“I’m getting out of here,” Jac breathed. It was still several hours before Levi had asked to meet, but he didn’t care. If Leviwasin danger, then Jac would find a way to save him.
Because that was what they did for each other. There was no line they wouldn’t cross. Not even a line of fire.
“Wait,” Enne said sharply. “Turn the page.”
He did, though a part of him already knew what he would find.
“One thousand volts,” Lola murmured, reading his own bounty.
Jac stared at his face with the feeling like there’d been some terrible mistake. Levi was hardly a notorious political assassin, and Jac was barely a second-string bouncer at a third-rate pub. Not that long ago, the two of them had sat on street corners in the Casino District, goading passersby with games of coins and cards in the hopes of conning at least enough for a meal.
“Vianca said there could be a repeat of the Great Street War,” Enne told him, which was the last thing she could’ve said to make him feel better. He supposed she wasn’t trying to comfort him. The clothes she’d bought weren’t gifts—they were necessities. And if daisy cufflinks were what it took to make him unrecognizable now, then he’d happily strut around town like a dandy. “If you want a motorcar to Olde Town, I can call you one.”
Enne’s voice was level, calm, all practicality. For the first time, Jac wasn’t at all surprised that he was looking into the eyes of the person who’d killed Sedric Torren. If she was afraid, she was damn good at hiding it.
“How did you pay for all this?” he asked her, eyeing the shopping bags with suspicion.
“Vianca gave me the voltage.”
“And you took it?” It was Vianca’s fault that they were in this scramble to begin with. And if they all hanged for it tomorrow, the donna would hardly deign to host their funerals.
Enne stood up and held out two more of the bags. “Of course I did. Just like you’re going to take these.”
He hesitated. He wanted nothing to do with Vianca, but that was impossible. So long as he was friends with Levi, so long as Levi was infatuated with Enne and they were both prisoners of the donna’s omertas... They would all be in bed with Vianca Augustine.
“I’m really, really sorry, Jac.” Enne said it like she meant it. Then she shoved the bags into his hands. “But don’t be thick.”
Jac took them with a weary sigh.
“I’m going to call you a motorcar,” she told him. It wasn’t a suggestion. She walked to the other room to find the telephone, leaving him alone with Lola.
“Bossy,” he grumbled.
“No, she’s just the boss.” Lola clicked her tongue. “I guess I wasn’t deserving enough to be showered with expensive gifts.”
Jac reached into one of the bags and fished out the first thing he noticed—a scrap of yellow silk with polka dots. “Here. Take this...”
“Cravat,” Lola finished for him. “And I think I’ll leave that for you. It’ll match your wanted poster. They made you look very dapper, for some reason. Doesn’t suit that terrible scrape you’ve given yourself across your eyebrow.”
Jac sheepishly brushed his finger over the stitches on his browbone, a souvenir from a boxing match he’d lost the other night at Dead at Dawn. His skin was still swollen and tender.
Lola instead pulled out a black felt case and opened it to reveal a leather wristwatch. “Excellent.” She tossed the box on the armchair and buckled the watch around her bony wrist. It hung ridiculously.
“I actually like that one,” he muttered.
“Keep the cravat, Polka Dots.”
Enne returned from the other room. “Jac, the car is waiting for you downstairs. It’ll take you straight to Zula’s. When you get there, can you tell Levi...” She flushed, and Jac had half a mind to crack a very lewd joke, but the other half of him wanted to roll his eyes and stalk out. They might’ve had the good sense not to let anything more happen between them, but he didn’t know why they made things so dramatic for themselves. “Tell him if he so much as opens awindowbefore all of this has died down, I will personally turn him in and collect his bounty. Which, please remind him, is five hundred volts less than mine.”
Jac had braced himself for something sweet and nauseating, so he wound up laughing so hard he wheezed. “With pleasure.”
Then, without warning, Enne wrapped her arms around him in a fierce hug. “Be careful,” she told him.
“Always am,” he managed. But Enne still looked skeptical.
“No, you’re not.”
He shot Lola a smile. “Now’s your chance, Dove.”
