Corleone's anger

The stale air of my office, usually a comforting cloak, felt suffocating. The city’s perpetual hum, a symphony I’d long learned to conduct, now grated on my nerves, each siren a piercing accusation. I traced the rim of my lukewarm coffee mug, the ceramic cool against my thumb, a stark contrast to the heat building in my gut. Jacob Woodville. The name itself was a curse, a stain I couldn’t scrub clean. He’d promised me a clean getaway, a tidy exit, and instead, he’d left a trail of chaos wider than the Mississippi.

“Tracker,” I muttered, the word tasting like ash. Don Corleone’s goons. My goons, technically, but now they were a pack of rabid dogs off their leash, and Jacob, bless his twisted heart, had just handed them a reason to hunt in broad daylight. The news reports were a blur of flashing lights and grim pronouncements. A body. Found. In a car. A car that, if my memory served me right, was currently parked a few blocks from my establishment, a monument to my increasingly precarious situation.

My phone buzzed, a jarring interruption to my spiraling thoughts. Agent Miller. Of course. The universe had a cruel sense of humor, always throwing me into the path of the very people I was trying to avoid. I let it ring, the insistent pulse a counterpoint to my own quickening heartbeat. Finally, I picked up.