Chapter 4
Four
Jagger
Pulse jumping in my throat, I keep my posture relaxed, one arm stretched along the back of the seat, close enough to Adena that we look comfortable together.
Paco rides shotgun, twisted around to face us, one arm draped over the headrest. His gold chain catches the light every time he moves.
The enforcer behind the wheel doesn't say a word. Doesn't need to. His eyes flick to the rearview mirror every few seconds—watching us, watching the road, indexing everything.
Paco's gaze shifts to Adena. "Nervous?”
"No," she says. "I’ve auditioned for jobs like this before."
"Yeah? Like who?"
"Whoever paid."
Paco laughs, sharp and loud. He glances at me. "Hope she delivers, hombre, be a shame to see this one go."
I slide my hand over hers. "She’s not going anywhere."
Her hand tightens around mine—just once, quick—and I feel the tension coiled beneath her calm exterior.
Paco nods, still watching. “Guess we’ll find out in a few."
I don't react. Don't let him see the calculation running through my head. We weren't supposed to meet with Marquez for two more hours. He's moved it up—no warning, no prep time. Throwing her straight into the deep end to see if she can swim.
Not off to a good start.
The SUV slows as we move deeper into the industrial stretch near the river. Warehouses line the streets, their metal siding streaked with rust. Most of them look abandoned—perfect for the kind of work Marquez’s crew runs.
We turn into a narrow alley between two corrugated structures. No signs. No markings. Just cracked asphalt and a rusted roll-up door.
The enforcer kills the engine.
Paco twists fully around, draping both arms over the seat. "Let’s see if you’re as hot as Jagger thinks you are," he jerks his chin toward the door.
The enforcer climbs out first, circling around to pull open the rear door. Heat slams into us, thick and wet, carrying the smell of oil and saltwater.
I pull Adena close as we follow Paco toward a side entrance—a dented metal door with a keypad lock. He punches in a code, and the lock clicks open.
Inside, the warehouse is dim and cavernous, the air cooler but stale. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, casting everything in a flat, bluish light. Wooden crates are stacked along the walls. Forklifts sit idle near a loading dock at the far end.
But in the center of the space, under a cluster of hanging work lights, there's a long folding table covered in equipment.
I recognize some of it. A high-end laser printer with a separate tray for security paper. Holographic overlays in sealed packets. A laminator. Embossing tools. UV pens and inks. Microprinting templates. Blank security paper with watermarks.
And standing behind it, arms crossed, is Marquez. Out of place in his designer suit, Italian handmade shoes, reeking of cologne and cigars.
I've worked for him long enough to know that when he changes plans without warning, the game is shifting.
He doesn't smile. Doesn't move. Just watches as Paco leads us closer.
"Jagger," Marquez says. His voice is low, controlled. "Time to see if your word is as good as you say.”
“Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
His mouth twitches—not quite a smile. Then his gaze shifts fully to Adena and gestures toward the table. "Prescription pad. From scratch." He pulls a folded paper from his back pocket and tosses it onto the table. "Dr. Landry, Tulane."
She picks up the paper and scans it. "How long?"
"Two hours. Clock’s already ticking."
My jaw tightens. Two hours for a full prescription pad—security features, microprinting, watermarks. It's possible, but barely. And she's never worked with this equipment before.
Marquez watches her, then shifts his gaze to me. There's something cold in his eyes. Something that says he's already decided how this ends.
"Dr. Patel will verify it when she's done."
From behind the crates near the back wall, a man steps out—Indian, fifties, wire-rimmed glasses, scrubs under a jacket. His hands are shoved deep in his pockets, and he won't look at either of us.
I’ve never met the man, but I don’t need to. I know he's done this before, seen people fail Marquez's tests.
Marquez's pale eyes lock back on Adena. "You pass, you move to the next round." His voice drops, flat and final. "You fail… you both disappear."
Adena
Marquez is exactly what the DEA warned me about—polished, contained, and mercenary.
One moment he’s smiling threats, the next there’s a gun in his hand and the soft, final click of the safety disengaging. He moves behind Jagger and aims at the back of his skull.
The warehouse vanishes. His voice cuts through it like he's discussing weather—not rage, not even cruelty for its own sake, just pure, cold utility.
"Two hours," he says. "You make that pad. It passes inspection. He lives. You fail—we kill him first."
Jagger's jaw is locked. I can see the tension running through him, the effort it's taking to stand there and do nothing. His eyes flick to mine for one second and then away. A warning: stay controlled.
The muzzle’s jammed into bone. For a fraction of a second I cling to that—contact shots can misfire. If he eases back even an inch, Jagger’s done.
"I understand," I say. My voice doesn't shake. I won't let it shake.
"Good. Two hours. Let's go."
The gun stays exactly where it is.
I don't look up at them. Not yet.
My hands move into the calibration routine, measuring the printer settings, adjusting the color balance with mechanical precision.
The equipment is high-end—someone knew exactly what to order, someone who'd done this before.
I can feel Marquez behind Jagger, feel the weight of the barrel against his temple, feel the enforcer's dead-eyed stare from his position against the wall.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley...
I keep the words moving through my mind like a current, steady and deliberate. Not prayer, just rhythm, just the thing that keeps my hands from shaking, just the thing that keeps me from looking at Jagger's face.
I will fear no evil.
If my work doesn't hold up to scrutiny, if Dr. Patel spots even one flaw, one tiny inconsistency, then I'm not who I said I was, and Jagger's not who he said he was, and Marquez will pull the trigger.
I load the first sheet.
The printer hums to life, and I start thinking about the details nobody notices until it's too late—the microprinting along the edge, each letter microscopic but perfect; Dr. Landry's DEA number, formatted to the exact specification; the embossing that has to sit at precisely the right depth, not a tenth of a millimeter off; the holographic overlay sealed at exactly the correct temperature, or it fractures under UV light like a broken promise.
I don't look at Jagger.
The first sheet emerges.
I hold it up to the light, checking the watermark against the angle. My peripheral vision screams at me to turn around, to see if his jaw is clenched, if his eyes are closed, if he's afraid—if Marquez has gotten tired and dropped his arm. I don't do it.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Forty minutes in, I reach for the UV pen. The microprinting requires absolute stillness, absolute focus. I can feel Jagger somewhere behind me like a weight I can't afford to acknowledge.
I work methodically. Each letter forms under the UV pen, invisible to the naked eye until you know to look for it.
The embossing tool presses into the paper, and the vibration travels up my arm, small and certain.
I don't look up. Don't acknowledge the presence at my back. Don't check Jagger's face.
Eighty minutes gone.
The holographic overlay goes on last, sealed with the laminator.
I peel it back slowly, checking for air bubbles, for imperfections, for anything that would scream fake under scrutiny.
My vision has narrowed to just this—the pad, the overlay, the microscopic space between them.
Everything else falls away because it has to. Because if I feel it, I can't do it.
There. A bubble, impossibly small, right at the edge of Landry's DEA number. I could leave it. Nobody would notice unless they were really looking. But Patel will be looking. Patel will have eyes like a surgeon's, and this pad will go through his hands like a diagnosis.
I peel it back up, carefully, so carefully, and smooth it down again. The bubble disperses. Gone.
One hour and thirty-eight minutes.
I step back, and the world comes back into focus—the concrete room, the hum of equipment, the men waiting, the gun still pressed against Jagger's head. The prescription pad sits on the table, crisp and professional and completely, utterly indistinguishable from the real thing.
"Done," I say, and the word feels like stepping off a cliff.
Marquez moves first, his boots heavy on the concrete. He gestures with his gun to Dr. Patel with a lazy flick of his wrist, then aims at Jagger again. "Your turn, Doc."
Patel approaches like a man walking to his own execution. His hands stay buried in his pockets until the last possible second. When he stops at the table, his fingers emerge, trembling slightly, as he pulls on reading glasses.
He holds the pad up to the light, and the moment stretches thin as wire.
He runs his thumb over the embossing, testing the depth—feeling for the exact texture that separates real from fake.
Then he pulls a small UV flashlight from his jacket pocket and shines it across the paper, checking for the security features that should be invisible to the naked eye but devastatingly obvious once you know they're there.
He tilts the pad, and the light catches something—a spot where the microprinting might be slightly off, or might be exactly right depending on the angle. His jaw tightens. He moves the flashlight closer.
I don't move. I don't breathe. Just pray.
He holds it there. Doesn't move. Just holds the light steady on that one spot, on that one line of invisible text that I spent fifteen minutes getting perfect.
Patel's finger comes up. He traces the edge where the holographic overlay meets the paper, following the line slowly, methodically, looking for the bubble I removed, looking for any separation, any air, any sign that hands have been here, that this pad has been born from something other than a factory floor.
His glasses slide down his nose.
He adjusts them. Leans closer.
Slowly his expression shifts—professional acknowledgment, like he's confirming a diagnosis he already suspected.
He sets the pad down, removes his glasses, looks at Marquez.
"It is very good," he says, and his accent wraps around each word, making them deliberate, formal, real. "Very good. I would not question this. If it came across my desk in my own pharmacy, I would not think twice."
He pauses, and in that pause is everything—the weight of what he's just confirmed, the understanding that this pad will work, that it will kill people, that he's just helped make that possible.
"I would never question it," he repeats quietly, and there's something broken in his voice.
Marquez starts to laugh, like this is a comedy. He lowers the gun, and Jagger's shoulders collapse forward just slightly, like he's been holding his breath for nearly two hours.
But he's not laughing.
He's not even close.
Jagger
The city closes in as we leave the industrial stretch behind—buildings rising up, streets narrowing, traffic thickening. We head back toward Marigny, back to the apartment that's been my cover for three years, and I'm acutely aware of Adena in the seat beside me.
"Two hours," Paco continues from the front seat, shaking his head like he can't quite believe it.
"I thought she'd need at least three, maybe four.
" He laughs. "Dr. Patel looked like he was gonna cry when he saw it.
'Very good, very good.'" He mimics the accent badly, but there's nothing funny about what he's describing.
"Man was relieved he didn't have to tell the boss it was garbage. "
I keep my voice flat even though my pulse is still thundering. "Yeah."
She's through. One more step deeper into Marquez's operation, one step closer to what we need. The thought should feel like progress. Instead, it feels like standing on the edge of something that's about to collapse.
Paco finally turns back around and fiddles with the radio. He lands on some Zydeco station, and drums and accordion fill the cab, and the normalcy of it makes my skin crawl.
The SUV slows, turning onto my street. The enforcer pulls up to the curb outside my building, engine idling.
"Be seeing you," Paco says, twisting around one last time. His smile doesn't reach his eyes.
We climb out into the thick heat. I watch the SUV pull away slowly—too slowly—and I can't look away until it turns the corner and disappears. My shoulders don't drop. The tension doesn't ease.
Adena's bike was delivered while we were in the warehouse. When she looks back at me, there's something wild in her expression that tells me she felt every second the gun was held to my head.
She grabs her helmet from where it's hooked on the handlebars. "I need to move," she says quietly. "Now."
I get it. The adrenaline is still coursing through both of us, raw and vicious. The fear we couldn't afford is clawing its way to the surface, demanding release. It has to burn off or it'll eat us alive from the inside out.
"I'll grab my gear."
I take the stairs two at a time, grab my leather jacket from the hook, and my helmet from the closet.
When I come back down, Adena's already on her bike, engine growling, visor down. She's locked in. Ready. There's something in the set of her shoulders that tells me she's not just trying to burn off adrenaline—she's trying to outrun what just happened in the warehouse.
I swing onto mine and fire it up. The rumble vibrates through my chest, familiar and grounding, the one thing about my life that's still honest.
She doesn't ask where we're going, just opens the throttle and pulls out into traffic, and I follow close enough that if she falls, I go down with her.