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The masked man pushed open the door so hard, Jun thought it would come off its hinges. He got out and swung the backseat door open. Luis curled into a ball when the masked man grabbed both of his wrists. The veins protruded from the man’s hand as he dragged Luis out.

Luis screamed at the top of his lungs, begging into the night. He squirmed, skinny legs trying to run back to the car, but he was no match for the masked man’s brute strength.

The man dragged him to the stacked garbage bags beside the commercial trash bins. In one fluid motion, he flung Luis like a rag doll into a dumpster. Bags exploded. Dirty debris covered Luis as he became one with the trash.

The masked man wiped his hands on his jeans as he strutted back to the car. After getting into the passenger seat and closing the door, he turned to Jun and winked at him. “Thanks for helping me out.”

Jun couldn’t look at the dumpster. He stared ahead, pulse hammering. The man discarded Luis like he was nothing—and now Jun was sitting in the seat Luis used to occupy. The realization crawled over him.

“You’re welcome,” he muttered, because he didn’t know what else to say.

The masked man pointed towards the street, signaling Jun to go. He obeyed without question, tires rolled smoothly onto the asphalt.

In the rearview, Luis stumbled up, then tripped—already shrinking in the distance. Jun pulled his eyes back to the road. The man gave directions the whole way, steering Jun towards the nearest freeway exit.

“So now that he’s out, I got an open spot for a new driver!” The masked man chuckled. Jun could feel his eyes on him as he concentrated on the road. “I’ll pay you handsomely,” he remarked.

Jun tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “What if what I want isn’t money?”

The masked man studied him. Jun surprised himself too. He hadn’t planned to say that. He wasn’t Alex. He would never carry himself the way Alex did. But that didn’t mean he had to wait for Alex to carry him, either.

The masked man huffed a laugh. “Then what is it that you want?”

They stopped at a red light. The intersection was empty—no cars, no movement, just the two of them suspended in the quiet. It gave Jun a moment to think.

He swallowed. A streetlight glow slid across the dashboard as he weighed it. Reading between the lines had never been Jun’s strength, least of all in English. But he understood this much: The man wasn’t asking. He was commanding.

He inhaled slowly. “A person I’m looking for. Think you can get me them?”

The light turned green.

The man scoffed under his mask. “That’s a hell of a high demand, I’ll give you that.”

Neither of them spoke. The freeway hummed beneath the tires, the city lights scrolling past like a film reel neither of them was watching. Silence blanketed the car as he drove. It wasn’t till he turned onto the freeway that the man spoke again.

“Tell you what. You keep this car. Bring it back tomorrow. There’s an appointment I gotta take care of next week, and if you bring it back to do the deliveries, that’s how I know you’re in. Do the job, and I’ll tell you whatever you want. And a bonus here and there.”

A chill ran through Jun’s body. The offer sounded too easy. Almost too good to be true. He had to keep his guard up.

“Why should I trust you if you can’t even guarantee the information right away?” Jun challenged.

“Feisty, aren’t ’cha?” The man laughed and swatted the headrest beside Jun’s head—close enough to make him flinch. “Trust me. If I can’t get it myself, I know someone who can. My network runs deep in this city.”

Crossing his arms, he settled back and set his gaze on Jun. “For example, if you took off with my car, I’ve got the connections to find you.” Despite not looking back at him, Jun could feel the man’s dark brown eyes burning through him as they sped down the freeway. “Think about it.”

“And if I say no?” Jun said, then blinked, startled that he’d said it out loud.

The masked man laughed again, facing forward. “Oh no, you will. You want to find this person badly,” he remarked. “I know a bluff when I see one.”

The city lights smeared in long white streaks as they drove on in silence. The stranger continued to murmur directions, and Jun followed them mechanically, his mind somewhere else entirely.

The man had offered him a job, a car, and the promise of answers—all in exchange for something Jun hadn’t fully agreed to yet. But the pull was there. If this man really did have connections, it could be the fastest route to clearing Ruki’s name. The question was what it would cost him.

The stranger pointed at a narrow road hidden on the mountainside. Jun turned carefully, the path curving from wild brush into smooth concrete walls draped with vines. The walls climbed higher as they went, towering over the car like a canyon in the middle of Beverly Hills.

The masked man pointed with his chin up as lights became brighter. “Here is good.”

They stopped in front of a large wooden gate decorated with black bolts across the middle. The doors creaked open. Beyond them, a white stone driveway snaked up a massive modern mansion—stacked concrete and towering glass, lit warm from the inside.