The whiskey in my father's office tasted like regret.
I set the crystal tumbler down on his mahogany desk without drinking. At ten in the morning, the amber liquid catches the light streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan. From this height, the city looks clean. Nothing like the blood-soaked reality we've built our fortune on.
"You're not drinking." Thomas doesn't look up from the documents spread before him. His silver hair perfectly styled despite the early hour, but I notice new lines around his eyes. Deeper ones. "That's new."
"A lot of things are new." I sink into the leather chair across from him, the same chair I sat in as a boy while he explained why I couldn't have a normal childhood. Why I needed to learn to shoot before I learned algebra. "Starting with the fact that I'm leaving."
His pen stops mid-signature. For three heartbeats, the only sound is the antique clock ticking on the shelf.
