The Man on the Floor Time

Time: 11:42 p.m.

 Location: Southside Atlanta

Weather: Heavy Rain, 78°F

The man on Jayce Navarro’s floor didn’t scream—and that’s how Jayce knew he was dangerous.

The rain had been relentless all night, hitting the city with a preacher’s fury, as if God himself was trying to baptize Atlanta in guilt. Thunder cracked like bones breaking in the sky, and every bolt of lightning threw flashes of white-hot sin across Jayce’s marble floor.

Jayce sat in the Navarro estate—what used to be an abandoned bank until he turned it into a fortress with windows too thick for bullets and walls that heard everything. He didn’t flinch at storms. Storms were easy. Predictable. They came, they raged, they left. It was people he didn’t trust.

So when Keon called through the intercom saying, "Boss, we got something out front," Jayce didn’t move at first.

"Something or someone?"

"Someone. But it’s... weird. You better see for yourself."

He opened the heavy front door himself. And there he was.

A man, slumped against the concrete like he'd been poured there. A suit soaked in rain and blood, face split at the brow, temple bruised, lip busted. His chest rose and fell like a metronome. Rhythmic. Controlled. Like he wasn't dying, just... waiting.

Keon reached for his Glock. "We can dump him."

Jayce didn't blink. He crouched, gloved fingers brushing the man's pocket, pulling out a wallet slick with blood.

Nothing inside. No ID. No cash. Just a silver card—no logo, just a chip. Too clean. Too quiet.

"Bring him in. If he dies, bleach the floor."

The man didn’t die.

He slept like a soldier with one eye open, breathing shallow. Jayce had him laid on the leather sectional. Keon hovered. Mama Inez burned sage in the kitchen, whispering prayers in Yoruba.

"That man got spirit knots all over him," she muttered. "Like he been cursed. Or cursed someone else."

Jayce sat in the shadows, watching.

Three hours passed. Midnight came and went.

And finally, the stranger woke.

His eyes opened slow, like he was surfacing from somewhere deep. Not confusion. Not fear. Just cold awareness.

Jayce leaned forward. "You alive?"

The man blinked once. "Unfortunately."

Jayce smiled. "Name?"

"Eli."

"Last?"

Eli sat up despite the pain, his back straight. His jaw clenched. "Does it matter?"

Jayce’s smile faded. "Only if you plan on staying."

"Then let’s not pretend I will."

---

By sunrise, the bleeding had stopped, but the tension hadn’t. Eli was wearing one of Jayce’s robes—black silk, stitched with a red crown.

Jayce watched him move through the house like he belonged in no house at all. Like he’d been trained to walk silent, speak careful.

"You military?" Jayce asked.

Eli didn’t answer.

"You law?"

Still silence.

"You dangerous?"

Eli finally looked at him. "I’m breathing, aren’t I?"

Jayce liked that answer. Too much.

He handed Eli a burner phone, an old-school Nokia. "You stay, you work. You work, you earn. You earn, you stay alive."

"Doing what?"

"For now? Accounting."

Eli arched a brow. "You need a CFO or a scapegoat?"

Jayce smirked. "Both."

Eli took the phone.

And the game began.

---

The days bled into each other. Rain gave way to heat. The house pulsed with quiet power.

Eli stayed in the room down the hall. He never locked the door. But Jayce never entered it.

Instead, he watched the man rebuild his mind in silence. Read his books. Ran numbers. Re-coded the surveillance system. Corrected flaws in Jayce’s laundering scheme.

"He good," Keon admitted. "Too good."

"That scare you?" Jayce asked.

"Scares me that it don’t scare you."

---

One night, Jayce found Eli on the rooftop, shirtless, scars catching moonlight.

"You don’t sleep much," Jayce said.

Eli didn’t look at him. "Sleep’s for the guiltless."

"You got guilt?"

"I got ghosts. They don’t sleep either."

Jayce lit a cigar. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Good. I hate liars."

Eli turned then, eyes hard. "And what are you?"

Jayce blew out smoke. "Honest about my sins."

Eli stared at him.

And for a second, just a second, the king and the ghost saw each other.

Not as enemies. Not as strangers. But as men who had buried too much to ever be soft again.

---

When Jayce went to bed that night, he dreamed of rain and eyes the color of unfinished business.

And he woke up wanting to taste silence again.

Because the man on the floor had become the ghost in his bones.