It wasn't a biker gang emblem. It wasn't a prison stamp. The lines were sharp, disciplined, and brutal. Above the eagle, crossing my collarbone, were a series of jagged, pale pink scars—bullet graze wounds that no amount of time could fully erase.
Damon’s fist wavered. He blinked, staring at the ink. He had grown up in a crime syndicate. He had seen tattoos all his life. But this didn't look like gang affiliation.
“What the hell is this?” Damon scoffed, though his voice lacked the overwhelming confidence from a moment ago. He tried to force a laugh, looking back at his men. “You see this? The old mechanic thinks he’s Rambo. You got this done in a mall, Frank? Thinking a little ink makes you untouchable?”
Goon 1 leaned in, squinting at the numbers under the eagle. His expression shifted. He was older than Damon, perhaps a military washout before turning to private muscle.
“Boss,” the enforcer muttered, his grip on my shoulder loosening a fraction. “That’s… that looks like a JSOC tag. Joint Special Operations Command. The black ink style… that’s an operator stamp.”
“Shut up,” Damon snapped, terrified of losing face in front of his crew. “He’s a mechanic. He changes oil and sweeps floors. It’s fake. He’s just a pathetic, delusional—”
Damon didn't get to finish his sentence.
Suddenly, a piercing, high-pitched screech tore through the fog.
Damon recoiled, clutching his ear. The sound was coming from inside his own jacket. He scrambled for his phone, pulling it out. The screen was flashing wildly in a seizure of erratic colors before suddenly going completely dead.
Behind me, the enforcers were cursing, yanking their own phones from their pockets.
“Mine’s dead,” one of them yelled over the sudden interference hum. “Total brick!”
I remained perfectly still on my knees.
Then, the streetlights on the coastal highway flickered violently. One by one, in a rapid domino effect cascading down the entire block, the bulbs popped and died. Total darkness slammed down on the parking lot, save for the McLaren’s headlights, which suddenly flickered and shut off on their own, the car’s electrical system completely overridden.
The fog seemed to thicken in the sudden dark.
“What’s going on?” Damon yelled, looking wildly around the pitch-black lot. Panic, genuine and primal, finally cracked his facade. He pointed at me. “What did you do?!”
I didn’t answer. The cold detachment inside me had fully solidified. I wasn't just Frank the mechanic anymore. The cage was locked. The ghost was awake.
The ground beneath our feet began to vibrate.
It started as a low, deep thrumming in the asphalt, rattling the tools left on my workbench. Small pebbles bounced on the pavement. The vibration escalated rapidly into a deafening, rhythmic chopping sound. The wind violently kicked up, tearing the fog into shredded ribbons.
Damon looked up into the darkness, raising his arms to shield his face from the sudden, hurricane-force downwash.
Three massive shadows materialized out of the heavy mist above us. Stealth Black Hawk helicopters, running without a single navigation light, descended like massive predatory birds. They didn't approach gradually. They simply appeared, hovering thirty feet above the lot.
The tremendous force of the rotor wash blew the puddle of motor oil across the pavement, knocking one of the enforcers completely off his feet. Damon stumbled backward, screaming something that was instantly swallowed by the roar of the engines.