Page 62

Ten meters left. I let him get close. That's the part that takes patience: letting the distance collapse, letting him think he's still invisible, waiting until he's near enough that there's no time to send a warning back to whoever sent him or whoever he’s with.

He's smart enough to keep his eyes off me, but not smart enough for what happens next.

I turn. In one motion, I've got his jacket collar before he even registers I've moved. I pull him into the alley hard enough that his shoulder hits the brick. He cries out as it dislocates, hanging at an odd angle.

He's bigger than he looks from a distance, but it doesn't matter. He's still smaller than I am, and I've got the angle and his arm wrenched back, so he's not moving.

He tries though. His elbow comes back and catches me across the jaw. I taste copper before I react. I hit him twice in the ribs, short and precise. The second one gets something—I hear it, a dull crack beneath the grunt, and he folds.

I pin him against the wall by his collar. He's breathing in short pulls, each one audible, blood tracking down from his lip where his own teeth caught it. One eye is already closing.

“Who fucking sent you?” I growl, even though I already know he's not going to answer. He spits blood onto the ground and meets my eyes but doesn't speak.

He’s got a decade or more on me. Dressed in nondescript clothing, there's something wild and feral in his eyes.

“Asked you a fuckin’ question.”

I give him a second with it, pouring all my rage into my closed fist. Then I hit the same rib.

His body tries to fold again, but I've got his collar, and there's nowhere to go. The sound he makes this time is different. He's past the point where it sounds like pain. “Who?”

Nothing.

Sweat beads across his forehead. He's been told to hold, which means he's more afraid of whoever's behind him than he is of the man standing in front of him.

That’s got to change.

The next punch snaps something. I feel it through my knuckles, a give that isn't muscle. He doesn't grunt this time. He makes a sound I've heard in Mountjoy. I know what it means.

He slumps to the ground, knees first, then sideways, one arm trapped under him at a bad angle he doesn’t fix.

I check his pockets: phone, no lock screen. He's either stupid or it's a burner. Folded piece of paper. I open it one-handed. An address, one I don't recognize, and below it, handwriting that's trying to be neat: Both of them.

I look down at him. The one eye that still focuses glares at me.

I shove the paper in my pocket and consider my options for two seconds. Then I hit him one more time in the head, and he slumps completely. He doesn’t rise.

Valentina watches. I put my gun to his temple and pull the trigger. She turns away from the mess on the cobblestone.

I step out of the alley.

Valentina is standing about twenty paces away, facing the street, looking for all the world like a woman waiting for someone who's running behind. Anyone passing would see nothing worth a second look.

She hears me and turns. Her eyes go to my jaw, then to my hands, and she notes everything: the bruise already beginning to form, the blood dripping from the cut on my cheek.

“Well?” she says.

I hand her the paper. She reads it, then reads it again. When she looks up, something has shifted behind her eyes, almost like a recalibration. It’s the same look she had in the café when she noticed the gray jacket—she’s processing, filing.

“Both of them,” she whispers. “That’s us, isn’t it?”

“Likely.” I take the paper back and fold it. “They know we're together. But they probably don't know who I am.”

I take the tracker from my pocket. “They're about to know a lot less than that.” I slide it into the black box.

“So, we have a problem,” she whispers, her face neutral. She’s a natural. It helps that she was raised by Esposito.

“What?”