The shadows of my past stretched longer than a dead man's memory, back to a place called Sandsor. A one-horse town baked dry by a sun that showed no mercy, where the rain was a rumor and the air hung thick as cheap gin. Back then, the city's heartbeat was a syncopated rhythm of a mugging, a beating, a body hitting the cold ground.

  When I was seven, I pulled my first and last job: a nickel-and-dime comic book heist from old man Hemlock's general store. The old lady—my mother, proud as a peacock in a pigpen—caught me. The open hand across my face stung worse than a back-alley shiv. Her eyes, usually soft with a kind of desperate hope, turned to cold steel.

  "Benjamin Johnson," she'd whispered, her voice rough as a gravel road. "We are poor, kid, but we ain't thieves. We pay our tab. You're better than the gutter trash that crawls these streets. Promise me there'll be no next time."

  A proud Catholic, she was. A nod was all I could manage, the promise a heavy anchor in my gut. She took a breath, the tension leaving her like smoke from a spent cigarette, gave the book back. "Stay inside and hit the books," she’d said, her voice a low hum. "I'm going out to square things with Hemlock."

  That was the last time the light hit her face.

  Some two-bit lowlife with an itchy trigger finger tried to relieve her of her purse on her way back. She resisted, and he pumped her full of lead. I holed up in my room for a week, the air heavy with the smell of cheap whiskey and regret, waiting for the cruel joke to end, for the door to creak open and her voice to cut through the silence.

  Now I’m the Mayor, sitting in this cold, leather chair, a man hunting ghosts in the foulest city on God's green earth—a true hell incarnate. This dirty war has teeth, though, and it bites back hard, shaking even the straightest shooter. My wife, Selena, became a target for that grease-ball they called the Devil’s butcher. The butcher's dead now, a nice slab of meat for the worms, but I can't have these masked men running my town. They clean house, yeah, but they just swap out the corrupt for their own lap dogs, same brand of evil, different label.

  The heavy oak door of my study opened, cutting through the thin blue smoke of my cigar. In walked Doctor Jonas, a slick fella, Selena’s shrink and friend.

  "How is she?" My voice was a dry rasp.

  "She’s got a spine of cold steel, Mayor," Jonas said, adjusting his spectacles. "Trauma like this leaves scars that run deep, haunting a dame for years. But she's stable. Almost too stable. Keep the topic locked down, though; she might be putting on an act."

  "Jonas, save the lecture," I grunted, rolling my cigar between my teeth. "I know my own wife. She could have won an Oscar for those plays she used to be in."

  A thin laugh, dry as a desert bone, escaped Jonas's lips as he picked up his black bag, its leather worn and cracked. He turned for the door. I don't trust him—too close for my liking—but he's the only one who can patch up Selena's head.

  My phone buzzed on the desk, rattling like a snake's tail. My security chief, Jim.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "What is it, Jim?"

  "Sir, there’s a man here asking for you. A Priest. Jonathan Gordon. Name ring a bell, sir?"

  "Father Gordon," I sighed, the name a whisper of a forgotten prayer. "Send him in. And make sure he gets the respect he's earned."

  The smell of incense and old paper seemed to follow Father Gordon into the room, a ghost from a past I’d tried to bury under a mountain of law books and spent shell casings. He was the man who’d pulled me out of the wreckage thirty-five years ago, molding the raw grief of an orphan into the cold iron of a statesman.

  I stepped into the living room as he shuffled in. Time had carved deep, jagged ravines into his face, and his hands possessed a slight, rhythmic tremor, like a shutter rattling in a gale. I guided him to the leather sofa, the springs groaning under his slight weight. He offered a blessing, his voice sounding like dry leaves skittering across a tombstone.

  “You’ve grown tall, Ben. I can still call you that, can’t I, Mr. Mayor?”

  “You’re the only one who can, Father,” I replied, the words tasting like copper. “I’m just the sum of you and my mother.”

  “Ah, Michelle,” he sighed, the name hanging in the air like gunsmoke. “Thirty-five years. A tragedy that would make the angels weep. God’s most disciplined soldier, taken before her time.”

  A heavy silence settled between us, thick as the London fog. I was back in those pews, the hard wood biting into my back, watching her pray with a fervor that could move mountains. The maid arrived with tea and biscuits, the porcelain clinking like a nervous heartbeat.

  “But you did her proud,” Gordon continued, his eyes milky but sharp. “While the rest of the Sandsor youth were busy carving out their own graves, you joined the service. You became the weapon of the Law, scouring the filth from our streets. You’re doing the same here, in this godforsaken pit.”

  “Proving she was right about me,” I said, my voice flat as a morgue slab. “Making sure no other kid has to sit in a dark room waiting for a hug from a woman who’s never coming home.”

  “You’re doing the Lord’s work,” he said, then a glint of the old mischief returned to his eyes. “But you’ve kept your bride a secret. Is she a good Catholic girl? Your mother wouldn’t take kindly to a Protestant in the family.”

  I let out a ghost of a smirk. “She’s more Catholic than the Pope, Father. She’d give my mother a run for her money. Seems the local crime lords have a particular distaste for her brand of piety. How are Sister Meredith, Anna, and little Tim?”

  “The sisters have staged a coup,” he chuckled, a dry, raspy sound. “They say I’m a relic. And Tim? He’s grown into a man while I wasn't looking.”

  Then, the atmosphere shifted. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. He set his saucer down with a deliberate click. “I’ve been carrying a question, Ben. One that’s been gathering dust for a long time.”

  “Spit it out, Father.”

  “Your mother’s killer. Vance Smith. The jury called him 'unstable' and sent him to the sanitarium instead of the chair. He was found in a gutter, cold and blue, the day after his release.” Gordon leaned in, his gaze boring into mine. “That was the day before you shipped out for the Army. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  I took a slow, deliberate sip of the tea, the liquid scalding my throat. I looked him dead in the eye, my face a mask of granite.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Father,” I replied, my voice steady as a sniper’s aim. “I’ve never broken a vow I took in the service.”

  I wasn’t lying. By the time I put on that uniform, Vance Smith was already a memory, and I hadn't taken the military's vows yet. The conversation died right there, buried in the silence of a man who knew how to keep a secret.