I wouldn’t blame her. If our roles were reversed, I be suspicious.
Forty-eight hours. That’s all the time I had.
Two days since my broker whispered that the Guild planned to sacrifice her the way they tried to sacrifice me. And in those two days, I had to find her—never easy, especially when she doesn’t want to be found—shadow her through the job that would mark her as an exile, and slip a tracker onto the bumper of the car she stole so I’d know where she dumped last night’s corpse.
Then came the waiting.
Sitting in the hotel room across from hers while the Guild put a hit out on their golden girl. Five assassins came for her; five ended up in my room instead. My broker’s switch in the reservation system worked perfectly. Busy night at my door. Bloody, too. The double queen beds are buried under bodies now, stacked neatly.
When her Guild app finally woke her up and betrayed her, my broker’s device was already planted in her room,piggybacking off her network access. The text came seconds later: She’s up.
I left two minutes before she did. Had to deal with one last assassin in the hallway. No time to hide the body, so I propped the old man in a chair like any other drunk who’d passed out where he stood. The cleaning staff is in for a memorable morning.
Now she’s here. In front of me. All fire and heat, exactly as she’s always been. That soft floral scent mixed with worn leather hits me like a ghost of a life I used to be a part of.
She hasn’t changed.
Except she has—she’s better at hiding her tells.
I don’t even see the shift in her expression before her fist cracks into my nose.
“Fucking Christ, Saint,” I growl, grabbing a napkin and pressing it to my face before blood gets everywhere.
She finally picks up the coffee depositing her pink gum to the edge of her plate. She takes a slow sip. A bite of the sandwich. Apparently she’s decided I’m not here to kill her.
Her gaze lifts, sharp and bored at the same time.
“You’ve wasted a minute staring at me,” she says. “You’re down to four now, so I’d get to the point.”
Mi Pícarita?*. Always impatient.
And I do have a point.
Just not one she’s ready to hear.
I lean back in the seat, napkin still pressed to my nose, and watch her eyes. Hungry. Suspicious. Running on instinct and caffeine fumes.
“I’m hereto propose a truce. To be partners.”
She snorts. “In what universe?”
“In this one,” I say. “The only one we get.”
Her jaw ticks. She hates when I talk like that—quiet, certain, as if the truth is something I decide.
“I don’t partner with traitors,” she says.
“And I apparently don’t exist anymore,” I counter. “Yet here we are.”
Her gaze flickers, a crack in the mask. She doesn’t want to think about the day two years ago that is so eerily similar to her reality today.
It’s still too new for her to feel real yet.
“You’re an exile, Alejandro. The Guild burned your file and salted the earth.”
I let out a soft huff. “And now they’re doing the same to you. Welcome to the other side.”
Her fingers curl around the coffee cup like she’s imagining strangling it. Or me.
