Novak was alone, sprawled across the bed, one arm hanging off the side. I flicked on the lamp. His eyes flew open, his hand going for the gun under his pillow, but he stopped when he saw it was me.
“Doc?” he rasped, voice thick with sleep.
“Get up,” I said. “I’ve got questions.”
He glanced at his watch. “I didn’t hear a call!” He shoved at my hand, glaring, then reached for his phone. “You didn’t call.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then what the fuck?”
“This is personal.”
Novak rubbed his eyes, still half-asleep but starting to realize this wasn’t a standard cleanup call, and tiredness gave way to something wary. He sat up, glancing at me the way a man checks for landmines before taking another step. Of all the people I dealt with, Novak was the only person I trusted on a cellular level. He was clinical, detached, and unshakable, didn’t flinch at blood, didn’t moralize about right or wrong. To a psychopath like him, his work was all math: cause, effect, cleanup, reward. That kind of certainty made him a valuable asset. Dangerous too, because men like Novak didn’t hesitate once they decided where their loyalty sat. I’d heard him sing while bleaching a room where he’d killed someone, humming off-key while dragging a body toward the back door. But I’d also seen him drop a warm one at the hospital without hesitation, keep his word, and never sell anyone out. In my world, that was worth of trust.
“This isn’t about a job, is it?” he asked, voice lower now, standing and pulling on jeans and a black T-shirt.
“You ever cleaned up for the Iron Bulls?”
Novak didn’t answer right away. He moved into the kitchen, flicked on a single overhead light, and reached for the coffee pot as though this were any other night. I let him. I wanted him to be awake, alert, and thinking clearly. He poured two mugs—one with sugar and milk for himself, the other black, the way I always took it—and set mine on the table before sitting opposite me.
Steam rose between us, and he rubbed a hand over his face, trying to shake the sleep off. I didn’t speak. I wanted him to fill the silence, to see what spilled out when he was too tired to edit himself.
“And this couldn’t wait until morning?” he muttered, taking a sip.
“No.” I watched him over the rim of the mug, tracking his pulse and the twitch of his jaw. Every movement cataloged, measured. I needed answers, and I needed him steady enough to give them.
Novak finally set the mug down with aclink. “Yeah, I did a couple of jobs for them,” he said. “They’re a walking shitshow. Thought they were hard, thought they knew how to handle a scene, but they were sloppy as hell. Biker ego and too much coke, that’s all it was. They didn’t follow protocol, didn’t listen, left evidence behind, and my crew was exposed more than once. You don’t fuck with the timeline when you’re cleaning, but those idiots thought they were untouchable.” He spat out the last word as if it tasted bad. “I told them I was done years back.”
“And?”
“They started working under some cleaning crew in South L.A.—gang shit, or someone trying to be. Last I heard, they were using a pit down near the border for disposal. Fucking amateurs. They’d be lucky if the coyotes didn’t drag half their mess back out by sunrise.”
“Who do they answer to?” I asked.
Novak’s expression shifted. He went still, gaze flicking up at me, measuring whether the truth was worth the risk. “I don’t ask for what’ll get me killed,” he said slowly, voice dropping.
I rested my hand flat on the table. When I opened it, the scalpel sat in my palm, the hypodermic at my wrist, both catching the low kitchen light. The silence stretched, tight as a wire.
“Fucking hell,” Novak muttered, though there was no fear in it, just fascination. His eyes lit like a predator catching scent. “You gonna kill me? What for?”
“You must have heard something,” I said, tone flat.
He exhaled, the sound lazy, almost bored. “All right, fine. Águilas Cartel out of Sinaloa.”
I stiffened; that name was way too close for comfort. I knew that someone had taken the old cartel’s name, stolen the fear Raven and his asshole crews had instilled in locals, but I didn’t realize they’d started running shit up here again. Why the hell didn’t I know this? One slip—one moment of looking away—and the world shifted under my feet.
I kept my reaction hidden, but Novak’s eyes widened.
“You know them?”
“No,” I lied.
“Yeah, okay then, keep your secrets.” He sighed. “They’re new to the area, six months or so. Águilas move guns, women, drugs—anything that keeps the veins open. The Bulls? They’re pets. Trained enough to bark, dumb enough to bite their own tail. They haul the product, watch doors, and clean up when someone gets too loud. Half of them think they’re soldiers; the other half are meat waiting to rot. That’s all I’ve got, and trust me, Doc, if I knew more, I’d tell you, just to watch what you’d do with it.”
“You know anyone from Águilas?” I asked, and the scalpel’s edge glinted as I turned it once in my hand.
“Never had a cleanup for the cartel directly. Won’t take that level of crazy either.”
