She ignores the jab, frowning down at the body. “He’s got something under his skin.”
She pushes up his dirty sleeve. His forearm is swollen—fat, tight, mottled purple-green.
“Gross,” she mutters.
She presses lightly, and the skin gives beneath her thumb. Grim steps in and pokes it too.
“Wicked,” he says. “Theo—come feel this.”
Theo rushes over, poking the swelling like it’s a science fair project.
I snap. “Focus. Can you get it out without damaging whatever it is? It was probably implanted a few days before he died.”
Grim opens his mouth—but doesn’t answer.
Because every alarm in the apartment detonates at once.
Sirens. Buzzers. Harsh digital shrieks.
All the monitors flicker, Owen Liang’s files evaporating in a blink and reforming into grids of security feeds—dozens of angles from around the building.
Figures move across several screens. Shadows. Shapes. Too coordinated to be random.
Assassins.
“Shit,” Grim mutters.
“¡Niño!” his mother snaps.
“Sorry, Ma!” He’s already typing, screens flashing, windows stacking. He brings up motion trackers, heat signatures—every tool in his arsenal lighting up at once.
Saint steps forward, steady as ever, her eyes scanning the images. “Does the body have a tracer on it?”
Grim shakes his head, fingers still flying. “If he did, I’d see it. Or at least get interference.” He clicks through three diagnostic windows, all clean. “If there’s anything, it’s running on such a low frequency it slipped under my baseline filters.” A beat. “So probably not.”
“Fuck,” Saint says.
He looks up sharply at her, something hard and older flickering through his face that makes him look much older than sixteen. “You need to go. Now.”
No argument. No questions.
Saint moves first. “Get Skippy.”
Grim yanks open a desk drawer, digs through tech clutter, and pulls out a cheap burner phone. He presses it into Saint’s hand. “Use this if you need me again.”
She nods, tucking it into her jacket whileI lift the corpse carefully—his dead weight more noticeable now that urgency is eating through the room.
One of the women—Grim’s mother—already has the apartment door open, her body blocking as much of the hallway as she can.
Another alarm screeches.
One of the security feeds on the monitor jumps to the forefront—enlarging automatically.
Grim sees it first. His face goes tight.
“Go now,” he says. “They’re here.”
* The Ghost
