Page 1 of Fixed Asset

Chapter One

“Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

The caller needed no introduction. I knew that growly voice.

I hadn’t heard from him in nine months, but who was counting? Not me. Nope. I was not ticking off the days since I’d last seen Jack Donovan. I wasn’t still dreaming of our time in Las Vegas or all the times he’d made me laugh.

“Hello, Jack. How have you been?” I kept my voice low, not wanting to draw attention to myself in the café. Even with my hair dyed dark brown and my clothes purchased from the local mall, I didn’t blend in. An American was easy to spot.

“I asked you a question, Catarina.”

Another growl, this one feral. A shiver ran up my spine despite the heat and lack of air-conditioning in the small restaurant.

God, he had such a great voice—full of gravel with a hint of rugged edge.

Right, had I lost my mind?

Probably.

Just being a woman in Honduras was dangerous. An American woman eating lunch in a café in the gang-controlled Barrio Guadalupe was akin to a death sentence. But Jack shouldn’t have known where I was.

“Why would you ask that?”

“Catarina.”

Sweet Jesus, I loved hearing him say my name. I wasn’t proud to admit I’d fantasized about how it would sound falling from his lips while he moved inside me. But I had. Jack Donovan had starred in every self-induced orgasm in the last nine months.

“Jack.”

“Is everything a game to you?”

That was an interesting question. One I didn’t need to think all that hard about. Life was a game. Nothing more than a series of choices—some choices moved you forward, some sideways, and some backward. The trick was knowing the game, who your opponent was, and what moves they were going to make. My problem was, I never could figure out Jack’s next move. He was too smart to show his hand.

“Yup,” I answered honestly.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I glanced down at my forgotten bang bang chicken, then slid my gaze around the room. One could say that in the US, the health department would’ve closed this establishment on a variety of violations that had nothing to do with the old, chipped tables or the missing chunks of mortar between the bricks that made up the walls. Though I was a tad bit worried the building was going to crumble at any moment.

“Eating lunch.”

I left out the “taking my life into my own hands by eating bang bang chicken off a plate that doesn’t look like it’s actually been washed since the last person used it” part. Call me crazy, but I didn’t think he’d find my comment amusing in his current mood.

“Jesus fuck, woman—”

The sound of rapid gunfire out on the street had me diving for the dirty floor. The glass shattering all around made me curl up in a tight ball with my hands covering the back of my head. I’d been in Tegucigalpa for three days. This was not the first time I’d heard shots fired. It was, however, the first time I’d been minding my own business eating lunch and become an active participant in the festivities.

The gunfire stopped. The café was eerily quiet; no one was screaming or scrambling to make an escape. There was no panic coming from my fellow patrons—not that there were many of them—and no one made a fuss. A drive-by was a normal occurrence in the gang-infested neighborhood.

I lifted my head and pulled up on my knees to have a look around. The front windows were toast. New bullet holes peppered the wall behind me. A man at a corner table was still sitting in his chair eating, unbothered there’d just been a shoot-out. A few people were getting to their feet. One man was helping a young boy off the floor.

I spotted my phone, snatched it up, righted the chair I’d been occupying, then hefted myself to my feet.

Right. This might’ve been an everyday occurrence for the people of Barrio Guadalupe, but I’d lost my appetite. I didn’t know if or when the police would show up, but I did know I didn’t want to be here if they did. They could tip off the wrong people. I wanted to be seen, but I was in this particular neighborhood for a reason—the gang that controlled the area was a step down from the viciousness of the rival gang two streets over. And that step down could mean the difference between merely being kidnapped or taken to the killing field and murdered.

With that in mind, I fished some money out of my wallet, tossed a few bills on the table. Swung my backpack over my shoulder and secured it in front of me. The pack would do nothing to shield me from the next round of bullets, which could fly at any moment, but wearing it backward would stop thieves from snatching it off my back.

Glass crunched under my feet as I exited. It would be easy to call the situation insane. The normalcy of a drive-by that didn’t set off a panic was absolute lunacy. But in truth, it was tragic.