I guess it's normal, chitchat with people, small talk, but I hate it.

"War & Peace, huh? Isn't that, like, a billion pages?"

I take my eyes off the road for a second, glancing down at my lap where the book rests. "It's around thirteen hundred, give or take."

"Favorite of yours?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it my favorite, but it's been there for me in times of need."

She smiles, like she knows what I mean. "I've read some stuff like that."

"Like?"

I almost expect her to say the Bible, when she spouts off with, "Cosmopolitan."

Pulling into the entrance of the parking garage beside the dorms, I put the car in park as I turn to her. She gets out, not hesitating, and while I really want to just let her go, I feel compelled to say something. "Be careful on your date, Miss Carmichael. Not everyone is worthy of your time and attention."

She seems taken aback as she pauses beside the car, the door still open. Leaning back in, she smiles. "You sound like my dad, you know."

I try not to grimace.

I'm quite aware of who her father is, and I'm nothing like that man. Wall Street schmuck. He's more of a crook than I am.

She shuts the door, jogging away, toward her dorm, as I put the car in reverse and swing back out into traffic, ignoring the blowing horns from the intrusion.

I head toward West Village.

It's only a few blocks away.

The Cobalt Room.

Once upon a time, this was where dreams were made. Deals were concocted in the office in the back, schemes that netted more money than most people would ever see in a lifetime. I spent more nights than I can count within those walls, plotting my revenge, questioning my future.

The Cobalt Room was like my home away from home, back when my home was nothing more to me than a shell, but the Cobalt Room is nothing now.

Yellow police caution tape flaps in the wind as it surrounds the building, once the greatest structure on the block, now a burned out slab of nothing. The shell of it still stands, the outside charred, but it's easy to see, even from a distance, that the inside is gutted. Whatever flowed through it burned hot and fast… so fast that two people couldn't even get out.

Seven others had been burned, some of them damn near unrecognizable.

It melted their skin off, like they'd personally been doused in gasoline. And maybe they had been, I don't know. The ones capable haven't uttered a word about what went on. All any of them have said is, "I don't know what happened."

But I know… or well, I have an inking.

Because this kind of fire?

This was done by someone who knew what they were doing.

I park my car in the first spot I find down the street and reach down, opening up War & Peace, pulling the small silver handgun from the well created in the cut out pages. I slip it in my coat. I don't anticipate needing it, and I don't even like carrying it, but I'm not about to take any risks today. Reaching into the glove box, I pull out my black leather gloves and put them on.

Getting out of the car, I keep my head down as I make the trek back toward Cobalt. I slip beneath the flimsy caution tape that blocks the alley beside the place, making my way to the back of the building where passer-byers can't see.

It isn't hard to break in. What's left of the back door is locked, but a simple push against it knocks it right off the hinges. Grimacing, I lean back, turning my head away to avoid the puff of ash that rises up when the door hits the floor. It reeks, like fire usually does. It smells like smoke and accelerant, a hint of sulfur, like a lit match slapping me right in the face. And I know it's not safe… barely safe enough for me to even step inside, but I do, treading carefully.

I only make it a few feet before I stop, not really needing to go further. I can faintly make out what I'm looking for. Holes litter the floor, but not ones caused by the fire. These are man-made, drilled in the foundation, probably when everyone was asleep. They would've been covered during the daylight, so nobody would've been any the wiser, before a fire was started down in the cellar.

In the cellar, where all the alcohol is stored.

I'd guarantee all of the windows were shoved open, to let even more oxygen in, but there's no way to tell that, not from where I'm standing. Still, I'd guarantee it.

Because that's what I would've done, had it been me.

It's peculiar. I almost would've said it was my doing, looking at it, but I was in Long Island with the Five Families when the fire started.

Or well, I was with four of them.

I suspect number five was right here.

Lingering is pointless. I saw what I came to see. I don't trust police reports or what I read in the newspaper. Those are skewed by human error, tainted by perception. I needed to see with my own eyes that this was what I suspected it to be.

Another attack.

Another message.

I slip back out of the building and make my way to my car, my eyes studiously scanning the neighborhood. It wouldn't surprise me if someone were watching, if eyes weren't still on the building.

I never looked back.

I didn't loiter.

But I know others like to watch.

They like to stick around and bask in their destruction, to oversee the aftermath.

The sun is starting to set as I head back to Brooklyn. By the time I reach the house, it's dark outside. It has only been about two hours since I left her, but Karissa is already in her pajamas, like she's ready for bed. When I walk in, she's standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, holding a bowl of something in her hand.

"You're back already," she says, sounding surprised.

"I told you I wouldn't be long."

She blows into her bowl, stirring whatever it is with a fork.

"What are you eating?"

I can't remember the last time I actually sat down and ate something.

It has been a long week.

Too damn long.

"Noodles," she says, holding up a forkful to show me. "Want some?"

"I'd rather starve."

She laughs, shrugging, and takes a bite. "I saw some recipes on the Internet of how to jazz them up with like, cream of chicken soup and cheese or whatever. Thought I'd give it a try."

She's jazzing up noodles that cost a quarter.

What am I going to do with her?

"Is that what you plan to make for these hypothetical dinner parties when you miraculously befriend people in this neighborhood?"

"Pfft, no," she says. "They're doing the cooking. We're just going to eat."

"Eat their cooking."

"Yes."

"Food prepared by strangers."

"No, they're going to be our friends, remember?"

"Even worse," I say. "You've got to watch the people you let near you. They can't stick a knife in your back if you don't let them get close enough to do it."

She doesn't say anything to that, just staring at me as she takes another bite of noodles. She's staring hard, like she's looking for something.

"What?"

"There's soot on your shirt."

I glance down when she says that, seeing the smudge. Shit. I try to brush it off, which is impossible. The shirt is white and it only extends the black streak.