Two blocks away, hundreds of people line up at the church’s meeting space to cast their votes. I am so high up, the building so new, that no one will think to look for me here. But the men who took me will tell Leo. I am certain of it. So he can see how much danger I am in. And see me fall.
“If you move,” Pinzon says, positioning a large, rolling tool cart next to the window then sitting in a chair behind it, “you will fall. If Charles lets go, you will fall. And if you try to get down? Try to jump back into the room? Once Cortez dies, we will make you wish you had died too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Leo
The streetsaround the Church of the Holy Trinity are packed with people. Only a few thousand are actual voters. The rest are here to see Manuel Cortez cast his vote.
“Base to Alpha Team,” Zephyr says in my ear. “Cameras just caught a caravan of six black SUVs leaving Cortez’s home.”
“I thought he wasn’t there. The thermal scans—”
“Those SUVs are a decoy. If he’s where we think he was all night,” she says, “another group of vehicles will join up with the caravan in five minutes.”
“And then?” Austin asks. He and Trevor dropped me off six blocks from the church. By now, they should be in position. Trev in the bell tower—with the best ear protection money can buy—and Austin at the other end of the street.
“They’ll be at the church in fifteen minutes. Max.”
I pull out my phone and launch one of the half-dozen apps Zephyr and the rest of the team sent us overnight. The wheel on screen spins for a full thirty seconds, and then turns green. No one’s listening in on us. Yet.
Standing at the fringes of the crowd, I pull a large Bluetooth earbud and hook it over my ear before pulling up my text app.
Leo: Hey, shithead. If I don’t talk to Domina in the next ten minutes, I walk.
I pat my jacket pocket, then my hip. I have enough weapons strapped to my body to take down a small army, but none of them will do me a damn bit of good if I can’t get to Domina in time.
Carefully, I make my way closer to the large, squat building the church uses for bible study and community events. Dozens of National Police in full riot gear patrol the area. If the tinted glasses and the fake cast on my arm don’t disguise me enough, shit could go sideways in a hurry.
My phone rings, sending my heart shooting into my throat.
Incoming video call.
It’s not from Domina’s phone. That would be too simple. Tapping a button on my watch—launching the app that Zephyr and Royce developed to speed up cellular triangulation—I answer.
“Domina!” Fuck, fuck, fuck. She’s terrified. Wind whips her hair, and she’s pressed against a thin expanse of unfinished wood. A man grips her right arm, but to her left…there’s nothing but sky behind her.
“Leo?” Her voice trembles. Tears spill onto her cheeks, glistening in the sun. “Please…don’t do this.”
The asshole at her side gives her arm a hard shake, and she yelps until he pushes her back against the wood. Oh, God. He’s not wearing a mask. She’s seen his face. She’s seenalltheir faces.
“I have to. If there’s achancethey’ll let you go, I’ll do anything.”
“No, no, no,” she cries. “Not this. You said you wanted something real. You can still have that. Just…not with me. Walk away and—”
“Domina, look at me.” I hold the phone closer, moving back to the edge of the crowd so it’s quieter. “When this is all over, I want you to go somewhere to see the stars. Can you do that for me, baby? Try that bar we found the other day. Remember the one?”
“The…bar?” She’s so confused, and I squint at the phone. Her eyes are cloudy, almost unfocused. Shit. I’m going to lose her if I can’t make her understand.
“Yes, baby. The bar where we saw all those stars. You can find that, can’t you?”
Please, Domina. Put it together. Stars and Bars. Austin.
“Y-yes. I…I think so. The one…with Superman on the wall…”
Thank fuck. She remembered Trev’s code name.
“Good.” In my ear, Zephyr tells me Cortez’s motorcade is less than ten minutes out. “Domina? Fuck. I have to go soon.”
