Page 32 of Spade

“Twenty-four,” he said. “That number real?”

“Give or take.”

He weighed it. The badge on his belt was tilted, catching the neon like a target.

“Could’ve been a cop,” he said. “You ever think of that?”

“They don’t recruit my kind. And you have rules to follow, but then so do the judges who let these assholes go.”

He almost smiled. “No, they don’t.”

I stood, slow and careful. My hands stayed empty, knife now on the ground. His aim tracked up to my face, then hesitated.

“What now?” I said. “You going to take me in, parade me through media so you can get your fifteen minutes?

He thought about it. “You go. I clean this up.”

“You’re not going to turn me in?”

He shook his head. “Not tonight.”

I bent, retrieved the knife, and holstered it. I brushed the dirt from my jeans and zipped up the jacket. He lowered the gun—just a little. The threat was still there, but the edge was gone. The city exhaled with us, a shared relief.

I started past him, but he caught my arm. Not rough, but enough to remind me he could snap the wrist if he wanted. I looked at his hand, then at him.

He said, “If I see you again, it goes different.”

I nodded. “I hope so.”

I walked out into the light, letting the street swallow me. Behind me, I heard him kick the trash aside and start the cleanup, his movements angry and exact. I didn’t look back.

Somewhere above, the neon kept buzzing. The city forgot, and reset, and readied itself for the next round.

I made it two blocks before I realized I’d left the tip of my knife blade streaked with someone else’s DNA. Rookie mistake, or maybe I wanted to get caught after all. The city was a stitched wound of neon and cheap glass, but there was nowhere to hide the way I stank of copper and adrenaline. I ducked into another alley—wider, deeper, with a view of an empty parking lot. The world spun on, high and untouched, above the garbage and blood at ground level.

I lit a cigarette, hands steady enough to piss off anyone waiting for a breakdown. My pulse was regular. My mind a blank slate. But the scrape of shoes on asphalt found me even before the heat of his stare.

Jason Shaw, detective with the badge he wore like a curse, appeared at the mouth of the alley, his coat open, gun gone but not forgotten. He didn’t speak, didn’t posture. Just walked up until the cloud of my smoke and the smell of what I’d done wrapped around him, too.

He watched me finish the drag. He waited until my hands dropped to my sides, then closed the last few feet.

He reached out and touched the scar on my jaw. Gentle, like he was trying to memorize it for an ID lineup. His thumb traced the ridge. His face was a machine: eyes taking in every twitch, every possible tell. I thought maybe he’d snap my neck. Instead, he kissed me.

Not sweet. Not slow. Not a reward or a surrender, just heat and teeth and the taste of nicotine and rage. I kissed back, lips parted, tongue forcing its way in as if oxygen had become optional. We hit the brick together. My jacket snagged on rough mortar, my hands finding his belt and yanking it open in one movement.

Jason’s mouth moved to my throat, open and wet, biting down just enough to bruise. I let him. I liked the way it felt: not possession, not a claim, just the transactional violence of need. I pulled his shirt out from his waistband, felt the wiry muscle under it, the scar on his ribs that said he’d been shot once and lived to hate the memory. He pressed into me, harder, the rough denim of his jeans grinding through my own. My thighs bracketed his, boots on either side of his shoes. The brick was cold, but the friction was all heat.

He got my fly undone with one hand, the other planted on the wall by my ear. I had the knife still on my hip, and the hilt dug in as he pressed me harder. I unzipped him and found him ready, his cock as rigid as his morals used to be. The air was full of sweat, old piss, and the faint ghost of citrus from the brothel dumpster. He dragged my jeans down just enough and fucked me there, right against the wall, the first thrust so hard my skull thudded brick. I smiled into his mouth, let him know I was awake for every moment.

He was rough, silent. We didn’t say each other’s names. It wasn’t a love story. His palm locked my jaw in place, and the other wrapped my thigh up around his waist. Every time he drove in, the knife sheath jabbed my hip, sharp enough to remind me who I was. The friction was ugly and good. I let him use me, used him right back. The neon painted us pink and blue, and the whole thing felt like a crime.

He came quick, a grunt into my hair, fingers gripping the root of my skull like a man holding a live wire. I followed with a hard shudder, a single vowel punched out between my teeth. For a second, the city stopped. The only thing that existed was us—bone, skin, bruises.

He held me there, breathing like he’d sprinted a mile, face buried in my shoulder. I felt him calm, then watched the old cop self reassert. He zipped up, tucked the shirt back, and stood up straight.

I stayed on the wall, pants down, cigarette barely burning in my fingers. I waited.

He said, “This is fucked up.”