Chapter 14
Alejandro is having a deeply spiritual moment of panic.
“?Mierda! Carajo! Maldita sea—joder—puta madre—NO!”
Rough translation:
?Mierda! — “Shit
Carajo! — “Fuck!” but angrier
Maldita sea! — “Goddammit!”
Joder! — “Fuck!” (with more Spanish flavor)
Puta madre! — “Motherfucker!” (intense frustration)
NO! — Self-explanatory panic cherry on top
Put together? “Shit! Fuck! Goddammit—fuck—motherfucker—NO!”
In layman’s terms?: I realize what you’re about to do and I hate everything about it.
And unfortunately for him, we’re already midair.
And weightless.
My ass lifts off the seat.
Alejandro’s ass lifts off the seat.
Skippy’s entire corpse drifts upward from the back like some grotesque astronaut on a zero-gravity joy ride, limbs floating as gracefully as rigor mortis allows.
Alejandro releases one long, beautifully tortured, “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.”
I keep both hands firm on the wheel, eyes locked on the trajectory ahead—
or close enough to ahead.
Because the rooftop we thought we were landing on is actually a glass dome.
We hit it with a thundercrack of shattering crystal.
Light explodes around us—white, blinding, raining shards.
Then the car slams downward, crashing through the opening and hitting a marble floor with bone-jarring violence.
The world resolves into white stone walls. Pedestals. Paintings. Sculptures.
A museum.
Of course it’s a museum.
The impact sends Skippy tumbling into the footwell behind us, but I don’t give him a second glance. I jam the accelerator again. The wheels scream and we drift into the spiral walkway that winds down the interior like a stone helix.
Down we go.
Sideways.
Screeching.
Sculptures blurring past.
Tourists screaming and diving for cover.
Miraculously—insanely—I don’t hit a single thing.
At the bottom, the spiral spits us out toward a pair of giant double doors thrown open to a portico decked out for a gala. Yellow lights twinkle overhead. Guests in tuxedos and gowns stroll with champagne flutes.
“Hold tight!” I shout, my hand laying on the horn.
We launch through the doors, blasting into the party like the world’s least welcome fireworks display.
People scream and scatter as we bounce down a wide staircase.
We obliterate a buffet table, sending towers of fruit, pyramids of pastries, and floral arrangements exploding across the lawn.
Waiters dive behind hedges that don’t stand a chance.
Finally, we hit street level and I straighten the wheel, checking my mirrors for shadows. It’s all clear. For now.
Then I glance back at Skippy sprawled in the floorboard like a dropped mannequin.
I look at Alejandro.
He has an entire sampling platter in his lap—quiche squares, melon balls, a profiterole, half a crab puff—and he calmly plucks up a mini quiche, pops it into his mouth, and chews like this is Sunday brunch.
I stare at him. “I can’t believe you.”
He shrugs, brushing pastry off his shirt.
“What? I didn’t get to finish my taco.”
We ditch the mangled, glass-filled, fruit-splattered stolen car outside the train station. The moment the doors slam shut, Alejandro goes straight for Skippy—grabbing the corpse’s swollen arm and tugging it toward him like he’s about to start a field autopsy right there on the sidewalk.
Then he reaches for my knife.
I smack his hand before he can touch the hilt. “Absolutely not.”
“We need the chip,” he argues, already nudging Skippy’s arm again. “It’s right here. The swelling means it’s close to the surface. One slice—”
“You have your own knife,” I remind him.
He shrugs. “Yeah, but yours is sharper.”
“And you’re not slicing open the body in the middle of a train station,” I snap. “One wrong move and you toast the chip. We didn’t survive a car launch through a museum ceiling to fry the only lead we have.”
He grits his teeth. “So what? We carry him forever? He smells.”
“No. We find somewhere with an X-ray before we cut him open.”
Alejandro stops, looks around. The train station is bustling—announcements echoing, luggage wheels rattling, commuters speed-walking like they’re being chased by their own bad decisions.
Then he gets a look in his eyes.
An idea.
A stupid one. I can already tell.
“Oh no,” I mutter. “Whatever’s happening in your brain right now? Stop it.”
He grins and goddamn him, those dark brown eyes have a fucking twinkle in them. “I know where we can go. And we can ditch Skippy there too. No questions asked.”
I roll my eyes. “Inspiring confidence, truly.”
For a moment, I let the idea spin in my head—not because I trust him, but because time is hunting us and options are bleeding out fast. If he actually has a contact who won’t blink at the sight of a corpse with a mystery implant, I can’t afford to dismiss it.
My Guild resources will be stripped, even neutral vendors have to step back during the manhunt.
Or, womanhunt, I suppose.
I stare at him, doubtful as hell but the idea is slowly growing on me, and he knows it. He goes around to the trunk and retrieves his broken down sniper riffle, slipping the strap over his head and fixing it between his shoulder blades. “Owen is from Chicago.”
Alejandro makes a face. “Who the fuck is Owen?”
I blink. “Owen Liang. Our dead accountant.”
He shakes his head dramatically. “No. Absolutely not. He is now and forever Skippy. Owen is ridiculous.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Skippy is not better.”
“It’s too late. It stuck.”
I let it go. We have bigger problems. And unfortunately, that includes the fact that Alejandro’s “source” could be anyone from a disgraced medic to a smuggler with a questionable digestive tract.
“You’re an exile,” I remind him. “Meaning you can’t use Guild assets. So, whatever ‘sources’ you have left are firmly in the bottom-feeding section of the black market.”
He shrugs. “You have your contacts. I have mine.”
“Yeah. Mine aren’t wanted in three countries.”
“Four,” he corrects, smug. “But who’s counting? And don’t forget—you’re an exile now too, mi Pícarita.”
I stare him down. He stares back. Annoyingly confident.
And he’s right—we don’t have time.
He jerks his chin toward the display board. “Chicago. Overnight line. Boarding in ten.”
Lucky us.
“Let’s go.”
I exhale, long and resigned. “Fine. But if your source is a guy who works out of a basement with a pet ferret named Hannibal, I’m stabbing you in the thigh.”
Alejandro grins like he’d enjoy being stabbed in the thigh. “Deal.”
Which, frankly, is the exact moment I know something is going to go wrong. The universe hates us too much for anything else.
We find a wheelchair abandoned near the parking garage elevators—rusty, one wheel squeaking like it’s begging for death. Perfect. We plop Skippy—Owen—into it. His head lolls to the side in a way that looks disturbingly natural, like an overworked commuter taking a sad nap.
We push into the terminal. Alejandro uses a kiosk, pays cash he lifted from some poor bastard’s pocket thirty seconds earlier, and somehow also pockets a pack of pink bubble gum from the snack rack.
He hands it to me with a wink and a devil’s grin.
It’s my flavor.
I pretend the flip in my stomach doesn’t exist as I pop two pieces.
We keep moving. Snatching what we need as we go.
A woman about my height stands staring up at the departures board, her rolling suitcase parked directly behind her.
A rookie mistake.
As we pass, I grab the handle and keep walking. The suitcase glides neatly behind me like it’s always belonged to me.
Alejandro spots a duffel bag at a man’s feet—the guy too busy on his phone to notice the world burning around him. Alejandro swoops down and grabs the handles, plopping squarely in Skippy’s lap.
“Hold this for me, amigo.”
Skippy does not object.
We find our platform just as boarding begins. The private sleeper cars are still locked—they won’t open them until we’re already moving. Which means we’re trapped with the general population for a bit with a smelly corpse and I think is getting puffier by the minute.
Fucking terrific.
We maneuver Skippy into the common car, slotting him into a seat by the window. Alejandro angles his head just right so he looks like a guy who had one too many glasses of merlot and passed out before the train even left the station.
People barely glance at him.
Just another tired traveler.
Alejandro sits beside him. I take the seat across just as the train rumbles beneath us, engines humming to life.
For the first time in hours, we’re not being shot at, chased, or launched off rooftops.
It doesn’t feel like relief.
It feels like the deep breath before the next explosion.
The dining car smells like overcooked meat and stale coffee, which—unfortunately—only makes my stomach growl louder. Alejandro hears it, smirks, and pushes out of his seat.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, already weaving toward the food counter.
Great.
Now it’s just me and Dead Skippy.
His lips have gone an impressive shade of dead-man blue, and his skin has that waxy sheen that says we’re officially entering the “clock is ticking” portion of corpse transportation.
Across the aisle, a kid keeps making faces at him—crossing his eyes, sticking out his tongue, trying to get a reaction. The dad is oblivious, glued to his phone. The mom, baby strapped to her chest, shushes the kid half-heartedly.
I shake my head.
You couldn’t pay me enough for that job.
I try focusing on Grim’s intel—Owen’s swelling arm, the implant we can’t risk slicing open, the dark web chatter—but Alejandro returns before I can get far, balancing a plate piled with hot dogs like he’s catering a children’s birthday party.
He drops two bottles of water and some random snacks onto the table.
I stare at the hot dogs, scandalized.
“That’s disgusting.”
He grins, taking off his rifle case and propping it between him and Skippy.
Fuck. Owen.
“You and your aversion to eating land meat is a crime against good Spanish cuisine.”
“Hot dogs are hardly good cuisine or Spanish.” I can’t help the sour expression on my face. “They barely count as food as is. You have no idea what is in those things.”
He smirks. “Please, you eat like a woodland creature with trust issues. Let the adults enjoy their food.”
“And you look like a man who eats hot dogs for the shape, not the taste.” I snip back.
He pauses, considers the hot dog in his hand, shrugs, and takes a massive bite. I grimace as he chews with commitment.
I push the hot dog trauma aside. “Let’s talk about the accountant.”
Alejandro gives an exaggerated chew like he’s savoring my suffering. “Okay, what have you got?”
“You think that hit makes sense? Skippy was sniffing around for Fantasma?” I ask. “That he was actually looking to hand off intel?”
“Wouldn’t be the first idiot with a death wish.” He wipes his mouth with a napkin. “But yeah. He if was asking the wrong questions on the wrong boards. Someone was going to notice.”
There’s something he’s not saying though.
“You think it was something else?” I push.
“You know what I think.” Alejandro doesn’t miss a beat. “I always think the Guildmaster’s behind shit. It’s never a bad bet.”
I lean in, elbows on the tiny table, voice lower. “They’re both phantoms, you know. The Guildmaster. El Fantasma. Nobody knows what either one looks like. No photos. No sightings. Not even rumor-level descriptions.”
He lifts a brow, waiting.
“So what if they’re not two people?” I say. “What if they’re the same person?”
Alejandro’s eyes flick to mine—quiet, unreadable. He doesn’t confirm. Doesn’t deny. Just lets the thought hang between us like a suspended blade before he looks away for a moment.
Then I notice he isn’t really listening.
His attention is drifting past me.
I follow his line of sight.
A woman across the aisle is making eyes at him. Overtly. Hair toss, lip bite, smolder—the whole ridiculous package. My jaw tightens. “Does that shit actually ever work?”
Alejandro catches my tone instantly and a slow grin cuts across his mouth.
“Oh? Is the infamous Saint James jealous?”
I scoff. “Please. Jealous of what? You? Absolutely not.”
“Uh-huh.” He laughs under his breath. “Keep watching, Picarita.”
He stands. Walks several tables back, past the woman, to take a plate from a train attendant, thanking them in Spanish.
And the woman across the aisle keeps staring.
Only… she isn’t staring at him.
She’s making eyes at Skippy.
The corpse.
My mouth falls open. “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Alejandro turns back, holding a plate absolutely devoid of anything with legs. Fruit, a cheese quesadilla, a cup of yogurt. He sets it in front of me like he planned it all along.
“For you,” he says. “They didn’t have a large selection.”
I look from him, to the plate, to the woman flirting with a dead man.
“You know what?” I mutter. “I take back everything I said. People are fucking insane.”