CHAPTER ONE
Leo
The soleof my shoe catches on the polished tile floor. With anoof, I slam into the fridge. Its meager contents rattle, something inside topples over, and I curse my failing body. And the lack of carpeting in most of the apartments in Panama City.
Carefully, I open the door. An upended bottle of hot sauce drips all over the carton of eggs on the shelf below. Great. After I set it to rights, I grab a can of club soda. Cleaning up the mess can wait. I need to get off my feet.
My right leg aches with each shuffling step toward the patio. Nerve damage, deteriorating cartilage in my knee, and three missing toes don’t do shit for my balance on my best day, and this is nowherenearone of those.
Four hours of surveillance, and all I have to show for it is a mild sunburn. I’m starting to wonder if my client’s deadbeat husband might actuallybedead. Working as a private investigator was supposed to be the easy life. Especially in Panama. The cost of living in this neighborhood is cheap enough I only need to work three or four cases a month. Assuming I can solve evenoneof them.
In the distance, the sun filters through the palm trees along Panama Bay. Five stories up, the sounds of the city fall away. If I were the kind of guy who believed in “inner peace” and all that bullshit, this would be the place I’d find it. Too bad I gave up on that dream a long time ago.
The scent of gardenias wafts up from the courtyard, and I pop the top on the can. Damn if I don’t still crave something a hell of a lot stronger. But that’s a dangerous road with nothing but darkness at the end of it.
My phone buzzes. I don’t have to look at the screen to know who’s texting me. Only one person has this number.
Trevor: How’s the weather? Clear skies after the storm the other day?
Seven years retired, and the man still talks in code.
Leo: You haven’t used an unencrypted mobile in a decade. Neither have I. You have something to say, just say it.
Trevor: Fine. I made some calls. The Chief of Station in Panama City is Moses Ferrier. Part Boy Scout, part pitbull. Stay on his good side. If I have to call in another favor with Pritchard, he’ll never let me hear the end of it.
Leo: Give me a little credit after twenty-two years on the job. I know how to fly under the radar. How’s Dani? Read her latest on the corruption in the Chilean Health Ministry. Riveting stuff.
Trevor: She’s good. Thank fuck she didn’t have to travel for this one.
Leo: What about you? Clear skies?
It’s a loaded question—one I don’t expect him to answer.
Trevor: Found a new therapist. I think he’s helping. Dani’s almost home. I’ll check in next week.
I cough, choking on a healthy swig of soda water. The damn stuff isn’t supposed to come out my nose. But the idea of Trevor Moana—who used to be one of the CIA’s most lethal assassins—voluntarilygoing to therapy isn’t one I was prepared for.
The man spent three days in the worst prison in the world—La Cryptain Venezuela—being tortured every fucking minute. When his team destroyed the facility and freed everyone the government had locked away deep underground, Trevor was a shell of the man he’d been only seventy-two hours before.
Sinking back into the chair and propping my good leg on the railing, I stare up at the faded blue sky. The club soda’s almost gone, but I can’t go back inside yet. Too many memories hitting me from all sides.
I stayed in the van while the rest of Hidden Agenda—a K&R firm out of Seattle—Dani, and the former head of the Joint Special Operations Command, Austin Pritchard, pulled Trevor out of that prison. But what I heard over comms brought back parts of my past I’d buried under too much rum and tequila.
And now that I’m sober, all those memories are here to stay. Trapped in the dark. Bound to a chair. Suspended from a beam. Beaten within an inch of my life.
Eight days as the Loma Collectivo’s prisoner. They used every enhanced interrogation tactic in the book—and a few no one had dared write about. I didn’t give them what they wanted. But I’d accepted my death. Hell, I begged for it.
They took my eye, most of the dexterity in my right hand, and left me with nerve damage so severe, half my face might as well be paralyzed. So what does it say about me that I blew through my mandatory shrink sessions and was back at work as soon as I got the medical all clear?
Something flutters in my peripheral vision. What little I have of it. The prosthetic eyelooksreal, but everything to the right of my nose is a void. Turning, I catch a pair of birds on the patio railing veryclearlymating.
I’m about to give them some privacy when my neighbor opens her sliding glass door and steps outside. The lovebirds squawk and fly away. Her whispered,“Dios mio,”is followed by a soft laugh, and I stare at her through the whorls in the wrought iron divider. I haven’t lived here long—only a couple of months. We’ve yet to meet.
The few times we’ve passed in the halls though…I’ve cataloged everything about her. Her curves. Her dark brown hair. Her full lips. It’s training. Know your surroundings. Always.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
Something startles her, and she tenses. Sparing me only the briefest of glances, she rushes back inside while I polish off the last of the club soda.
