Pop! Pop! Pop!

The gun sounds faded out and gave way to a fast-spitting rapper. I looked to my brother, who was eyeing the man with the loud boom box hoisted on his shoulder. He’d already asked the guy to turn down his music, but somehow the music found its way back up to full volume, battling it out with the loud sounds of the subway train speeding through the underground. Our subway car rattled as Andrei got up, using the grimy steel pole to steady himself with.

“Sir, I’m with the NYPD. Don’t make me ask you to lower your music again.” My brother pulled his badge out from the pocket of his jeans and showed it to the man. The guy looked from the badge to my brother, waved a hand in the air, and walked past me, leaving behind a smell reserved for sewer rats and garbage piles. He sat down on the farthest seat, giving us the stink eye for the entire rest of the ride. That was fine, though; the peace and quiet was more than worth having to deal with some attitude. The mother who had her two children with her also appreciated it, making it known when she said thank you to my brother before getting off the train.

“Thanks for coming out tonight,” I said to him as we got off at our stop. My place was only four stations away from the bar we were going to, so it wasn’t a long ride.

“No problem.” Andrei zipped up his gray jacket and pushed his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans. The cold didn’t bother me as much. I enjoyed it, much more than I liked the heat. One of my foster homes had landed me in Miami, and holy shit, did I hate it down there. The humidity stuck to you like another layer of clothing. Thankfully, that house didn’t last too long. The heat wasn’t the only thing I hated about that family. The next family had me reunited with Andrei again, after a four-year separation in the system. We’d stayed together ever since.

We made our way out of the subway station and up onto the busy New York City street. It was still relatively early for the city that never slept. I checked my watch. Ten thirty.

There was no damn way I was going to the same bar Enzo would be at. So, naturally, I landed at the bar that was only a street away. It wasn’t my fault—it was just my brother’s favorite spot and the only way to get him to come out. It was a cool bar that not only had some really great beer, but also had the best sushi I’d ever tasted. It was in the basement of a hotel, so we had to climb down a set of stairs to enter. Inside, the lights were dim and the bulbs were those old Edison types, with the spiral filaments that flickered every now and then. The walls were brick with exposed wood beams, and towering paper lamps stood next to the beams, but their light was also dim.

The place was packed, too. The loud din of conversation overtook us as we stood by the host’s podium. The host was looking down at her computer, trying to find us a seat. “Are you guys okay with bar seating?”

“Sure,” I said, my brother nodding in agreement. The hostess, a perky brunette with a flirty smile, led us to the two open spots at the bar. We took our seats on the stools, and she handed us the menus, her eyes lingering on my brother’s. When she left, I arched a brow and spoke as I looked over the menu. “She’s not your type.”

“What? What do you mean she’s not my type?”

“She looks like she has her shit together. You go for the messy ones.”

“Not true.” He wasn’t even trying to put up an argument.

“Michelle?”

“Okay, fine, one.”

“Andrea, Sherry, Topaz, Merlot, Sparkling Rose.”

“Very funny,” my brother said, laughing as he shook his head. “I have eclectic taste. Is that so bad?”

“When your eclectic taste steals everything in your fridge and then slashes your tires for no reason, then yes, yes it is bad.” I was smiling, feeling good about coming out tonight. I ordered a Corona, and my brother got himself whiskey. The bartender, Shiro, was a handsome guy with short black hair and muscles that pushed against his black shirt. It was my turn to get a flirty bat of the eyelashes, and my brother didn’t miss it.

“Don’t even try, he’s not your type.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, he’s clearly got his shit together.” Andrei laughed and bumped me with his shoulder. “Seriously, though, don’t try it. He’s got a ring on that finger of his.”

“I noticed,” I replied. “I’m not one to let details slip by.”

“Right, duh, Detective.”

“Besides,” I said as Shiro left our drinks in front of us and moved on to take care of other customers, “I’m fine without anyone. Work’s got me busy, and Thunder gives me all the attention I need.”

“Yeah, only when he’s hungry, though.”

“And how is that different than any other guy?”

Andrei lifted his glass, the light brown whiskey swirling inside. “Touché.”

I drank a gulp of the cold beer. The bartender came back around and took our food orders, turning around to tap them into the computer screen. My gaze couldn’t help but drift down, right toward Shiro’s perky butt looking damn good in a pair of fitted black jeans. It immediately felt a few degrees hotter, and my underwear felt a size too small. I adjusted on the stool and pried my eyes away, admiring the rows of liquor bottles on the wall instead.

“But seriously, Zane, you haven’t talked to anyone that’s made you want to jump back into the dating pool?”

“No,” I said, suddenly getting a flash of an image in my head. A face. One with big lips, a strong jawline, and a confidence in his eyes that was balanced by a deep warmth. Lorenzo. “No one.”

“Really? Not one guy?”

“I haven’t been looking.”

Andrei nodded, pursing his lips. I knew what he was thinking. He wanted to tell me that I should start looking. He was always the one to push me out of my comfort zone, and it never failed to make me a better person because of it. If it weren’t for him, I doubt I’d ever have gotten as far as I did. I probably would have been defeated after the second foster family. Then we were split up and I started to feel like I was collapsing back into myself, scared of testing the boundaries and pushing for the better. I stopped making friends, and I would shut down at school, to the point where some of the teachers suspected I had gone mute.

“Well,” Andrei said, drinking another sip of his whiskey, “I think you should start.”

I chuckled, nodding. I didn’t disagree with him, but I just didn’t feel an urge to go looking in the first place. It felt weird thinking about it, about having another man sleep in the same spot Jose would sleep. It didn’t sit well with me. Then there was the recent news, which still had my skin crawling, so the last thing I wanted to do was date.

“We got a new case today,” I said, trying to keep my anxieties at bay, even though my mind kept snapping back to the photos that were on my desk hours earlier. “The Unicorn is back.”

It was as if all the air was sucked out of the bar at once. I knew it was all in my head, but I could have sworn the entire place was put on pause, the music screeching to a halt, all the attention turning to me at the mention of the killer. Then, as quick as it happened, the feeling disappeared, the bar returning back to normal, the pause button being released, and everyone getting back to whatever they were doing before I mentioned anything about the killer.

My brother’s expression looked heavy, the light above us flickering for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ve got the entire department working on it.”

I took in a deep breath, filling my lungs as if I had found gold. I let it go, focusing on the sensation of the oxygen flowing through me, centering me. “I’m going to get our resources on it, too.”

“You… okay with that?”

For a moment, I was going to barrel forward with a lie. But I couldn’t. I shook my head, unable to hide anything from my brother. “No, no I’m not.” I looked straight ahead, as if the big bottle of bourbon had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world. “I’m going to get someone else to lead the case. Maybe Cole.”

“Cole? Isn’t he pretty new?”

“Yeah, only been with us for a year, but damn he’s good. He sees things in goddamn dirt particles in the air. I don’t know how he does it, but he knows what he’s doing.”

I turned away from the bourbon and looked to my brother. He was searching me, trying to make sure I was okay without asking it out loud. He’d give me this look often when we were kids, the older brother trying to assess the younger one, trying to determine whether he had to beat anyone up or not.

I managed a weak smile before finishing the rest of my beer. “I miss him.”

It came out of nowhere and yet felt like it had been everything, the only thing I had been thinking about since Jose was taken from me.

My brother placed a comforting hand on my back and rubbed. “I’m sorry, Zane. I wish there was something else I could do. But I promise you—I swear it—we’re going to find the fucker who killed Jose. Who took all those lives. This Unicorn bastard isn’t going to get by us a second time.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose. Another deep breath in, following it out. “I can’t believe he’s back.”

“No one can.”

“Which means Felix Ostroff was the wrong guy.”

“Well, we don’t know that entirely. Maybe he did do it, and this is someone picking up where he left off. Or, maybe there were two of them all along. Not like we can question him anymore, though.”

I shook my head. “No, no we can’t.” And the reason why we couldn’t was because Felix was murdered a year ago. The prisoners were out in the yard when the leader from one of the prison gangs came up to him and shanked him with a branch they had found and whittled into a lethal stake. Felix didn’t even make it to the hospital. When I got the news of his death, I remember I had felt sure that the nightmarish saga was finally behind me.

Little did I know, it may have just been beginning.

Shiro brought over the sushi we’d ordered. My brother and I went quiet as we got to work eating. My dragon roll was exactly what I needed, and the Philadelphia roll I ate afterward was exactly what I didn’t even know I needed.

Basically the food was great, and it did wonders in changing the mood that had settled in the air. By the time we were done, we’d stopped talking about serial killers and had moved on to lighter topics. I asked my brother how house hunting was going, which launched us into a half-hour conversation about the pros and cons between two different houses he was considering. Finally we decided neither of them were good enough, and that it was probably time to knock out. I checked my watch and saw it was close to midnight. “All right,” I said, signing the check. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow.”

We said our thanks to both the cute bartender and the hostess and climbed the stairs up to the street. The cold immediately hit us like a ton of bricks, forcing me to appreciate how nice being inside in the warmth was. I couldn’t wait to get back home so I could blast the heater, take my clothes off, and sink into bed underneath my comforter.

That would have been the perfect end to the night.

Instead, swap perfect out for horrifying, and you’ve got exactly how my night actually ended.