Page 26 of Spade

I looked at her hands—steady, strong, the nails manicured but unpainted. Selene could snap a neck if she wanted to, but she didn’t like getting messy. That was why she needed people like me.

She said, “What if they’re armed?”

“They’re always armed. Doesn’t mean they know how to use it.”

Another silence. I glanced at the clock: 11:52. The girls had disappeared, replaced by a stocky bouncer in a windbreaker. I watched his pattern. He never glanced at the alley.

Selene twisted in her seat, cracked her neck, then settled back. “You ever fuck someone you were going to kill?” she asked, not even trying to sound curious.

I thought about a kill last week, the taste of fear and iron, the way that man had begged before I cut him. “No. But sometimes it’s close.”

She smiled, thin as a razor. “You’re honest. That’s why I like you.”

I almost believed her.

The van’s heater ticked and clanged, fighting the desert chill. The windshield was fogging at the corners. I reached into the glove box, pulled out a strip of nicotine gum, and popped it between my teeth. Selene’s eyes followed the motion.

“That detective isn’t going to go away." She turned in her seat. “The club has your back, Spade, but we need to keep our shit clean. We don’t get caught. We don’t draw attention. As long as we do those two things, you’ve got the freedom to keep doing you.”

“Nothing changes? You get your club. I keep my hands busy.”

She reached across the console, tapped her nail against the alley on the map. “We do it your way.”

“It’s the only way.”

She pulled her hand back, flexed it once, and said, “Promise me you won’t fuck up.”

I didn’t promise, but I nodded.

We waited. The minutes stretched, elastic and mean. Outside, the world stayed indifferent: streetlights buzzed, semis rattled down the block, somebody screamed in a way that sounded like laughter and then wasn’t. I watched the alley mouth, the spill of sodium light over cracked concrete, the sliver of shadow behind the dumpster.

11:59. I reached under the seat for the balaclava, stretched it out, then let it snap back into my palm. Selene shifted her hips, ready for movement. I could see her breath now, pale in the van’s old light.

“Time,” I said.

She reached for her own mask—black, sleek, probably cost five times what mine did.

I loaded the mag into the compact nine and set the safety. It was a backup. I didn’t plan on needing it.

Selene’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She checked it, a quick glance, then tucked it away. “Joker wants to know if we need a cleanup crew.”

I shook my head. “Only if it goes bad.”

“Don’t let it go bad,” she said, and it was almost tender.

I smiled. “You’re the boss.”

She held my gaze. “Don’t ever fucking forget it.”

We sat in the stillness, hands in our laps, faces lit by the dying neon. On the street, the world kept turning, oblivious to the fact that in four minutes, two men were already dead.

I could feel my pulse, slow and regular, like the tick of a metronome.

Selene exhaled, long and silent. “Ready?”

“Always.”

The clock struck midnight.