on shaking legs. She hauled herself up to the roof and spent the rest of the night with her eyes wide open. She’d never wanted to move from that spot.

Four years later, she accepted a helping hand from the man who’d made her homeless in the first place.

“After I got out of prison, I found out my old boss from the Vultures had been killed,” Kohl said, his voice breaking through her memory. “So I took his gang and his businesses. I started the Dom. It was only a few years after the war, and there wasn’t a clear law on what to do with the Inosen and diamond smugglers, but anyone who took one out or brought them to the attention of the Diamond Guards was paid handsomely. I got paid to spy on a worship service underground, then track down and take out the Inosen who’d attended. I saw a little Milana girl there with her parents, and you reminded me of the friend I’d betrayed and pushed to her death in the Tower prison. I thought if I could kill you, who looked so much like her, and your parents … it would prove that I’d finally let go of my guilt for killing her, and that I was ready for this new life. I was fourteen. I could have gone after you when you fled, but … you reminded me of me, with how quickly you slipped away from danger. Maybe I was a killer, but I allowed one small act of mercy in letting you live, and that made me feel like I still had some kind of choice in the matter. Isn’t that what people in this city do every day? They take freedom in the smallest places they can find it, and they hoard it, knowing it might ruin them one day.”

She wished he would stop talking, but she could hardly move, let alone speak. What he was saying made her want to rip the last six years off her, claw out her memory of them, throw them away, burn them. Her fingers twitched as if reaching for the bag of glue. Anything to banish the truth.

“Four years later,” he continued, “I saw you enter a bar that I knew was going to be bombed. Some feud a gang had with the owner. He wasn’t paying them fees for running his business on their territory. I knew I’d ruined your life as a child, but thought maybe I could fix it by recruiting you, and later by offering to let you open your own tradehouse. But then you failed, and if I didn’t cut you off, I’d lose everything I’ve built up to protect myself and all the people I employ here. I had to, Aina.”