Page 61 of Business vs. Pleasure

“I’m getting ice. Take a painkiller.”

“I’m fine.”

August smiled at him, a bit manically but he really didn’t care anymore. “You will be as long as you do what I say!” If he let the door slam shut on the way out, well, that was just punctuation.

There was no ice machine, but the front desk was able to get him some, as well as a plastic bag. He carried it back to the room and found Ricardo sitting on the edge of the bed in dry clothes, perfectly unconcerned as he tapped a message into his phone with his left hand. It was slow going; Ricardo wasn’t ambidextrous at anything but shooting.

“The job’s been publicly credited to us,” he said as August prepped a quick compress with the ice and a clean washcloth.

August nodded and laid the compress on Ricardo’s hand. “So now we wait, I suppose.” His mouth twisted at the thought. Wait, when they could have had NightPigeon dead to rights and dead in his sights. Should have, in fact. If he hadn’t fucked up the follow and let that son of a bitch get ahead of him when he⁠—

“It’s okay.”

August scowled at Ricardo. “Don’t coddle me.”

“I’m not,” Ricardo insisted. The corners of his mouth were soft, the way they went when he was thinking nice things about August. Which frankly, he shouldn’t be right now. “This could have gone a lot worse.”

“It could have gone a lot better, too.”

“We didn’t have to evacuate a building or put ourselves at risk to keep bystanders from getting killed, so it’s already better than the last few times.”

Well…he had a point. Still. “Next time, I get to be the morally bankrupt asshole and you can be the person expected to drive like a madman through a hurricane, okay?”

Ricardo smiled. “That wasn’t a hurricane, just an afternoon shower.”

“Not helping, baby.”

Whatever reply Ricardo would have made was lost to the quiet buzz of his phone. He glanced at it, and his eyes went flat and dark, the way they did whenever he was looking through a scope or getting up close and personal with a knife. “It’s a local number,” he said quietly. “There’s no one here who should know how to get in touch with me, though.”

“Did you leave Darrow’s phone on his body?”

Ricardo nodded.

Well, then. “You better answer it.”

Ricardo put the call on speaker. “Who is this?”

“Ah, Señor Muñoz.” August’s shoulders tightened, and the cut at the side of his neck began to ache as soon as he heard that smug, stupid voice. “Or should I say Mr. Torralba?”

“I don’t care what you call me,” Ricardo replied in a bored tone.

“Hmm. Well, I found your little present.”

August rolled his eyes. Jesus Christ, how many bad serial killer documentaries had this guy seen?

“What do you want, a prize for coming in second? Again?” Ricardo asked.

NightRaven laughed. “I seem to remember coming out on top in our last three competitions!”

“Those weren’t competitions.” Ricardo couldn’t have sounded more dismissive. August hoped it was driving the other man wild. “That was you doing the equivalent of a ride-along and then printing yourself a fake badge. Some people might be impressed, but not anyone who knows better.”

“I’m closing in on your ranking faster than you ever earned it.”

Ricardo smiled. “Because you’ve written yourself a cheat code. That’s clever, but it’s not original, and it’s definitely not going to be enough to put you at the top of the rankings. And even if it does, all it shows is that you can imitate the best. So what? That doesn’t make you anything like an equal.”

There was a pause. “You know, maybe you’re right. I won’t really be the best until I depose the current kings once and for all.” A crack of thunder obscured his voice for a second. “So let’s do it. Right here, right now, in Panama. We’re all in the same place, we might as well make the most of it.”

“Ugh.” August couldn’t stay quiet. He was still soaked from the storm, and he was cold on top of that thanks to the air conditioning, and now this guy wanted them to go out into it all again? Really?