“I’m not going anywhere.” Alejandro doesn’t even pretend to consider it. “Not until it’s done.”
He doesn’t elaborate on what “it” is, and I don’t ask. Whatever vendetta he’s nursing is running parallel to mine, and for now, that’s enough.
He pulls the truck into a parking lot before the road tightens into the kind of street you only drive down if you’re begging to get stuck. The engine idles, then cuts off.
“Let’s stick the arm in your backpack,” he says. “Take a taxi the rest of the way to my contact. Buses have cameras. The sooner we get underground, the better.”
Alejandro handles the eighteen-wheeler like it’s his personal ballet. Watching him work the clutch and spin that oversized wheel is almost indecent. Jaw locked, brow pulled tight, the muscles in his forearms flex every time he shifts. There’s something about watching a man command machinery the size of a small apartment building that shouldn’t be doing it for me.
Maybe it’s the forearm porn. Maybe it’s knowing exactly what thosehands can do.
Either way, the truck rolls to a stop and I flick my gaze up.
Of course he’s looking at me.
He’s wearing that stupid smirk, the dangerous one, made worse by the single curl of dark hair hanging over his eye. “Anything you’d like to share with the class?”
I take my time dragging my gaze down, then back up again. “You have small wrists.”
I hop out before he can respond.
From the pavement, I watch him through the open door. He’s staring at his own wrists like they just betrayed him. “Small what?” he mutters. “No.”
I pretend not to hear, grabbing my pack and unzipping it. The arm goes inside, thank every deity for heavy-duty plastic and blessed scent containment. Even the juice stays put.
Alejandro climbs out once he’s reassembled whatever’s left of his ego. He slings his rifle case over his shoulder with practiced ease.
“Who’s your contact?” I ask.
He smiles. I don’t trust it. “You’ll see.”
Yeah. I’ll see, all right.
Thirty minutes later, I’m following him into a shady-ass alley and down a set of concrete steps. Above us: a ramen shop. Beneath us: the kind of place where people get murdered for fun.
Alejandro must sense my lack of enthusiasm because he throws a “trust me” over his shoulder.
Fat chance.
He knocks twice on a rusted metal door. The place looks diseased.
No one answers. For a long, agonizing stretch, all I hear is the distant hum of the ramen shop. Then—movement. The sound of someone stomping through a sea of empty bottles. Cursing. A crash. Something rolling.
Then comes the real wait: no fewer than ten thousand locks clacking and sliding open. Someone takes their home security very seriously.
The door cracks open. Two enormous eyes blink at us behind glasses so thick they could magnify a star. The living embodiment of a mole squints up at Alejandro, then at me, then past us, checking for threats.
“Is she the body?” he asks, inspecting me like a lab specimen.
“Do I look dead, motherfucker?” My multitool is in my hand before he finishes blinking. The blade flicks open with that satisfying snap.
Alejandro laughs. “No, old friend. Our cadaver made its way into sausage casings. We do have an arm, though. But I fear it’s a bit too rank, even for your tastes.”
The mole-man grumbles and swings the door wider.
The inside is… not much. Trash everywhere. Takeout containers from upstairs. Metal surgical trays stacked in corners. It’s cold enough to bite bone, but a fireplace roars in the corner, embers glowing hot enough to liquefy steel. Several lamps cast sickly yellow light, each shade made from some stretched hide I can’t immediately identify.
The mole—whoever he is—scurries away, muttering like he’s tunneling through the earth.
