It was from these same corners, under this same city haze, that he�d been plucked�recruited into something cleaner, more lucrative, more structured. A step up from the petty grime of smash-and-grabs. And over the years, he had honed his craft with surgical precision, drawing on lessons learned in alleys and intersections just like this one.
But the boys hadn�t recognized the veteran.
They�d hit one of their own�an alumnus of the same school of hard asphalt. And they�d done it cleanly. Efficiently. That stung more than the loss of the Glock, the phone, or the laptop. His ego bled.
He exhaled hard, started the engine, and rolled forward�slow, measured. At the corner of Nugget Street, his mind still fogged by disbelief, he drifted into the intersection on a red light, narrowly avoiding a collision. Horns blared. He barely flinched.
He would find them. Of that, he was certain.
He still had friends in this city�old ghosts in familiar shadows, loyal to the end. Tracking down these reckless teens wasn�t a question of if, but when. By the time the devices surfaced again, their contents would likely be wiped�sold, reset, repurposed.
That didn�t worry him much.
The most sensitive files had been encrypted and backed up. What mattered now wasn�t the tech. It was the message. A line had been crossed. The streets had forgotten him. That would be corrected.
He turned left onto Nugget Street, the city stretching ahead in restless layers. Hillbrow loomed in the distance�his old haunt, his fallback, his war room.
It was time to hunt.