Another engine answered from the opposite side.
Two cars, and they didn’t pass. They rolled in and stopped.
Engines cut. Doors clicked open, and I sank lower, barely breathing.
“Are you sure this is a safe place to talk?” a smooth voice asked, calm, controlled.
A laugh followed. Sharp and familiar, crawling under my skin. Manshu.
“Yeah,” he called out carelessly. “Took care of the owner earlier. No one’s here.”
It took everything in me not to clench my fists, but I knew that would make noise and draw unwanted attention to me.
“Now talk,” he continued. “You said you had something that would make us both very happy.”
My jaw locked. Every part of me wanted to move, wanted to step out, to swing, to make him bleed for what he’d done to Alto, but I stayed still. Silent. As a stupid, weak human, I knew better.
“Yes,” the other voice replied. “I hear you’ve been having… trouble with Calix Winstale.”
My breath hitched.
“He keeps beating you at everything.”
“He didn’t win the last race!” Manshu snapped, his irritation rising fast. “I did.Me.”
Silence fell before a small chuckle sounded from the mystery man. “But he wasn’t there, was he?”
A loud crack made me flinch, sounding like a fist had hit a hood.
“What if,” the stranger went on, quieter now, “you didn’t have to worry about him anymore?”
My heart stuttered, and I held my breath.
Manshu barked out a bitter laugh. “You think it’s thateasy? Taking out someone from the Syndicate? A Desmond?”
“It could be,” the voice said.
Footsteps shifted, gravel crunching underfoot, followed by the sharp pop of a trunk opening.
“With this.”
Curiosity got the better of me, and I edged forward before I could stop myself, peering around the corner of the dumpster.
A black car sat with its trunk open, the interior washed in dim light. Two figures stood behind it. One I knew, one I didn’t.
Manshu leaned in, then jerked back.
“What the?—”
“Are you kidding me?” Manshu barked out a laugh, the sound sharp and disbelieving, as he turned the object over in his hands. “You think something this simple is going to kill Calix Winstale?”
He held it up, squinting at it under the dim light spilling from the trunk. Metal caught the glow before a weird, otherworldly shimmer rippled along the sleek build.
Chk-chk.
The sound snapped through the alley, clean and final, and my breath hitched. I knew that deadly sound.
“This is a special weapon,” the other man said, his smooth voice almost bored. “One of a kind.”
