Chapter 107.1

Chapter 107.1

The truth he’d realized too late tore into him like a blade.

A sharp, needle-like pain began at his extremities and spread through his body until his lungs burned as if scorched. It felt like his whole body had cramped and was sinking into boiling water. Each breath drew not air but searing heat through his nose and mouth, filling his lungs like molten metal.

His vision blurred, and then his body lurched violently, shoulder slamming into something hard. A loud crash echoed through the grimy alley.

André pressed his forehead against the rough, cold wall and shut his eyes, gasping for breath.

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that before his breathing finally began to steady. Pushing against the wall, he tried to stand. Only then did he realize what he’d hit wasn’t a wall but a small door.

Set in the corner of a two-story pawnshop with its shutters down, the narrow side door was painted gray, blending so completely into the darkness that it was almost invisible. It had no address, no sign, no buzzer.

André looked around and let out a faint, bitter laugh.

He’d been walking aimlessly, yet somehow his body had led him here, to a place his subconscious still remembered.

At the corner stood a street sign with its post slightly bent: Delancey Street. Across from it was an old tenement building—Lafayette Terrace.

It was one of Charles’s private properties. Every time he came to New York, he made sure to visit. The last time André had been there was in the summer of ’87, when he’d returned home from the military academy on break.

Charles had insisted on taking him to a new dumpling restaurant at Lafayette Terrace, dragging him all the way down to the Lower East Side even though André hadn’t wanted to go.

Nine years had passed since then, but the corner of the first floor still bore the sign for “Moon Dumpling.” The lights were out now, and the shutter was covered in graffiti.

‘LOVE HURTS’

Damn it. André cursed under his breath. The two words stabbed deep into his chest like a knife.

He hated graffiti. No matter how many times he had it scrubbed away, the filthy, lowly scribbles would always reappear overnight. Like cockroaches that refused to die.

Still, he couldn’t look away. Another sharp pain shot through his chest, and he stumbled against the side door, his body slamming into it with a heavy thud that echoed into the dark sky.

He had wronged Miran. He had to make it right.

But how?

André clutched at his aching chest, the weight of despair and loss tightening around his heart. If only he could rip it out and end the pain.

Then, behind him, the door rattled.

André straightened and stepped back just as a rough-looking man with a thick, scruffy beard shoved his face through the narrow opening. The man bared his teeth in a threatening grin, a gold-tipped fang flashing under the dim light.

[If you came for a tattoo, you could’ve knocked like a decent person. Thought you were a cop, and I nearly jammed a needle in your eye.]

His gravelly voice carried the rasp of a heavy smoker. From the stairway leading below came a mix of marijuana, disinfectant, metal, and ink smells.

The man looked André up and down, then gave a crooked smile.

[Well, well. Look at those glazed eyes. Haven’t seen a junkie yuppie in a while. Small piece is seventy-five bucks, big one’s a hundred fifty an hour. I’ll throw in a joint for free.]

André knew about these places: illegal tattoo parlors that had gone underground since tattooing was banned in the ’60s for health reasons, yet still operated quietly all over Manhattan.

His voice came out low and steady.

[Where does it hurt the most to get a tattoo?]

The man’s eyebrows lifted in amusement as he looked André up and down again.

[Ah, that kind of thing, huh? On someone built like you, no fat over the ribs, that’s where it hurts the most. The scalp and the dick hurt pretty bad too.]

The man snickered and opened the door wider.

[Got something in mind?]

André gave a short nod.

[A name. On my ribs.]

[Come in.]

The man jerked his chin toward André and disappeared behind the door. André pushed it open and followed him down the stairs, his footsteps echoing heavily.

The basement studio was no bigger than a small barbershop, its walls plastered with rows of tattoo designs. The sharp smell of blood and ink was drowned under heavy disinfectant, and a haze of marijuana smoke hung over it all.

Of the three beds, two were occupied: one by a punk kid and the other by a member of the Hells Angels.