This is the nicest fucking cargo hold I’ve ever been in.
I find a place to kneel, plant my weight, and finally let myself catch my breath. My lungs still burn from the climb, from the drop, from the sheer audacity of riding a plane into the sky like we had a death wish and something to prove. The first thing I do, the thing I’ve been thinking about since I shoved that wig onto my head this morning, is reach for my backpack.
My hair kit comes out as Alejandro opens his rifle case behind me, inspecting the weapon with something bordering on reverence. His breathing is steady now, controlled again, as if we didn’t just gamble our lives on timing and grip strength.
My multitool slides back into my pocket, warm and familiar. My most trusted companion. While the plane climbed in altitude and banked hard to settle into its course, I was wedged into the landing gear compartment, prying open a service panel with that same tool, fingers numb and shaking as I broke us into the cargo hold reserved for Dubai’s ritziest commercial travelers.
We made it inside just before the compartment sealed, breathless and bruised, tumbling into luxury.
We both took a moment to assess the space once we were in. It’s tall enough for Alejandro to stand comfortably without ducking, which tells me everything I need to know about the kind of money involved here. The air is clean, pressurized, carefully filtered. The temperature is controlled down to the degree. Crates are strapped down with military neatness, and stacks of sealed food cases wait to be lifted to the passenger deck above, their labels pristine and absurdly elegant.
There are even a few spare bunks tucked along one wall, narrow but functional, and a small bathroom clearly meant for stewards stealing a few precious minutes away from constant demands for peanuts and pillows.
I jam the door that leads toward the passenger areas before anyone can get curious, then turn back to what matters.
I mist my hair until it’s damp enough to wake it back up, fingers working conditioner through curls flattened by hours under that fucking wig. My breathing finally starts to slow as my hair does what it always does, springing back into itself, reclaiming space.
As I work, my mind keeps drifting backward, replaying the terminal in sharp, violent flashes.
The plan had been simple. Clean. Alejandro was supposed to be left thousands of feet below me, stranded among the rolling carryon’s and screaming kids. I would disappear into the clouds and move on alone, the way I always do when things start to rot.
Instead, a bloodbath rewrote everything.
Now he’s here, breathing the same recycled air, close enough that I can feel his presence at my back like pressure. Too close.
I reassess without emotion. That plan is dead and a new one will have to take its place.
That’s when I slide Grim’s flip phone from my back pocket, keeping my movements casual, buried in the cover of my hair routine. The phone looks absurdly small in my hand, scratched but intact.
I huff a quiet laugh. Really. The little phone that could.
The screen lights up immediately.
GRIM: Just turn the laptop on. I’ll find it.
The files.
The two missing photos I texted him about just before the airport erupted into violence. Proof of something. Or the absence of it.
“Fuck,” I grit out to myself.
There’s no service. No way to reply.
After deleting the messages, I close the phone and slide it back into my pocket, sealing the information away for later. I don’t confront on instinct. I confront on proof. Until I have that, the knowledge of these missing files stays mine.
And that means the man I suspect might be working against me stays exactly where he is.
Behind me.
I cap the bottle, tuck my mirror and hair kit away, and that’s when Alejandro finally says something.
“So,” Already I can tell he’s trying too hard. “How’d you know about this flight as abackup?”
The words are easy. Casual. The kind of question someone asks while cleaning a weapon, filling silence, making conversation.
But it’s the tension underneath his words that lands like a blade in my back.
My hands still, not frozen, just quiet. I feel the shift in the air immediately, the way it tightens and sharpens. He’s fishing, not for the answer, but for the tell. And he knows I know it, because we’re both trained killers. And we’re both still alive for the same reason.
