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“Yeah, uhm . . . Yeah, let’s go.”

“Walk,” Victor said, using his voice to add extra oomph to the command. Skrinde jolted into motion, his movements wooden.

Skrinde’s people followed our every step, back through the palatial house, then out the front to the fountain. Zee hopped into one of the pickups and started the engine. “Climb in,” he told me.

I slashed the tires on the other trucks, then hopped in beside Zee, catching his comforting smile and matching it with my own. We were going to be okay.

Victor whispered something into Skrinde’s ear, and whatever he said, it froze the drug lord in place. He slipped Skrinde’s phone from his pocket, then handed the shotgun to me through the truck’s open window. “I’ll deal with the guard at the gate.”

Victor vanished, racing to clear our exit route.

Skrinde glared. His armed guards glanced at each other, unsure what to do without orders. Did they shoot us and risk a war?

“This ends here,” I told them all. “If you come after us, you’ll die. Don’t make the same mistake countless dead have made before you.”

Zee spun the truck away from the house, kicking up arcs of gravel from the tires, and by the time we’d made it to the guardhouse by the open gateway, the guard was gone.

Victor hopped into the seat behind mine.

Had we just bluffed our way into scaring a drug lord, saved Hooper and his friends, and gotten a phone to call Leomaris on? “We are so badass,” I laughed, surprised any of that had worked.

“Fuckin’ right we are!” Zee laughed too. “He was quivering in those tiny budgie smugglers.”

“Adam.” Victor handed me the phone. “You must connect with Agent Leomaris. Mr. Skrinde’s words made it crystal clear your brother’s tactics are taking root against us. We are out of time and must come out of hiding to defend ourselves.”

“Oh right, yeah.” I took the phone—no locking passcode because Skrinde was an overconfident fool—and dialed Leomaris again, then gazed out the window as the ringtone chirped in my ear.

Zee side-eyed me, then Victor. “You don’t think anyone else believes all that stuff about us being the bad guys, do you?”

“No . . .” I said. “Probably not . . .” I shifted in the seat. “Maybe?”

“Humans especially, but Lost Ones also, like nothing more than to tear heroes down,” Victor grumbled from the back.

“Yeah. Internet mobs and witchhunts are not fun. I should probably check my socials—oh wait, I can’t, because someone threw my phone in a pool.”

“An impulsive mistake, I admit.”

Skrinde’s phone still chirped in my ear, calling for Leomaris to pick up. Maybe they didn’t answer numbers they didn’t recognize? Or maybe my brother had already gotten to them?

“Leomaris wouldn’t believe it though, right?” Zee asked. “They know we’re the good guys.”

“They did put their career on the line for us.” What if Leomaris’s bosses had withdrawn our hero status? What if Leomaris had been reprimanded because we’d left San Francisco and a trail of bodies behind?

“Agent Leomaris speaking. Who is this?”

I’d never been so relieved to hear Leomaris’s slow, melodic drawl. But also, I was apprehensive. They were on our side, right? “Uh, hey, it’s uhm . . . it’s Adam . . . Adam Vex?”

“Adam? Where are you?”

“Oh uh . . .” The scenery outside the truck had gone from built-up city to a few scattered houses with massive yards. “Somewhere outside Miami.”

“Miami? You really could not have run farther away without leaving the country.”

“Run? What?” I half laughed. “We’re not on the run, we just . . . needed some space.”

“If you’re calling to tell me there’s an imposter in your hotel, I am well aware. With no means of contacting you, I’ve been monitoring the situation in the hope you would, at some point, call in.”

“Yeah, so, about that uhm . . . how did you know he’s not me?”