Shackle.exe: Episode 5

If only shallow pockets made for shallow problems.

Bran Smith--judge, jury...executioner. His family sold their souls for money. Now he's paying the price. Working for Alpha comes without question, but Bran only picked up a gun so his mother could lay hers down. Putting her in a nursing home was never part of the plan. Or the budget.

With their mother's care on the line, his little brother joins the family business. Sid Marrero thought it would be easy to walk in his brother's shadow. Putting Alpha's faceless enemies in unmarked graves? Just another Monday in the hustle. Sometimes the enemies aren't so faceless though. Friends, family, lovers—nobody's off limits.

That's made all too clear when his final initiation paints a target on an old friend's back. The two of them have history. Before Alpha. Before the grind left them both fragmented shadows. Their memories still haunt the darkest corners of Pittsburgh's neon-laced streets, but Alpha wants Sybil Pratte's ghost exorcised once and for all.

Sid thought he could do it, take up the gun and baptize himself in blood, but now he's drowning in doubt. If he backs out, he puts his family on the line. If he follows through, he shatters the remains of his already broken heart. What's one life worth? According to Bran, everything. And if Sid won't pull the trigger, his brother will.