If anyone ever figures out what I’ve actually done, it won’t just be my blood on the line.
Grim’s voice cuts in. “Doesn’t matter who kills you now.They just need a body. That’s why they sent the whole world—figure someone will get lucky.”
I give a thin smile, cold. “That, and they know it’d take all of them to actually kill me.”
Alejandro nods, gaze never leaving mine. “If you’re supposed to be dead, that means someone else is going to take out Senator Hartley.”
I tap the desk, thinking fast. “We need to know why he’s the target. What’s to gain with his death?”
The answer’s staring us in the face. Hartley’s selling peace, and there’s too much money in war. Every file the accountant collected—every shell company, every bribe and contract, every nation buying blood and calling it law. Wars are for sale. So are presidents.
“Someone wants to be the one pulling the strings. Someone wants the money to keep flowing.”
Alejandro and I lock eyes. The answer’s too obvious now, almost cliché if it weren’t so fucking deadly.
At the same time, we both speak:
“El Fantasma,” I say.
“The Guildmaster,” Alejandro echoes.
“El Fantasma,” I say.
Alejandro scoffs. “No. The Guildmaster.”
I flick a crumb off the keyboard, jaw set. “They could be the same person, you know. No one’s ever seen either of them. For all we know, the Guildmaster is just El Fantasma in a different suit.”
He shakes his head, dismissive. “That’s fantasy, Saint. The Guildmaster runs an empire. El Fantasma’s a story you tell when you can’t find the real problem. You’re chasing shadows.”
“Funny for you to say, Sombra?*.” I narrow my eyes using his old name. He narrows his back, both of us knowing that name is dead. “Shadows get people killed. Every piece of shit that’s ever come after me in the last two years has dropped Fantasma’s name. You think that’s an accident?”
“Yeah, I do.” His voice is flat. “It’s a smokescreen. Guildmaster’s the power. The rest is noise. You keep looking for ghosts, you’ll miss the shot rightin front of you.”
I snap the laptop shut just to break the rhythm of his smug certainty. “You really believe that? You think all these threads—contracts, hits, the money, the politics—they’re all run by some middle manager behind a desk, while the world whispers about a ghost for fun?”
He matches my glare, knuckles white on the table. “You want there to be a ghost,” he says, voice tight. “Because then it’s not your precious Guild turning on you. It’s just some phantom out to get us all.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.” I shoot back, unable to keep the edge from my voice. “How many jobs have you run for them? How many times has your info come from nowhere, like someone’s feeding you the answers?”
He bristles, jaw ticking. “I get my intel from the same places you do. The difference is, I know which leads are worth chasing.”
“Do you?” I lean in. “Or is it just easier not to ask who signs the contracts? Not to think about what happens when the Guild’s done with you?”
He’s in my space now, leaning forward until there’s nothing between us but heat and old scars. “You really want to go there? The only people who survive this job are the ones who understand they’re disposable. The Guild would burn every one of us if it came down to it—and you know it.”
I flinch, just barely, because he’s not wrong. But he’s not right either. “Don’t mistake cynicism for insight, Alejandro. You act like I’m naïve, like I don’t know what this life is. But you’re just pissed because they exiled you. Maybe the Guild betrayed you, but that doesn’t make every answer a conspiracy.”
He laughs—cold, bitter. “You still want to believe in something, Saint. Even if it’s just a myth. That’s your problem.”
“And yours is that you want to believe in nothing. That’s how you end up a ghost yourself.”
For a second, I want to hit him. Or drag him onto the table and let all this violence bleed out the other way.
I take a breath, force my voice steady. “There’s always something in the shadows. And sooner or later, we’re going to find out who’s really pulling the strings.”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t blink. “Just make sure you don’t get yourself killed chasing ghosts first.”
The tension’s a live wire, stretched to snapping—until Grim’s voice crackles through the speaker. “Hate to break up your little lovers’ quarrel, but I think I can solve this one for you.”
