Close enough to recognize. Far enough to feel wrong. It doesn't look like executive suites, more like the kind of place people disappear in. I step out, and the heat hits me like a wall, thick with dust and something sour I don't want to identify.
Damiano is already there. He kicks something across the pavement, a rat that scurries off with an offended squeal.
"Fucking shithole," he mutters.
I walk up beside him, eyes already scanning the shitty place. "What do we know?"
"She's in there." He jerks his chin toward a door that looks like it could come apart if you breathed on it wrong. "Hasn't come out in hours. Kid's with her."
I crack my neck, rolling my shoulders once. "Let's go get her."
Damiano glances at me, a flicker of something sharper moving through his expression, tucked behind his usual chaos. "You good?"
"I'm good," I lie evenly. Right now, I'm exactly where I need to be. "Let's get to that motherfucking Collector, one way or another."
His grin stretches wide. Unhinged. Anticipation crackles off him.
"Yeah," he agrees. "She knows something."
Maybe. Or maybe she's just unlucky. Either way, she'll be useful. A small, detached part of me almost feels sorry for her. Almost.
Without a knock, Damiano kicks the door in. It slams against the wall with a crack that echoes through the room.
"Don't—"
The word dies in my throat. Because the room is empty. The bed unmade and the sheets still warm. A forgotten backpack lieshalf-zipped on the floor. A beep catches my attention. With my gun raised, I turn and nearly shoot the fucking microwave.
"They were just here," Damiano concludes, rushing to the bathroom.
The window is open. My gaze snaps to it just as I notice movement in the back alley. Then a blur.
"Shit—"
I'm running out of the room, underneath a sagging staircase toward the back. We reach the other side just in time to see her disappear around the corner, back to the parking lot.
"The car," Mauro curses behind me. "I left it running."
"Fucking hell." Damiano takes the words out of my mouth.
She's halfway across the parking lot, one hand gripping a small boy's wrist, the other dragging a duffel bag. She's fast.
Mauro stops, spreads his arms to hold us back.
"What?" I demand.
The girl tosses the kid into the Escalade and jumps in behind him. Mauro holds out a key. The Escalade reverses.
"Now," he yells. Because the keys are not in the car, the Escalade won't leave the parking lot, giving us time to catch up to it.
She reaches the edge of the lot, and the Escalade stops. I can see her panicked face behind the windshield. Her hands hammer the steering wheel in frustration. Not for long, though. She sees us advancing and gets out of the car. She points for the kid to run to the office, but he hesitates.
"Go!" she snaps.
The boy takes off, and she faces us. My steps slow. Because most people don't do that. Most people run. She doesn't. Her hand slips into her bag.
Damiano laughs. "Oh, this should be fun."
Instead of a gun, she pulls out a small glass bottle. My eyes narrow, and I recognize the short piece of fabric coming out ofthe bottle neck. She's holding a fucking Molotov Cocktail. Who the hell is this woman?
