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Alex smiled. “Like taking shots.” He mimed tossing it back.

The room had gone very quiet.

Ashley’s eyes bounced between Alex and Ken. The playfulness had drained from her posture. She’d gone still, watching him differently now—like he’d said something he shouldn’t know.

Manny took a step forward, his fists clenching, but Ashley raised her hand at him without looking at him. She settled on Alex and pointed to her left collarbone. “Where’s your talon?”

The question hit a nerve Alex didn’t know was still exposed. Nobody had asked him to prove his branding in years—the mark he’d sworn to erase from his identity. But Ashley wasn’t asking out of curiosity. She was asking because the answer determined whether she trusted him or called for backup.

He pulled down his collar, exposing the left side of his chest.

The faded talon, a grisly eagle’s claw slashed across his heart, sat where it always did. Permanent. From the corner of his eye, Manny went rigid.

Alex pulled his shirt collar back and nodded towards him. “¿Que tal?”

Manny stiffened. His mouth opened, then closed. “No mucho,” he managed.

Alex smirked at his pathetic nervousness. “Seems like a different assignment than keeping watch at the Nest,” he said in Spanish, reclining against the couch. “Does Rafael know you’re here?”

Alex watched Manny’s face cycle through confusion, calculation, and then—landing like a brick—recognition. His thick lips parted. “Aguila? Junior?”

The name hit Alex like acid in his veins. Junior. Of every title the gang had pinned on him, that one was the leash he’d spent years gnawing through. His fists tightened until his knuckles ached.

Ashley’s head tilted. “Junior?” she repeated, the word dripping with amusement.

Hearing that name from her mouth, someone who had no right to it, sent something white-hot through Alex’s chest. He lunged forward. “Say it again,” he snarled, close enough that Ashley pressed herself into the couch cushion. “I fucking dare you.”

A click.

Alex froze. Manny’s hand came up from his waistband—black barrel, dead level with Alex’s forehead.

Alex didn’t even see Ken leave his seat. One second Manny had the gun—the next he was thrown on the tile by the wrist, the gun skittering toward the desk. Ken scooped it up, dropped a knee onto Manny's arm, and pressed the barrel between his eyes.

“Don’t move,” Ken growled. Manny’s hands shot up, palms open, breathing hard through his teeth.

Alex let out a low whistle. He’d seen Ken’s speed once before—the rope in the garage—but this was a different animal entirely. His heart pounded at the thought that one day that could happen to him. “Damn bro, remind me not to piss you off.”

Eyes widening, Ashley stirred in her seat, one hand clutching the couch cushion, the other scrambling for the phone in her back pocket.

“Ey yo, kitty-cat,” Alex called out to a jittery and sweaty Ashley, knuckles white from clutching the phone. He stood up, smacked the phone out of her hands, and sent it flying towards the boxes. Then he straightened, unhurried, hands in his sweater pockets, one foot up on the glass coffee table.

“Since you and that Hatchling figured out who I am, tell me.” He leaned in closer, and she pressed herself into the corner of the couch with nowhere to hide. “The Garras made a pact to never touch Durden again. So why the fuck are you selling it to them?”

“Don’t answer him!” Manny yelled.

Ken jabbed the barrel into Manny’s cheek hard enough to turn his head.

“Just you and me, kitty-cat.” Alex crouched to her eye level. “So tell me, why the fuck are the Garras dealing with an outsider like you?”

“You ain’t one of us no more, foo,” mumbled Manny with a huffed laugh.

Alex was about to throw himself at Manny to shut him up when Ken whacked him again. “If she won’t say anything, then you talk,” Ken demanded.

Alex took Ken’s lead and turned his attention towards Manny. He leaned closer, elbow on knee, close enough that Manny could see every detail of his expression. The smile Alex wore wasn’t friendly. It was the one Rafael had taught him—the one that made people talk before the first question was finished. “Let’s play a game, homie. Twenty questions.”

He pointed at himself. “I ask the questions.”

Then he pointed at a livid Manny. “You answer yes or no.”