The city didn’t sleep — it just blinked slower at night.
From a rooftop overlooking Westburn Square, Marco watched the world move below. The hum of traffic. The flicker of lights. The aimless drift of people who didn’t know they were standing on a powder keg.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Two rings. Cut.
It was Eve.
That was her way of saying “pull back.”
But Marco didn’t pull back.
He lit a cigarette instead and watched a black SUV pull up across the street. Nathan Cross stepped out, coat slung over one shoulder, briefcase in hand.
He’d been trailing Nathan all week.
No orders. No mission. Just instinct. Jealousy.
Fear.
Marco exhaled slowly. This wasn’t like him.
He didn’t second-guess. He didn’t loiter.
But Nathan Cross had become a problem.
Not because he was a cop.
Because Eve hesitated around him.
And Marco knew — hesitation got people killed.
At precinct HQ, Nathan dropped the file onto his desk and leaned back in his chair.
Seven disappearances in six months.
No connections, no witnesses, no bodies.
Except one: all of them had, at some point, brushed against a certain logistics firm in Bellrow.
The firm had clean books, clean names — but one of the couriers they’d hired had died under strange circumstances. Drowned.
That courier’s last delivery was to a flower shop.
A flower shop registered to a woman named Eve Hallow.
Nathan rubbed his eyes.
It couldn’t be her. She was sweet. Timid. Quiet.
But something about that quiet—it clung to him.
Not the nervous kind.
The trained kind.
Nathan tapped the folder. Then, almost without thinking, he opened his desk drawer.
Inside, tucked between two blank report forms, was the daisy.
Dried now. Pressed flat. Still faintly yellow.
He stared at it for a long time, trying to remember if she’d ever told him her name.
She hadn’t.
Just a smile. A flower. A vanishing act.
Still… something gnawed at him.
Eve was waiting.
Her safehouse tonight was a candlelit flat above a shuttered bookstore. Sparse. Clean. Strategically boring.
She sat in silence as Vasha updated her from the corner.
“Marco’s not responding. Last seen near Westburn.”
Eve didn’t flinch.
“Cross?”
“Still digging. He’s smart. And he’s got instincts.”
Eve nodded once.
“Let him keep digging. We’ll give him trails to chase.”
Vasha hesitated. “You sure that’s wise?”
Eve turned slowly.
“If we spook him, he digs deeper. If we feed him noise, he chokes on it.”
Vasha nodded, but something in her eyes flickered.
Eve noticed.
“Speak.”
“You’re getting soft. With him. With Cross.”
Eve’s gaze sharpened.
“Do I look soft?”
Vasha looked away. “No, ma’am.”
“Then stay in line.”
The next morning, Marco made a mistake.
He followed Nathan too close — too direct.
Nathan stepped into the corner bodega. Marco followed a beat later, eyes down, hood up. But Nathan was trained. He noticed the posture. The delay.
He turned sharply, caught Marco’s silhouette in the back mirror by the beer fridge.
Their eyes met for half a second.
Marco vanished out the side door — but the damage was done.
Nathan stood frozen, heart hammering.
That face.
He’d seen that face somewhere.
A mugshot? A background photo?
He raced back to the precinct, tearing through old case files.
Eve got the call.
Vasha’s voice was tense.
“Marco was made. Cross might’ve seen him.”
For the first time in weeks, Eve closed her eyes.
Marco. Loyal. Fierce.
But too close. Too obvious.
She opened a drawer and pulled out a black envelope.
Inside — one address. One instruction.
If it ever came to this.
She texted him one word: “Disappear.”
Marco got the message.
He was holed up in an abandoned train tunnel. Wet. Cold. Full of rats and regrets.
When her message came, he stared at it for a long time.
Disappear.
He read between the lines.
You screwed up. Run. Don’t come back.
He nearly crushed the phone.
But he didn’t respond.
Instead, he pocketed it, pulled on his coat, and vanished into the smoke of the underground.
Nathan, meanwhile, was close. Too close.
He found the old arrest photo — blurry, partial. But it was Marco.
Name: Unknown. Alias: None.
Arrested during a bust five years back. Charges dropped. Records sealed.
The one person connected to the Bellrow courier.
The same face that just shadowed him at a corner store.
Nathan’s pulse spiked.
For the first time, he wasn’t chasing shadows.
He was chasing someone real.
And somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice whispered again:
You’ve already met her.
Baawa Unfiltered 