It’s not big. It’s not dramatic. But it says everything anyway. Like he’s telling someone:
It’s him.
Alejandro has an open contract. Exile special. The kind the Guild leaves dangling because someone will always want the credit. But this isn’t about collecting on him. Not really.
If they know he’s here, in Chicago, then they know I’m close. Someone could’ve seen us leave that office building together. Someone could’ve spotted us last night at the restaurant.
If they’re watching him, they’re waiting for me.
I pull my phone back out and step forward, pretending I’m mid-text, turning as I go so Alejandro is behind me now. Out of sight. Out of reach.
I couldn’t go back for him even if I wanted to. Even if I weren’t already planning my exit. The second I movetoward him, everything detonates. Too many civilians. Too many cameras. Too many people who didn’t wake up today planning to bleed out next to a Pretzelmaker.
Alejandro can handle himself.
These people can’t.
And if he gets tied up in a fight, eyes on him instead of me, that actually helps. Buys me time. Buys me space. Lets me slip toward the gate while he’s still scanning the crowd for where I went.
I’m practically doing everyone a favor.
I keep my pace even, heart steady, and slide the phone back into my pocket just as someone walking the opposite direction clips my shoulder.
Not hard. Just enough.
“Excuse me,” they say automatically.
I turn with the reflex, matching her movement for half a step, and I know her instantly.
Rook. Broker-turned-assassin. Made the jump three years ago and did well enough that people stopped asking why.
At first, her expression is automatic. Polite. Blank. A stranger who clipped another stranger in a crowded terminal and is apologizing.
Then it changes.
Not all at once. Just a flicker. Her eyes narrow a fraction and never leave mine. I can see the thought forming behind her stare as recognition tries to line itself up with memory.
Wait… could that be?—
I don’t give it oxygen.
I press my lips into a thin line and nod like I’m just another traveler who’s never wrapped piano wire aroundanyone’s throat and keep walking. My pace stays even. My posture loose. Nothing about me saysrunning.
I make it a few feet. Enough to almost believe I slipped past her clean.
Then her voice cuts through the terminal noise, warm with familiarity and edged with certainty.
“That you,Saint?”
Ihear her name before I register the voice that says it.
“Saint James?”
My head snaps left, eyes cutting through the terminal with practiced speed, cataloging movement instead of faces. Crowds blur together until one figure sharpens into focus—a woman in a backward baseball cap, plain black tank, the exact height and build my body recognizes before my brain does.
That’s what Saint was wearing under her jacket.
It has to be her.
