Story code: ST-000908
Part 2: The Hazard Fee
The silver tray slipped, but Silas’s reflexes took over. He dropped into a frantic crouch, driving his knee upward to catch the bottom of the platter before it could strike the slate tiles. The imported caviar slid precariously close to the edge of the miniature blinis, but nothing fell. The harsh rattle of silver, however, was deafening in the quiet night air.
Vance’s head snapped toward the noise, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. Beside him, the heavy-shouldered man turned.
Silas instantly ducked his chin to his chest. He let the stiff, oversized collar of his borrowed tuxedo shirt and the deep shadows of the service doorway obscure his face. He locked his gaze on the scuffed toes of his black shoes, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
“What is the meaning of this?” Vance demanded, his voice a sharp, commanding whip.
Silas forced himself to breathe. He had to play the part he was hired for: the invisible, incompetent help. “My deepest apologies, sir,” Silas murmured, pitching his voice an octave higher and softening his consonants. “Chef Marcel sent the VIP selection out for you.”
The heavy-shouldered man shifted his weight. The thick leather of his boots scraped against the stone. Silas knew that sound down to his marrow. He knew the exact, lopsided rhythm of that heavy gait. Five years ago, that sound echoing down a hallway meant a fractured collarbone. It meant hiding under a mattress, holding his breath until his lungs burned. It meant fleeing in the middle of the night with nothing but a garbage bag of clothes and a bruised face.
His father, Marcus, was standing ten feet away.
Silas’s hands trembled so violently the silver tray began to emit a low, metallic hum.
“Boy looks like he’s about to faint,” Marcus said, letting out that scraping laugh again. The smell of stale tobacco and peppermint drifted across the patio, hitting Silas like a physical blow. “You work your people too hard, Julian.”
“Just put it on the table,” Vance snapped, waving a dismissive hand.
Silas complied, stepping forward with his head still bowed. He kept his shoulders hunched, making himself look as small and unremarkable as possible. He slid the tray onto the wrought-iron table. As he pulled his hands away, his eyes locked onto the manila folder resting beneath his father’s massive, tattooed forearm. The flap was open. The bold, red-stamped letters at the top of the visible page read: *WARREN COMPLEX – CONDEMNED*. Beneath it, a secondary heading caught the moonlight: *EXPEDITED CLEARANCE PROTOCOL – 0600 HOURS*.
Six in the morning. Tomorrow.
Silas’s stomach dropped into a bottomless void. The four hundred dollars he was desperately bleeding for tonight wouldn’t save him. The eviction notice taped to his door was a sham, a thin legal cover to justify forcing the tenants out before the bulldozers arrived. And for those who didn’t leave voluntarily? Vance was hiring Marcus. Marcus didn’t do legal evictions. He broke pipes, started accidental fires in stairwells, and ensured people were too terrified to stay.
Silas bowed deeply, his face burning with a mixture of blinding terror and sudden, hot rage. He backed away toward the heavy silk curtains, slipping through the glass doors. But he didn’t return to the sweltering heat of the kitchen. He pressed his back against the cool plaster wall just inside the dark hallway, straining to hear over the distant, muffled strings of the ballroom quartet.
“The city council injunction gets filed at noon tomorrow,” Vance said, his voice dropping to an urgent murmur. “If there are still tenants in that building by breakfast, this whole revitalization project stalls in court for a decade. I need it empty, Marcus. I don’t care about the methods. Smoke them out, flood the basement, cut the power. Just make sure the structure is uninhabitable by dawn.”
“It’s a big brick building, Julian,” Marcus replied. The sound of a match striking against stone echoed over the patio. “Lots of holdouts. Stubborn old folks who don’t want to move. It’s gonna be messy. Messy costs extra.”
“You’ll get your standard fee plus a fifty percent hazard bonus. But I need your crew there tonight. Start at the top floor. Work your way down. Break the windows if you have to.”
The top floor. Silas’s floor. His mind raced, calculating the impossible odds. Mrs. Gable, the elderly woman who shared half her groceries with him when he was starving, lived across the hall. The young family with the newborn was directly below them. If Marcus and his thugs showed up in the middle of the night with baseball bats and gasoline, people wouldn’t just lose their homes. People were going to die.
“Fine,” Marcus grunted. “I need to make a call to get the boys moving. Give me a minute.”
Heavy footsteps crunched against the slate. Silas peeked through a narrow slit in the silk curtains. Marcus was walking away, heading down the stone steps toward the lower gardens. Vance sighed audibly, pulling his phone from his tuxedo pocket and walking to the far edge of the balcony, turning his back to the table to dial a number.
Right there, sitting completely unguarded on the glass tabletop next to the caviar, was the manila folder.
Silas’s mind fractured. If he went back to the kitchen right now, he could finish his shift, collect his two hundred dollars, and go home to a building that was going to be torn apart with him inside it. But if he took that folder-if he secured the hard evidence of Vance’s conspiracy and the demolition timeline-he could take it to the police. He could stop it.
But stealing from Julian Vance meant losing the vital income he needed to survive. Worse, it meant stepping back onto that patio and exposing himself. If Vance turned around, Silas would go to jail for corporate espionage. If Marcus came back up those stairs and saw his face, Silas wouldn’t survive the night.
Silas watched the second hand on his cheap wristwatch tick forward. He thought of his tiny room. He thought of the four deadbolts he had painstakingly installed himself. It was the only place in the world where he felt safe.
Steeling himself, Silas pushed the silk curtain aside. He stepped back out onto the patio, gliding silently toward the table. Vance was still facing the gardens, arguing quietly into his phone about press releases. Silas reached out, his fingertips brushing the rough paper of the folder.
He snatched it, folding it quickly against his chest to hide it beneath his serving vest, and spun around to make his escape back to the kitchen.
“I thought I smelled something familiar,” a rusted, gravelly voice rumbled from the deep shadows of the service doorway, blocking Silas’s only exit.
Marcus stepped out from behind the heavy silk curtains, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, his dark, dead eyes locking entirely onto Silas’s face.