Chapter 15 STEPHANO
By late afternoon, the day feels like it's never going to end. Oksana wants air. I want a beer. We compromise and take both.
We cut down the street to the same little bar I went to last night.
The TV catches my attention for a second; Senator Kingsley is being mentioned.
Kingsley, a Senator for Nevada, is on our payroll, so any news about him is worth noting.
I glance over the caption. His Chief of Staff has been kidnapped.
I'm assuming Marcello will be on this, since it's his payroll the Senator is on, and my attention wanders to the brass lights, which are trying to decide if they want to work or not. The flickering will give me a headache if we stay too long. A grimy mirror that’s seen too many faces hangs behind the bar.
After a short debate about alcohol and pills, I order two lagers and something salty in a bowl, then we claim a corner.
We barely get our first sip when fate taps us on the shoulder. Omar and Billy arrive, wives in tow, all sunburn and vacation bracelets.
"Alan!" Billy booms the fake name I gave him last night. "And this must be the lovely—"
"Agatha," I supply, elbowing her ribs gently: be nice.
She gives me a blade-thin look and then turns it into silk for the ladies. "Hi."
Ten minutes later, she’s in a deep conversation with them, and I’m watching her do something that makes a knot in my chest loosen: commiserate.
The wives talk quietly, tapping their sternums, sharing the dull ache, the weird tightness, the itch under healing skin.
Oksana nods and answers questions like someone who knows the map and isn’t ashamed to own it.
I take a slow, mean satisfaction in it. My girl. My problem. My pride.
"Who was your surgeon?" Omar’s wife asks earnestly.
I slide in with a hand on Oksana’s elbow and a smile bright enough to blind. "Oh, honey," I say sweetly, "It’s time to call my mother and check on the triplets. If you’ll excuse us—family emergency."
Oksana doesn't miss a beat and accidentally grinds her heel into my foot. Pain darts up my leg. I keep smiling.
"Oh, right," her lips curve sweetly, adding a bit more pressure with her heel. "Let’s go."
We drift out with polite waves, onto the street.
The city is a low, warm hum, vendors calling like soft little birds, scooters stitching the lanes, laundry hanging from balconies like exhausted saints.
We slide into the market where tarps throw green shade over pyramids of tomatoes, olives slick as marbles, figs splitting themselves open just to be admired.
The sea’s somewhere close; you can taste it in the wind.
I buy a thin gold charm bracelet from a cart, an arrow the size of my thumbnail. Slipping it on her wrist.
"What is this?" she asks.
"Proof I can be tasteful," I say. "Also, you aim true."
She eyes it, then me, then checks to make sure it's fastened to her satisfaction. A small smile plays around her lips, and I know I've pleased her even if she doesn’t say thank you.
We keep walking. My eyes are peeled on her and our surroundings.
I don't remember the last time I've been out in public without a bodyguard, and it bothers me, but only because of her.
By all rights, she's a force to be reckoned with, and that's the only reason I'm not pulling her back to the hotel yet.
But she's also still healing. I stiffen when I notice the way a shadow lingers too long, the way a man pretends to be interested in eggplants but never buys one. Oksana’s gaze flicks window to window, not on the glass, but on the reflection inside it.
"Two on the left," she murmurs, barely moving her mouth. "One with the hat. One pretending to look at a lamp."
"Got them," I whisper close to her ear, appearing like a doting husband, while scanning the reflections she pointed out. I glance down at us: her tight jeans, soft T-shirt, sneakers scuffed by actual living. Me? Blue suit, open collar, watch that could pay for someone’s semester abroad.
She looks from my clothes to my face and mutters in Russian, "Ty idiot."
"What?" I say, playing dumb, but even without being fluent in Russian, I pick up the meaning of her words.
She taps my lapel. "That suit."
I roll my eyes for show, but the hit lands. I thought about it yesterday, how money shines, how it teaches eyes to follow. I should have bought some clothes here yesterday. I sip my beer and smile at a fruit vendor like I’m part of the scenery.
"Let’s see if they’re ours," I say. I take her hand before she can protest and lift it like a man showing off a ring that doesn’t exist. "Newlyweds," I murmur. "Act like you like me."
She bares her teeth in a smile that would terrify demons. "I should get an Oscar for that."
We drift into a tourist shop that smells like lemon soap and postcard ink.
I make a show of holding up a linen dress to her shoulders, tipping my head, pretending to see if the color suits her.
We move to the back, through a doorway into a second room full of baskets.
Mirrors everywhere. I watch the hat. He dithers in the window across, pretending to text.
Lamp Guy lags in the reflections, pretending to check prices. They’re patient, not stupid.
"Still with us," I say.
"Hmm," she answers, picking up a basket and weighing it like she could throw it through a window and salvage our afternoon. I buy a very touristy, bright shirt and a pair of jeans, and we exit hand-in-hand, laughing at nothing. At the corner, I angle us into a bakery. Metal racks. Glass case. The air is thick with sugar and butter and the faint, holy sting of espresso. I order two cannoli and clap a kiss on her cheek like I can’t help myself.
"Overacting," she says through her smile.
"Academy Award," I counter. I smear a dot of ricotta cream on her lip like a fool and lean in before she can wipe it, stealing a kiss that tastes like pistachio and trouble.
She goes stiff—offended—then soft for a flash, heat sparking under her skin. Her eyes close for half a heartbeat. When she opens them, the look could cut tile.
"Don’t do that again," she says.
"Lie better," I murmur. "You liked it."
Her laugh is a quiet, murderous thing. "I liked the cannoli."
"Hmm." I brush my thumb along her jaw as I step back, making sure the watchers see it. "Heavenly, then."
We exit into the light. The hat has moved.
Lamp Guy didn’t buy a lamp. I thread our path into a clothing store, out through the alley exit, and cross the street mid-traffic; she matches me step for step.
We cut through a stall of knockoff sunglasses, each of us trying on a pair while we watch the mirrors.
I pick the cheapest plastic ones in the world and slide them on.
"Better," she says, approving my downgrade. "Now you only look like a mid-level idiot."
We pause by a fountain where old men play chess under palm trees. Children throw stale bread at pigeons; pigeons negotiate peace like diplomats. The sun is later now, long and gold. Our shadows touch first.
"They’re still there," she says softly.
"Good," I say, matching her tone. "Let them be patient. We’ll teach them boredom." I toss a coin into the fountain because every city expects a tithe. "At dusk, we watch the base. Daylight, we let our friends think we’re harmless."
She tilts her wrist, and the arrow charm catches the light like it’s hunting something. "Harmless," she repeats, amused. "You."
"Us," I correct.
She looks at my mouth like a woman checking a knife edge. "Don’t steal another kiss."
"Then stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you want me to." I grin, all teeth, like a man who’s already lost on purpose. "And like you’ll hate yourself if you do."
She snorts at that. It makes her beautiful and dangerous. "Buy me another beer," she says. "And walk like a man no one would ever follow."
"Yes, Mrs. Abberdeen," I say, loud enough for the reflections.
She elbows me. I take it. We move the way tourists do—slow, stupid, in love with the city—down the arcade, past the butcher with the perfect apron, past the stacks of oranges piled like little suns. Our tails keep pace, patient and neat.
Cold metal brushes my hand when we enter another store, a stiletto knife.
My eyes go down and follow Oksana as she pushes an identical blade into the waistband of her jeans.
She nods at me. I take the knife and imitate her moves, allowing her to take the lead.
I'm curious what my Russian assassin is up to.
She hands the proprietor a hundred-dollar note and whispers, "Exit?"
He palms the bill and jerks his chin toward a door in the back without acknowledging us.
The door leads into a narrow alley that stinks of dog shit and trash.
She nods at me to take position on the right side by the door while she picks the left.
Looks like we're going on the offensive.
The steel blade of her knife catches a ray of sun, and I pull mine.
Game time.
Not even two minutes later, the door opens. Lamp guy is the first. Without much fanfare, I pull him into me, while cutting his throat, not allowing him to utter a warning to Hat guy. Like trash, I push his body down and away from me, ready for Hat guy.
I should have known that she would be faster.
Hat stumbles at the threshold; the alley is too narrow for his hesitation.
She moves like she’s been rehearsing this in her sleep—and it wouldn't surprise me if she had—a sudden, small hand on his wrist, a yank that turns his momentum toward the wall. I close the distance because it’s mine to close; instinct is a leash.
He never sees the steel until it’s at his ribs.
Oksana presses the blade home low and hard, not slashing, not theatrically, just a neat, invasive shove into the soft space between ribs.
He chokes on a sound that wants to be a curse and comes out wet and animal.
She pins him against the brick with one arm and uses the other hand to tilt his chin up, keeping her thumb at his jaw like someone checking for a pulse.
"Who do you work for?" she asks, breath flat and businesslike.
"Fuck you," he spits, voice high and cracking.
She smiles without warmth, a quick sight that makes the alley colder. Then she gives the knife a small, teaching twist, enough to turn breath into ragged pleading.
"You can live for days like this," she says quietly. "The pain will increase, but you'll live. Who do you work for?"
"E—El Arquitecto” he rasps, as if the name itself might steady him. The syllables tumble out on a groan.
"Joaquín Beltrán also known as The Architect,” Oksana fills me in.
Of course she would know that. To give the guy credit though, even I've heard of him.
He runs one of the most ruthless cartels in Mexico.
They do any job that pays. From drugs to kidnapping.
Rumor has it he's aligning himself with a high value man who is shrouded in secrecy.
Then again, rumors are always running about men like him.
Her hand clamps harder on his jaw to muffle the sounds. He struggles, his knuckles are whitening, his eyes go wide and wet. They look to me, to her. I don’t look away from what she’s doing to him. There’s a clinical rhythm to it that’s almost beautiful: method, question, proof, repeat.
"Does he know who we are?" I ask, keeping my voice casual enough to be a threat.
He shakes his head so hard the motion could mean anything—fear, denial, confusion. "I have no idea who you are… Please. I just follow orders to keep an eye on suspicious tourists. That’s all. Please—please—"
In response, she makes a small incision along his forearm, not deep, just enough to pull a sharp, involuntary intake from him. The noise does what she wants it to: it rearranges the truth on his tongue.
"Are you sure about that?" she breathes.
"Yes—yes!" he begs. "I swear! Too rich—looked too rich for the town—please, I swear!"
Oksana’s expression angles toward me, filled with contempt. I shrug, the casual gesture that says I’m no fashion victim.
"Can’t help the way I look," I offer, and she laughs, half-derisive, half-satisfied.
She doesn’t wait for more. The knife finishes its lesson—clean, quick—there’s a soft surrender in him, a collapse that takes all the fight out of the afternoon.
She wipes the blade on his shirt as if removing flour from a baker’s hand and lets the body slump.
No theatrics, no wasted motion. Efficient.
For a second, I’m stupid with something like awe. A slow, dangerous pride warms my gut.
"Efficient," I say, and the word is short and accurate.
She tilts her head, wipes her fingers, and looks at me with that flat evaluation. "Educational," she answers.
We step from the shadow into the city's noise like we’re returning from a shop.
A boy aims a water gun at the pigeons. A woman sells lemons with a laugh.
The proprietor at the knife stall is glancing from us to the alley door, confused.
I pick up my phone and text Ramón to have him send a cleanup crew.
I don't want to take any unnecessary risks.
The two men will be missed, but it'll take the Cartel longer to figure out what happened to them if they don't have the bodies.
We walk away with our hands intertwined, our steps the measured kind that don’t invite company. The market swallows us back up, and the city goes on making small noises, unaware, or unwilling to be honest about what it hides.