Chapter 13
Gun drawn, I sweep the hallway first. Left. Right. Empty—at least for the next three seconds. Alejandro stands behind me with Skippy slung over one shoulder like a grotesque gym bag. I don’t need to look at him to know exactly where he is. I feel him at my back, radiating tension.
“Let’s go,” I whisper.
We move fast, quiet, practiced. The stairwell is a death trap with a body—too many blind corners, too many angles for ambush. The elevator is the lesser evil.
I hit the call button. The hallway hums with old fluorescent lights, buzzing like they’re nervous for us. Alejandro shifts behind me, adjusting Skippy’s dead weight.
Then I notice it.
He’s also holding a fucking taco.
In his other hand. Wrapped in a napkin. And he’s eating it. Actively. Taking a big, satisfied bite.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I smack it right out of his hand. The taco splats to the floor as the elevator dings open.
He yelps, offended. “What? Mama Grim gave it to me as we left. Am I supposed to say no?”
“Yes,” I snap, stepping inside. I clear the corners, then jerk my chin. “Move.”
He follows, wiping his hand on the back of Skippy’s arm as the doors slide shut around us. The elevator rattles downward, ancient cables groaning. Every floor feels like an eternity. We reach the ground, slip out into the alley, and sprint to the car.
We dump Skippy into the backseat—no seatbelt, no dignity, no time.
“I’m driving,” I say. “You shoot.”
Alejandro doesn’t argue. He tosses me the keys, rounds the hood, and jumps into the passenger seat, gun already coming free of its holster.
I fire up the engine, slam the gearshift into reverse, and tear backward out of the narrow parking space—
Only to hit the brakes hard.
Two cars block the mouth of the alley. Engines idling. Blacked-out windows roll down exposing faces we recognize all too well—assassins we’ve crossed paths with before. Their eyes gleam with the kind of hungry purpose that says they didn’t come to talk.
“Well,” I murmur, pulse steadying into something cold and sharp, “looks like this just became a high-speed chase.”
I rev the engine once—sharp, taunting—then drop my foot to the floor.
The car surges forward like it’s been waiting its whole life for this moment. I aim not for the front bumper, but the exposed flank of the first assassin car. We slam into it with a violent crunch, metal screaming as my fender bites deep into their door.
I don’t stop.
I keep pushing, grinding them sideways across the street. The assassin inside fumbles for his gun, eyes wide, mouth forming curses I don’t bother reading. The tires catch at the curb, the whole frame tilts, and then the car flips onto its side with a hollow, bone-rattling thud.
I keep pushing—shoving them the last few feet until we hit the brick storefront across the street. Glass bursts. Metal folds.
“One down,” I mutter.
I don’t waste a breath. I throw the car into reverse, swing the wheel hard, spin us in a tight arc, and floor it straight into the second car before they can react.
We plow into their front end and shove them backward—out of the alley, into the open intersection behind us.
A horn blares.
A massive garbage truck appears from the right, going way too fast for city limits. It slams into the assassin car with enough force to lift it off the ground before crushing it beneath its tires like a tin can.
I wince. “Two down.”
I drop us back into drive and peel away, tires screaming against asphalt. A hard right, then another. The city becomes a blur of neon and brick and pissed-off taxi drivers.
Three cars swing into the street behind us—coordinated, hungry, closing fast.
Alejandro twists, window down, gun already up.
“I’ve got these.”
Alejandro leans out the window and fires. The first bullet punches straight into the front tire of the nearest car. The rubber explodes, the vehicle skidding sideways into its partner. Both fishtail at once, slamming into a street sign with a twisted metallic shriek.
Two taken out in one motion.
He pivots to the third car, fires twice, metal sparking off the hood.
“Damn it,” he growls. “This one’s armored. Get me on the driver’s side.”
I weave around a minivan, slide us into the opposite lane, and ease off the gas just enough to give him a clean angle. Traffic blurs past us, horns blaring, but he’s already shifting—bracing his foot against the door, fingers locking onto the window frame.
Then he goes still.
Completely still.
The chaos outside, the ricochet of bullets, the screaming city—all of it falls away from him. I can feel it. That quiet, cold recalibration of a predator aligning with the kill.
He exhales.
One shot.
It threads perfectly through the metal slats of the assassin’s front grill, slips past the engine block, and finds the tiny exposed gap between the armored plates for the air vents.
The driver jerks, blood splattering the inside of the windshield before the car veers sharply to the right and slams into a row of parked vehicles.
I let out a breath. My shoulder slumping as I let the tension go.
“Nice shot,” I say.
His mouth twitches. Not a smile. Just the shadow of one.
It feels like the number of assassins chasing us doubles in an instant. I take another corner hard, tires screaming, and the rear end swings just wide enough to give me a clean count.
Four cars.
Two motorcycles weaving between them like sharks in shallow water.
Alejandro leans across me without warning, rolling down my window. His arm brushes my chest, and—for one ridiculous second—I register that he smells good. Clean. Warm. Something sharp under it, like cedar.
“Sorry—excuse me—coming through—”
Then he fires twice.
One of the motorcycles jerks violently, the rider skidding across asphalt in a shower of sparks.
The second bike is still bearing down on us when I wrench the wheel right. The sudden force throws him closer—his shoulder pressing into mine as he mutters a quiet, vicious, “Joder*…”
The curse slips out like a reflex, rough and annoyed.
It pulls a tiny, involuntary smirk from me.
Then I clip the second rider cleanly, sending him and the bike flying down the subway stairs in a blooming fireball of orange flame.
Alejandro and I share a look—one beat, sharp and wordless. Appreciation without admission. Gratitude neither of us is petty enough to say out loud.
The back windshield explodes behind us, glass blasting forward like shrapnel. Alejandro ducks, twists, and returns fire through the shattered frame. His bullet finds the driver between the eyes. Their car swerves, plows into the one beside it, and both spin out in a roaring metal tangle.
“We need to lose them,” he says, already reloading. “Or we’ll be doing this all fucking night.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “No shit.”
I cut left—hard enough that the tires give a high-pitched squeal—and shoot straight toward a parking garage entrance.
The flimsy gate arm tries to rise, pathetically slow. I hit it at full speed. It snaps clean off and whips across the hood like a thrown stick.
One of the assassin cars behind us overshoots the turn, skidding past the entrance and slamming into a parked sedan. But three more surge after us, headlights flooding the garage shadows.
Alejandro tenses. “What is your plan exactly?”
I barrel deeper into the structure, concrete pillars strobing past us as I throw the wheel hard left.
“Just shoot.”
Gunfire echoes behind us, ricocheting off cement like angry hornets. Our tires scream around another tight turn, rubber smearing across the floor. Alejandro doesn’t waste bullets—he waits. Patient. Taut. A predator riding out the chaos.
Then he fires.
The round slices through the narrow gap between two pillars and punches straight into the driver of the last pursuing car. Their headlights swerve, slam into a column, and go dark.
Two left.
We spiral higher. Up one level, then the next. The structure hums with gunshots, engines, and our shared pulse drumming in the air between us. When we break onto the top deck, open night yawns above us—nothing but sky, cold wind, and a drop that would turn us into confetti.
Alejandro’s irritation finally slips through. “There is literally nothing up here except gravity. Tell me you’re not—”
“Hang on.”
“Saint—”
But I’m already flooring it, shooting us toward the far edge of the roof.
At the last second, I jerk the wheel. Hard.
The car whips around in a brutal pivot, fishtailing as momentum drags us sideways before straightening. We swing past the two cars chasing us in the opposite direction—close enough to feel their exhaust against my skin.
I extend my arm out the window, elbow locked, gun steady.
For a breath, time slows.
We pass the first car, our windows lining up perfectly. The driver faces me—smug smirk, cowboy jawline, eyes that think they’ve already won.
Motherfucking Colt Harrington.
The Texan.
Sharpshooter.
Asshole extraordinaire.
I pull the trigger and the bullet shatters his window in an exploding starburst of glass. He jerks, flinching—reaction ruining the precision he prides himself on.
He tries to mimic my turn, but he doesn’t have the timing. He slams the front of his car into the concrete barrier of the deck. The impact forces him to back up, curse, reposition.
Time is money, and he just overspent.
By the time he’s realigned his car, we’re already tearing toward the opposite edge of the roof. Alejandro sees it now—the plan that didn’t exist thirty seconds ago but apparently exists now.
The end of the deck.
A tow truck parked there, its bed tilted down at a perfect angle.
His eyes widen.
He braces, grabbing the oh-shit handle with both hands.
I slam the accelerator.
“Oh shit!” He yells out.
We hit the ramp hard—metal clanging, the chassis protesting—but the truck does its job. The angled bed launches us upward, momentum catching like a fist under the ribs.
The car lifts.
Airborne.
We leave the building behind entirely, carried in an arc across open sky. Another rooftop rushes toward us—fast, too fast—
And for a heartbeat, we’re weightless. Just four spinning wheels, a dead man, a furious man, and me, hurling through the night between two concrete worlds.
* Fuck