Blood Loyalty and Paradise: Lost

Vengeance is a cold, hard stone in your gut. Love, grief, paradise, loss… they’re all just fuel for the furnace. The directive was clear: Find Dutch Racini. Avenge Uncle Frank. And the reward? Paradise. A life with Angela and Jackie. The life that was stolen.

It wasn’t a case. It was an execution.

Dutch was a rat, but not a smart one. He was running scared, leaving a trail of twitchy informants and half-paid bar tabs. I wasn’t hunting him. I was just walking, and he was in the way. It took three days before one of his flop-house pals decided my money looked better than Dutch’s chances.

The word came back: A warehouse down by the old wharf. Dutch wanted to “settle things.” A classic. A punk like Dutch gets one lucky shot on an old man and suddenly he thinks he’s a kingpin.

I went.

The warehouse was a brick monolith, smelling of rust and dead fish. The salt from the river air was so thick you could taste it. A single steel door. Next to it, a small, square, plastic buzzer, glowing a faint, sickly yellow.

My hand went for it. All I could see was Uncle Frank’s face, grey on the pavement. All I could hear was the promise of the re-write. My knuckles brushed the plastic, my mind hot with the single thought of putting Dutch in the ground.

And then… static.

A jolt, like bad wiring in my spine. The smell of rust and salt vanished. I was breathing canned air, smelling polished marble and old, old money. The silence of a tomb. My hand wasn’t on a buzzer. It was hovering over a smooth, red alarm button.

The bank. The loop. The trap.

I snapped back. The wharf. The cold wind bit at my face. My finger was a hair’s breadth from the buzzer.

“No.”

I whispered it to the empty street. It wasn’t a door. It was a choice. A test. The Eye was watching, wanting to see if the rat had learned the maze.

I pulled my hand back like it was on fire. “Not this time, you son of a bitch.”

I left the front door alone and stalked into the back alley. It was choked with refuse and shadows. A high window was boarded up, the wood rotten from a decade of neglect. My crowbar made short work of it. I slipped inside, quiet as a ghost in the machine.

He was there. Dutch. Sitting in a cheap chair, a pistol on his lap, watching the front door. He was waiting for the buzz. He never saw me coming.

I could have shot him dead right there. But that isn’t my style.

I was on him before he could stand. He was all wires and flailing limbs, panic in his eyes. This wasn’t a killer. This was a coward. I hit him hard, once, a solid right that sent him sprawling.

“This is for Frank,” I growled.

It wasn’t a fight. It was an eviction. He scrambled backward, clawing for the gun I’d already kicked into the darkness. He was desperate. He saw he couldn’t win. He made a break for the only exit he knew.

The front door.

“You’re dead, Hammer!” he screamed, fumbling for the handle. He didn’t even remember his own trap.

“You first, Dutch.”

He threw the door open. There was no click.

Just a blinding white light and a sound that tore the world apart.

The blast punched me backward. It didn’t just throw me; it erased me. The shockwave hit me like a physical god. The back wall of the warehouse disintegrated. I was flying. I hit the alley, bricks and splintered wood raining down on me.

I tasted copper and dust. I heard sirens, far away, getting closer. Cops. An ambulance. They were coming for a body, but the suspect was already checking out. The edges of the world went fuzzy. The brickwork of the opposite building turned to static. The alley dissolved.

Darkness.

Then… light.

I was standing. The air was still. Polished marble. The faint, clean smell of perfume and old money.

My hand was hovering over the red alarm button.

The bank. I was back.

But I wasn’t the same. I remembered the blast. I remembered the cost of pushing the button. I looked at the script’s little test.

I pulled my hand back.

The loop was broken.

The bank didn’t fade. It dissolved. Like sugar in hot coffee. The harsh lights softened. The smell of marble was gone, replaced by… fresh-brewed coffee. And cake.

I heard laughter. A girl’s laugh.

Jackie.

I opened my eyes. I wasn’t in the bank. I was in a kitchen. Angela was at the stove, and she was smiling. 

“There you are,” she said, her voice a melody I thought I’d lost forever. “Happy birthday, honey.” “Make any sales today?” she asked.

Insurance. Now I sell insurance. “A safer game this time.” I thought to myself. 

I was back in Paradise.

The bill was paid.