Chapter 24
Alejandro bangs on Doctor Disgusting’s door for five minutes, fist aching by the time the locks start rattling.
Inside, he’s probably tripping over his own filth.
He finally gets it open—twelve different bolts sliding, scraping, protesting.
The place doesn’t smell any better than usual.
If anything, it’s worse. There’s a tang that sticks to your teeth, like copper left out in the rain.
Once you know he eats people, you can’t smell anything else.
I’d rather take my chances outside. Let the world’s assassins try their luck. At least then I know what I’m up against.
Alejandro pushes inside, eyes scanning the room, always on edge. “Boot up the laptop. I’m getting lunch.”
I’m not going to argue it. I’m fucking starving. I rummage under the counter, surprised when I actually find a bottle of cleaner—miracle. I give the table a scrub and wash my hands. There’s no point dying of infection before someone manages to shoot me.
I power up the laptop and text Grim. I’ll need you—soon. He answers before I even put the phone down. Typical. Always waiting for the next mess I’m about to drag him into.
For a second, I glance over my shoulder—like Alejandro’s going to be standing there, demanding to know why I trust Grim. He can’t know. No one can. That’s not a risk I’ll ever take.
I’m dying for something to drink so I pull the fridge door open and instantly regret it. It’s like Jeffrey Dahmer got a membership at Sam’s Club.
Naturally there would be a severed fucking head sitting on a dinner plate. Yellowed skin, milky eyes rolled up, mouth slightly sagging. My mouth curves down in a frown.
There’s a jar of fingers floating in brine—like the world’s worst pickles—next to a half-gallon of OJ and a takeout box slick with oil. The “beef medallions” on the bottom shelf don’t look like anything that ever mooed.
I slam the fridge shut before I puke. I don’t even like meat. Definitely not pickled fingers or an ear sandwich-bagged like leftovers. My skin crawls and a shiver grabs hold of my spine.
The lock clicks again, and Alejandro returns, arms full—two white paper bags bulging with containers, another stuffed with water bottles. Thank fuck. I’m dry as dust.
He sets the bags on the table. “I wouldn’t go looking for food here if I were you,” he warns, a beat too late.
I ignore him, tearing into the bags. He’s gone out of his way—not a scrap of meat in sight.
Not even for him. I catch his eye, chopsticks pausing over a piece of tofu dripping in chili oil.
He acts like it’s nothing, but I see him watching me scan the spread—crispy tofu, lo mien, spring rolls, vegan kimbap, a pile of bean sprouts and mushrooms. All of it safe.
He shrugs, nonchalant. “Figured you wouldn’t be able to stomach much here.”
I grin, mouth already full. “The pickled fingers were looking tempting, but this is better.”
He just smirks and digs in, and for the first time since we got away, the air between us isn’t poison.
We’re sitting so close our thighs touch, laptop balanced between us, the table still smelling faintly of bleach and whatever the hell Dr. Disgusting was chopping up earlier.
I steer with one hand—opening folders, swiping through files—while Alejandro eats beside me, always half-watching the door.
Grim’s on speaker, his voice low and precise, the hum of his servers in the background.
“You’re safe,” Grim says, matter-of-fact. “The laptop’s cold. No signal, no ping. They’d need God himself to trace you now.”
“Comforting,” I mutter, not entirely convinced.
Alejandro pops a spring roll in his mouth, nodding at the screen. “Find anything that explains why the Guild swarmed in five minutes flat?”
I flick open another folder—bank statements, fake invoices, pages of numbers coded in a way only an accountant or a criminal could love. “Looks like he did the books for Vincenzi Consulting.”
Alejandro arches a brow. “That’s not consulting. That’s an Italian mob family. Well—makes sense why the place was crawling with the Guild so fast.”
“Everyone’s got their hands dirty,” I say, clicking deeper, scrolling past wire transfers that jump from New York to Tokyo to Switzerland and back. “Mob bosses, Guilds, state contracts. Gold bars disguised as fertilizer shipments. Enough to build a RICO case against half the planet.”
Alejandro leans in, voice low. “The accountant—he was more than just a numbers guy.”
“Yeah,” I say. “He was collecting. Stockpiling evidence, blackmail, leverage—every dirty secret he could get his hands on. He covered his ass six ways from Sunday and he was a hell of a lot better with a computer than his job demanded.”
Grim whistles over the line. “I’m impressed. This is insurance of the nuclear variety.”
I click faster, nerves humming. “Anything in here could’ve been what got him killed. We need to find the thread he pulled—what made him panic, reach out to El Fantasma, and end up hot dog meat.”
Alejandro grabs another container, leaning in closer, his knee pressed to mine. “It’s got to be something? He was sitting on this for years—why the hell blow his cover now?”
“Grim, take over,” I say, pushing the laptop closer to the mic. “Pull up those articles—the ones set to drop in two days. The ones where I apparently murder a politician.”
He’s silent for a second. Then windows flicker across the screen, popping open and snapping shut so fast I can barely keep up. The mouse moves on its own—Grim’s in control now, hands flying somewhere in a windowless room full of cold monitors and empty coffee cups.
Code runs. Folders scroll. Lines of text blur by. Then—headlines, in rapid succession, stacking up like a bad hand of cards:
ASSASSIN SAINT JAMES STRIKES AGAIN—SENATOR CHARLES HARTLEY DEAD IN CHICAGO SHOOTING
NOTORIOUS KILLER SAINT JAMES BEHIND POLITICAL ASSASSINATION, SAYS FBI SOURCE
SHOCKING: FRONT-RUNNER HARTLEY MURDERED DAYS BEFORE ELECTION—IS ANYONE SAFE?
Every article has a different spin, but the narrative is locked. I’m the villain. The evidence is airtight, the details grotesquely specific—time, place, my face pulled from a thousand surveillance feeds, all of it orchestrated to make sure the world knows Saint James is public enemy number one.
Grim’s voice is flat in my ear. “They want you burned before you ever get close.”
He opens a new window. More headlines, this time focused on the target: Senator Charles Hartley.
The perfect American politician—sharp suit, white smile, born for the debate stage.
He’s the top candidate for president, projected to sweep the election.
Voting starts in two months, and every news feed has him shaking hands, kissing babies, standing in front of flags.
Hartley’s campaign is all blue-sky, middle-America dreams: lower taxes for working families, real education reform, increased teacher pay, free community college.
He’s promised affordable healthcare—no “Medicare for All” fairytale, just lower premiums, and drug costs.
He talks about criminal justice reform, actually puts numbers behind it.
No war drums, no talk of enemies—he’s selling peace for the first time in a generation, and the country’s eating it up.
Alejandro leans closer, reading over my shoulder. “They’re making you the next Lee Harvey Oswald.”
“Yeah,” I say, throat dry. “Except this time, the body’s still breathing.”
I stare at my own name, bolded in black and red. The trap’s set. They’re not just coming for me—they’re coming for anyone who stands in the way.
Grim’s voice is cold now. “You’re not just getting framed, Saint. They want a public execution. By the time those stories go live, it won’t matter what you did or didn’t do.”
More articles flicker across the screen. Grim’s voice is steady, clinical, like he’s dissecting my obituary.
“Global manhunt,” he mutters. “Every outlet’s got a version. Saint James killed in a high-speed chase through the Loop. Saint James gunned down by police in a South Side shootout. Saint James found dead in a tunnel pile-up. Take your pick.”
I watch my own deaths play out in pixels, each one messier than the last. None of them real—yet. But all of them plausible enough to pass for truth with a body to pin them on.
Alejandro leans back, arms crossed, jaw tight. “Whoever staged this knows you won’t go down easy. That’s why they set you up. Make it look like you broke Guild law, paint you as a traitor—give themselves a reason to put every hitter on your trail, make you desperate, keep you moving.”
Make it look like you broke Guild law.
I don’t let anything show. There are rules and there are lines you don’t cross—lines that, once crossed, put you in the ground. I keep my expression carved from stone, eyes on the screen, mouth set. Let them think I’m unfazed.
If anyone ever figures out what I’ve actually done, it won’t just be my blood on the line.
Grim’s voice cuts in. “Doesn’t matter who kills you now. They just need a body. That’s why they sent the whole world—figure someone will get lucky.”
I give a thin smile, cold. “That, and they know it’d take all of them to actually kill me.”
Alejandro nods, gaze never leaving mine. “If you’re supposed to be dead, that means someone else is going to take out Senator Hartley.”
I tap the desk, thinking fast. “We need to know why he’s the target. What’s to gain with his death?”
The answer’s staring us in the face. Hartley’s selling peace, and there’s too much money in war. Every file the accountant collected—every shell company, every bribe and contract, every nation buying blood and calling it law. Wars are for sale. So are presidents.
“Someone wants to be the one pulling the strings. Someone wants the money to keep flowing.”
Alejandro and I lock eyes. The answer’s too obvious now, almost cliché if it weren’t so fucking deadly.
At the same time, we both speak:
“El Fantasma,” I say.
“The Guildmaster,” Alejandro echoes.