Page 25 of Spade

Selene smiled.

Across the street, the side door to Starlight glowed faintly green, a bug-zapper halo. That was the only entrance that mattered. I’d been watching it for three weeks, logging the rotations: who came out, how long they were gone, what changed when they came back. Dario and Colt did the runs—money, coke, the rare VIP with a taste for something messier than lap dances. Inside, the girls they moved weren’t from Vegas. They were from nowhere, and they never looked up. It all pissed me off to no end.

I put the hand-drawn map on the center console. No details, just lines and X’s. A finger tapped the alley route. “We go in here. Dario always takes his first smoke at twelve. Colt follows at twenty after. The window’s tight.”

Selene’s gaze tracked the green door, then me. “What if they come out together?”

“They don’t. Dario’s a narcissist, and Colt’s scared of him. They don’t even piss in the same hour.”

She nodded, but it was a nervous tic. “You sure there’s no back entrance?”

“There is, but it’s bolted inside. Once they’re out, they’re out for good.”

She tilted her head, studied the map as if it had a code. “We could go through the front.”

“We’re not going through the front.” I watched her for a reaction. “Cameras, witnesses, doormen with memories.”

Selene’s fingers drummed the console, slow and even. She said, “You want me on the door?”

I shrugged. “You’re the president. If you want to do the wet work, I won’t stop you.”

She looked at me sideways, eyes unreadable. “Don’t be a dick, Spade.”

I almost smiled. “Then you hold the door. I’ll take them out clean, and we’ll ghost. Less than seven minutes, start to finish.”

Selene considered that, her thumb working the edge of the map. “You ever kill two at once?”

“Never been necessary. But I’m willing to try.” I smiled, and Selene shook her head.

She didn’t laugh. The silence was thick as tar, but I didn’t mind. That’s the thing about waiting to kill: it never gets easier, but it gets simpler.

“We leave them in the alley?”

“Yeah, this time. The bottom of Lake Mead is getting crowded.

“You think about this a lot,” Selene said.

I said, “I like to finish what I start.”

“How long have you been doing this, Spade? I guess I need to add a serial killer question to the club application.”

I chuckled and strummed my fingers along the steering wheel. “The first time I killed someone was when I was sixteen. I was walking home from work, and I cut through an alley just like this one. A man stepped from the shadows and grabbed me.” I felt the knife on my hip. “Even back then, I carried a blade.”

“You killed him for grabbing you?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

I shook my head. “I didn’t kill him until he grabbed my tits.”

Across the street, two girls in matching shorts and fake-fur vests took turns smoking under the pink neon light. One looked about sixteen, but the heels made her seem older. I wondered how many times she’d tried to run before she got tired enough to stay.

Selene didn’t look away from them. She said, “You ever worry you’re just making it worse?”

I thought about lying. “No.”

“You could’ve told us before.”

“Would it have changed anything?”

Her mouth pressed flat. “I’d have understood. We’re a sisterhood, and when one of us is going through it, we all are.”