Get out of jail, get yet another crappy criminal henchman job, get his hotshot lawyer ex-girlfriend back. Oh yeah -- and get a murderous demon exorcised from his head. Jason Torres has his route back from rock-bottom perfectly planned out, right? Th...
I stood and slapped my palms on the table, towering over Sylvia. "Are you gonna charge me with anything, or is this unlawful arrest?"
Sylvia shrank away across the room. "Fine, go. But please think about what I said." She turned back to me, absentmindedly twirling her engagement ring around her finger. "I know what it's like to want someone, to see them every day, and to know that you can't ever have them. But sometimes that's—"
"Don't fucking compare Dante and me to whatever fucked-up shit you have with Hamish McCloud."
Sylvia curled in on herself, as if warding off a blow. She murmured into her chest, "Just go."
"I'm sorry, Sylvia." I shuffled around the interview table toward her, but she shrank further away from me. "I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."
"I wish I didn't have to say this, Jason. If you don't leave Dante alone, I'll see you back in this interview room very soon, and I'll say I told you so. And, you'll willingly tell me everything that happened to you in Alcor."
"Stay away from me and Dante." I tugged at the interview room door's creaky handle. "I'll look for another apartment. I don't wanna stay with you anymore."
Sylvia wasn't gonna threaten me and Dante, ever. Nor was she gonna find out what I'd done.
Ever.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
ESTRELLA BARRIO, MARÍA, November 26
Dante slammed open the door of the first airless little taqueria that we came to, one of dozens that dotted Estrella's portside streets. He slid along a bench and lay his head on the table, cocooning himself under hoodie sleeves.
I flashed an apologetic smile at the waitress then sat close, my fingertips running in gentle strokes over Dante's clenched knuckles. His grip loosened.
"Better?"
A mumble broke from under a fraying hoodie cuff. "A little."
"I wanna see you."
Pretty eyes peeked out from between folded arms. "I'm sorry I ruined it."
I eased up Dante's hoodie sleeve a touch and brushed his wrist, fingertips chasing his trippy pulse. "Nothing to be sorry about."
He didn't shrink away but his hands trembled, as if Stephanie Grey's ghost was hovering next to him demanding why he'd honored her memory by sleeping with a killer.
Not that things were gonna go in that direction any time soon.
I'd showed up at Dante's too fucking eager to touch, taste, breathe in all of him. But Dante had panicked, hard, the moment I'd gotten close. Every attempt to hold him, to kiss him, to slip a hand up his T-shirt, to do fucking anything and he'd scramble away, a hyperventilating wreck clutching at his chest like I'd just stabbed him in the heart. I'd figured that the hubbub of a taqueria might be a safe place to abort mission, but somehow Dante's defeat was even harder to witness than his panic.
