CHAPTER 20 #3
“Your breath changed. Now you’re doing your predator breathing thing.”
“What the hell is that? I do not do that!”
“You absolutely have predator breathing,” he argued.
“I’m hanging up,” I warned.
“One more thing!” he said loudly.
“What?” I growled.
The man burst back into sunlight ahead of me, barely missing a valet stand.
“This is really important,” he continued.
“Spit it out,” I huffed.
“I just want to make sure you haven’t started drinking iced milk during your jogs . . .” Jace said.
I ended the call without ceremony and shoved the phone into my pocket in disgust, right as the man finally made his mistake and cut hard right into an alley without another exit.
It was narrow and half shadowed, a place tourists never noticed or ventured into unless they were incredibly lost. Dumpsters lined one wall, and graffiti climbed the faded, dirty brick of the buildings like vines.
His shoes slipped slightly as he tried to launch himself over the ten-foot chain-link fence. I stopped running and watched him attempt to be Spider-Man for a second.
My silence may have been less to seem scary and more because I didn’t want to gasp when I spoke to him, but I’d never admit that to anyone.
He finally stopped trying to climb the impossible fence and slowly turned to face me. I watched as the defiance drained from his features and real fear settled in. His chest rose and fell in uneven pulls, and he clutched his phone like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
“Want to tell me why you took that picture?” I asked pleasantly as I prowled toward him.
“I can’t,” he said, the words cracking as they left his mouth. His hands flew up in a frantic plea, and I had the detached thought that I was fairly certain that gesture had never actually altered anyone’s fate.
I caught him by the front of his shirt and drove him back into the brick, the impact knocking the air clean out of him. He made a thin, broken sound as his head snapped to the side and his breath left his body in a wheeze.
“This is a bad choice,” I said calmly. “Because the other man you took a picture of terrifies even me, and if I have to give you to him . . .”
My voice trailed off right as one of my black SUVs rolled into view and stopped at the entrance of the alley.
The guy made a garbled, choking sound, but he didn’t start blurting out his secrets, so I guess I could give him some credit. With that hairdo, I was thinking he’d be the type to fold immediately.
Zachary stepped out of the driver’s seat and waited by the passenger door as I dragged the kid off the wall and toward the vehicle, his feet scraping uselessly against the pavement as he began struggling against my hold. Zachary opened the rear passenger door . . . where Gage waited inside.
“I did warn you,” I drawled as Gage lifted his pale gray eyes to mine, fully in his “nighttime” version alter ego.
The guy saw him fully then, really saw him. And whatever bravado he’d scraped together shattered. “Please,” he choked, shaking so hard I could feel it through my grip. “Just—just kill me now. I can’t tell you anything. I swear. I can’t.”
Gage tilted his head slightly, studying him like he was something mildly interesting in a lab.
“That’s unfortunate,” he said calmly.
I shoved the kid into the back seat. He landed half on the floorboard, scrambling uselessly as Zachary closed the door with a solid, final click.
The SUV’s engine purred.
I slid in beside Gage, straightening my cuffs as if we were heading to a board meeting instead of about to make a skin suit.
The man’s breath came in frantic, hitching pulls.
“I assume you already sent the picture to someone?” I asked as I grabbed his phone. It was frankly embarrassing that I’d had to chase him through Vegas. His phone wasn’t even password protected.
Despite all his sniveling, the man still didn’t answer me. I scrolled through his messages myself, my jaw tightening when I saw the photo had already been sent to a number that practically screamed burner.
I exhaled slowly and pressed my fingers to the bridge of my nose.
Of course it had. Of course something had to get complicated right when I was finally making progress with Eden.
I had thirty days to manage the feds. I had to find our missing weapons shipment. I had a wayward photographer with the survival instincts of a goldfish to deal with. And somewhere in the middle of that, I was trying to convince a grieving widow to let me closer without spooking her.
I dropped my hand and looked at our captive again.
This was all becoming very inconvenient.
Gage pulled out a serrated serial killer–looking knife and started playing with it. The man made a little screaming noise.
“Relax,” Gage told him calmly. “You have a few hours.”
The smell of urine filled the car as the man pissed himself, and I grimaced and shifted slightly toward the door.
“Zachary just had this detailed.”
Gage glanced down at the trembling mess at our feet, then back at me, faint irritation flickering across his face.
“And I haven’t even cut him yet,” he muttered.