His body seizes one last time.
Then it goes slack.
The microphone squeals as it hits the stage, feedback shrieking over the silence that follows.
And then the silence breaks.
Screams. Wailing. Panic pouring through the auditorium as people push toward exits that suddenly feel very small. Security forms a perimeter too late, shouting orders no one listens to. The stage lights stay on, cruel and bright, illuminating the mess in perfect detail for every camera in the building.
Hartley doesn’t move.
He never will again.
I lift my gaze back to Alejandro.
He’s looking at me.
Not past me. Not through me. At me. The distance between us collapses into a thin, electric line, and for one suspended heartbeat it’s just the two of us, framed against glass and light and catastrophe.
The second he realizes I’m watching him, he breaks eye contact.
He drops back into the scope.
And fires.
My head snaps to the stage so fast my neck protests, adrenaline spiking hard enough to blur the edges of my vision. I expect a body to fall. A secondary collapse. Someone else going down in a spray of panic and blood.
Nothing.
It’s still Hartley, motionless and ruined, surrounded by the people who rushed in too late to matter. Hands hover uselessly over him. Medics kneel. Security shouts. No new victim. No fresh chaos.
I look back.
The doorway across the hall is empty.
Alejandro is gone.
No retreat. No scramble. No trace of movement. Just absence, like he was never there at all. A ghost that finished his work and evaporated.
Below, the conference center staff have switched to damage control mode, ushering people toward exits with firm voices and forced calm. Some attendees move readily, eager to escape the sight and smell of what just happened. Others can’t stop looking back, faces twisted in disbelief, like Hartley might suddenly sit up and force them to watch it all again.
I scan the upper levels, the catwalks, the shadows.
Nothing.
My pulse pounds in my ears as my mind races ahead of my body. If he took a shot, it wasn’t at Hartley. That means it was at something else. Or someone.
I pull the earpiece free from my collar, snap it into the port on the battered flipphone, and dial.
It rings once.
Then twice.
“Congratulations,” Grim answers cheerfully. “You’ve reached Grim’s personal hotline. If this is about murder, press one. If it’s about betrayal, press two. If it’s about your love life, hang up and rethink your choices.”
“He’s dead,” I say. “And I need your help.”
A pause. “Who? The boyfriend?”
