"Then let's get the fuck out of here."
The SUV is where we left it. Three blocks away, behind the shipping container. We cover the distance fast, moving through pools of streetlight and stretches of darkness. Claudio takes point. Emilio covers our rear. I keep Alexandra beside me, her hand in mine, my body between her and the open street.
At the SUV, I open the back door and help her inside. She slides across the seat, pulling her legs up, and I climb in after her. Claudio takes the wheel. Emilio takes shotgun.
The engine starts. The headlights stay off. We pull away from the curb, smooth and quiet, rolling through the industrial district like we belong here. Like four people driving home from a late dinner.
Not like three killers and the woman they extracted from a building full of dead men.
Alexandra leans against me.
She doesn't ask how many. Doesn't ask about the blood on my hands, the crack in my vest, the bruise that's spreading across my chest beneath the ceramic plate. She presses her face into myshoulder and closes her eyes, and her fingers find mine and hold on.
I wrap my arm around her. Pull her tight against my side. Press my mouth to her hair.
The city slides past the windows. Streetlights and stoplights and the occasional car, normal people living normal lives, oblivious to the violence that happened half a mile from their apartments. The world keeps turning. It always does. The blood dries, the shell casings get swept up, and the sun comes up the next morning like nothing happened.
But then it happened.
I defied the man who made me. I walked away from the only life I've ever known. I breached a building with two men and a bag of guns, and I killed everyone who stood between me and the woman sitting beside me. Fourteen men at least. I've lost count and I don't care to find it.
Aurelio will want answers. Marco Castillo will want blood. Whoever sits behind Apex Meridian Holdings will want to regroup, reassess, find another way to neutralize the woman who's dismantling their operation one spreadsheet at a time.
Let them.
I look down at Alexandra. Her eyes are closed. Her breathing has slowed. She's not asleep, but she's letting herself rest against me with a trust so complete it makes my chest ache. Her bruisedcheek is pressed against my shoulder. Her raw wrists rest in her lap. Her bare feet are tucked beneath her on the seat.
She fought. I can see it in the torn collar of her shirt, the scratches on her forearms, the set of her jaw even in half-sleep. They came for her and she fought back and bit through a man's glove and made them earn every second of her captivity.
This woman.
This impossible, infuriating, brilliant woman who called me a coward on the first night and has been proving herself right ever since.
I press my lips to her forehead. She stirs, murmurs, I can't hear what she says, and burrows closer.
In my pocket, beside the spare magazine and the folded knife, her hair tie sits like a talisman. I carried it into the building. Carried it through the blood and the gunfire and the hallway of bodies. A black elastic. Worthless. Ordinary.
The most important thing I own.
Claudio catches my eye in the rearview mirror. His expression is unreadable, but there's something in it I haven't seen before. Not approval.Jealousy. Like he's finally seeing wanting he's always longed for but never confirmed.
He looks back at the road without comment.
We drive in silence.
The city gives way to quieter streets. We're not going back to the compound. Not yet. Claudio is driving to the safehouse on the east side, the one only four people know about, the one that exists for exactly this type of situation. Somewhere we can breathe. Somewhere we can stop.
Somewhere I can hold her without the world watching.
Alexandra shifts against me. Her hand finds my chest, palm flat over my heart, and rests there. I feel my pulse beating against her fingers. Fast. Hard. Still running on the fumes of what I did tonight.
But alive.
We're both alive.
Chapter Fourteen: Alexandra
Claudiodropsusatthe curb and doesn't come in. He and Emilio have work to do. Cleanup. Cover stories. The logistical aftermath that follows violence. He catches Leone's eye in the rearview and something passes between them. Not words. Not even a nod. acknowledgment. Then he's gone, taillights disappearing around the corner, and Leone and I are alone.
