Nothing screamed cartel. Nothing screamed human trafficking. Nothing screamed my life is about to split open?—
Until—
“Grace,” AB said suddenly, tone shifting from commentary to razor focus, “look left, two o’clock, by the chain-link fence.”
I turned casually, heartbeat stalling.
A man was standing there.
Lean. Mid-thirties. Worn jacket. Hands in pockets.
Watching us.
Not the ocean.
Not the ships.
Us.
The worst part wasn’t his stare.
It was the way he looked away so quickly—too quickly—and pretended to light a cigarette he didn’t actually light.
My mouth went dry.
Bones was already moving closer to me, not touching, but anchoring. Legend shifted to the other side, posture loose but ready. Voodoo lowered his camera as if adjusting the settings, lens angled toward the man.
AB spoke in my ear. “He matches the description of one of Sarmiento’s ground spotters from the Reynosa hub.”
The boardwalk suddenly felt too open. Too exposed. Too ordinary to trust.
Wind slammed into my hat. Goblin pressed against my leg, alert and still.
“Alright,” Bones murmured, voice pitched low. “We’ve got our first shadow.”
And just like that?—
Normal was gone.
Chapter
Fourteen
VOODOO
The moment Alphabet confirmed the guy by the chain-link fence, the air around us tightened—subtle, just enough that anyone watching would chalk it up to the cold wind coming off the water. But I felt it. All of us did.
I lowered my camera, let the strap slide across my chest, and breathed out slow. “Spotter,” I murmured, barely moving my lips.
Bones shifted a half-step closer to Grace, shielding her from the angle of the man’s line of sight without making it look like shielding. Lunchbox drifted outward, lazy-like, the way he always did before he decided whether someone needed to be punched, followed, or quietly moved off the map.
The guy tried to look casual—leaning a shoulder into the chain-link, fumbling with a cigarette he didn’t bother to light. He wasn’t good at pretending. That was useful. The ones who were good at pretending were harder to flush out.
Sandwiched somewhere between Bones’ protective gravity and Lunchbox’s quiet violence, Grace kept her sunglasses angled toward the container field. But I saw her jaw tighten beneath the brim of that ridiculous crab hat.
“Okay,” Alphabet said in our ears, voice tight with the static of distance and adrenaline. “We can use this. He clocked you, but he’s unsure. I expect he’ll follow a usual pattern before he escalates.”
Pattern. Right. These spotters were creatures of habit. Small ranges. Predictable loops. They stuck to whatever corner they were assigned and phoned home when something felt wrong.
