It turned out Gabe didn’t have to wait his full sentence. At seven months and two days, a guard came, telling him to pack his things because he was being released.

Gabe had looked around his cell. “What things?”

All he had was kept by the front desk, in the outer rings of the prison walls. He was led through a series of doors he barely recognised, so long ago he had last been there. Within a mere thirty minutes, he was holding clothes he had last seen seven months prior. A pair of skin-tight pants and a blue button-down shirt, along with a dark overcoat he wore on chilly nights. His shoes were a comfortable pair of converse that had seen better days.

He dressed in them but everything fit differently now. The pants were tight in the wrong places and the shirt strained over his shoulders.

Then he held the bag of meager personal effects in his hands, while going through his wallet. He didn’t care that there was no money inside it, he couldn’t even remember if there had been any in the first place. But he was arrested by the picture on his driver’s license. He didn’t recognise the boy there.

As he was ushered out of the front gate, it occurred to him he hadn’t said goodbye to Etienne. Then he saw who was waiting for him, standing beside a plain black BMW.

“Miss Charlotte Aubrey.” He greeted quietly. “I thought the idea was that I wouldn’t be seeing you again.”

She nodded to him and gestured to the car, getting in the front seat without a word. Gabe debated for a brief moment before walking around and getting in the passenger side.

“I want to go home.” He told her, and she nodded again before turning the engine into purring life and pulling away.

He didn’t ask how she knew where he had lived, or had lived. He watched the world outside the window flash by, feeling conflicted. It was familiar in a painful way, a growing ache in his chest bone that felt a little bit like loathing.

When she pulled up to his tiny grey apartment block, he got out cautiously. His eyes took in the surroundings both familiar and fraught with imaginary shadows. It was innocent mundanity, but he realised he didn’t know how to process it any longer. It didn’t belong to him, and he belonged to something else now.

He turned to Miss Aubrey, feeling off-kilter. She had come out of her side and was holding a folder, which she handed over to him when he came close.

“When you get to that point, call.” She said then stepped smartly back into her car, and drove off.

The folder contained a few things. An envelope with some money, a business card, and a cell phone.

He walked up the steps to his apartment on the third floor, his feet knowing the way even if his mind didn’t, and turned on the phone. The money, $200, was stuffed into his wallet and tucked away. Swiping himself into the screen, he saw the settings had already been sorted out, and he didn’t need a password to open it. He changed that immediately. The business card was black, and had a white letter ‘X’ emblazoned on one side, and a phone number on the other.

Arriving at his door, he felt a sharper sense of apprehension that was difficult to place. He found his house key tucked into the coin pocket of his wallet and unlocked his door, swinging it open carefully but remaining outside. A small square of his home wasn’t very informative but he still watched the entryway for a full five minutes before taking the risk and going inside.

Paranoia; another side effect.

Once he was fully inside, he understood what his peripheral sense had been telling him. His place was trashed.

It had never been the tidiest, but it was obvious someone had been here, seemingly with the express purpose of making it an even bigger mess than it naturally was. The bed was overturned, its stuffing spilling out, the sheet shredded on the floor. The little glass coffee table had been overturned and shattered. Every lamp had been busted.

Every lamp? Really?

Gabe sighed. It wasn’t terribly surprising. And looking at it all he felt very little in the way of attachment. In his mind, tangible things had very little value now. What mattered was reputation and influence and power. The rack of clothes he had spent months collecting were now lying in a rumpled and scattered pile on his bedroom floor, and all he felt was mild exasperation.

He fished out a pair of jeans and a shirt, finding his current attire unappealing. They had arrested him coming out of a club and he could still smell the sweat and stale smoke in its fabric. The new choices didn’t fit very well either; the jeans’ waist was too loose and the shirt too tight. He would have to get a new set of clothes.

Then he sat on the window sill in his living room/kitchen and thought.

His business had long since been picked apart by the vultures in his line of business, his clients poached shamelessly. He didn’t even know why his apartment still stood here, and hadn’t been emptied, sterilised and rented out to someone new. He had no money other than what burned in his pocket, he had no contacts, no friends and no alliances.

The business card lurked silently, but he didn’t take it out.

He resolved to think on it when he was out buying clothes. And maybe a donut. Dear lord, donuts. Then a tiny slice of paper stuck to the back of his door caught his attention.

It read;

“I know what you did to my pet, little angel. We have things to discuss.

-Drake”

The echoes of fear started again.

Closing his eyes, he calmed his heart beat. He was a different animal now; he wasn’t a child and he wasn’t a lowly bootlegger hustling Gucci watches off trucks.

He was something else, but he was alone. And that was the problem.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled out the phone and the card. He chewed loudly on his pride.

The phone rang twice before he heard it pick up. The other end was silent, and Gabe knew what was expected of him.

“Xero.”

“Gabriel.” Mr Xero replied smugly, “How good to hear from you.”