MARÍA POLICE DEPARTMENT, October 24
Rayan flicked the latch of the confiscation box and threw open the lid. His eyes lit up like a cabin boy sneaking a peek at the captain's treasure.
Pistols, revolvers, flick-knives, knuckledusters, kukris, machetes. Years ago I'd have given anything to own this much hardware. Now it gave me nothing but sweaty crawling nausea.
Rayan's hand teetered at the edge of the box, afraid to touch its contents. "Did you train with any of these?"
"All of them, and more." I began to sort through the jumble of murderous black steel like a grandma rifling through clothes hangers at a thrift store. My eyes alighted on a familiar circular steel box. "Hey! These are mine!"
I snatched up the pancake of a box and twisted it open. Inside sat three throwing stars, each inscribed with the tiniest writing.
"Must have been confiscated when you were arrested." Rayan squinted at the miniscule text. "Incendiary, buzz-saw, tracker?"
"My Alcor initiation gift. I never used them."
"I get the incendiary star; it blows shit up. The buzz-saw star starts cutting once it embeds into something, but what about the tracker?"
"Throw it somewhere discreet on a vehicle, or slip it into someone's bag," I snapped shut the box, "and you can track wherever they go."
Rayan's look of delight turned devious. "I'll let you take your stars back...if I can have the incendiary one."
"No fucking way, acho. Sylvia'd have my nuts for earrings if I steal this illegal shit back."
"Please, man!" Rayan grabbed the box, stroking it like a pilgrim at the Hajar al-Aswad. "My Dad never lets me near cool shit like this."
I plucked the box outta his hand and stuffed it into the pocket of my María PD regulation sweats. "Because he's a good Dad."
Dejected didn't begin to describe Rayan's face. "Fine. I'm gonna run reports for Gabi," he muttered.
Fucking Saudi kids. Why did they have to be so emotional and cow-eyed and whiny?
"Fine." I fished a star outta my sweats. "Take the tracker."
"The tracker?" Rayan squealed in teenage indignation. "That's the shittiest one!"
"Take it or leave it," I said, flipping the star between my knuckles. "I'm gonna be late for my parole interview."
After long moments of scrunchy-faced deliberation and exasperated sighing, the little punk held out a hand. "Thanks, Jay. I'm borrowing the incendiary star next time, right?"
"Ain't gonna be no next time, acho." I wrapped the star in a kleenex and pressed it into Rayan's palm.
"Great." He slid the tiny package into his sock, his whole body a huffing puffing scowl in motion. "Track me if I get lost on my way to the candy store."
His eyes then caught something else glittering in the black box of aggravated assault.
He lifted out a box-cutter. "My Dad lets me use these!"
Encased in orange plastic, totally ineffective as a weapon, but somehow the box-cutter had my background nausea suddenly whipping into a raging storm.
My scar began to pulse with agony.
"Put that down, man," I wheezed, my insides rolling. I squeezed my eyes shut but it was like the box-cutter blade was burned onto my retinas. Screaming pain tore through my scar.
"The Red Demon's weapon was a kris, man!" Rayan brought the evil little blade closer. "Why are you scared of a tiny box-cutter?"
My scar throbbed with scalding agony that almost sent me to my knees. I stumbled against the desk, sending flick-knives and pistols scattering.
"Ya rab!" Rayan dropped the box-cutter back into the depths of the box and lunged for me. He wrapped a skinny arm around my waist before my head hit the tabletop. "You OK, man?"
The pills weren't working. My insides swirled, and my grip on reality slipped little by little.
"Rayan...run!"
Whatever tenuous hold I had on my own mind wasn't enough.
Blackout.
A gentle voice startled me.
An unexpected, beautiful vision appeared before my eyes. The silhouette of an elegant man. An angel sent by the enemy to temper my rage. The angel's voice faltered, but his words were soothing. Little did he know that he was trying to calm the Demon itself.
The angel was nothing but a specter, a trick, a target.
I attacked.
"Jason?"
Two pairs of frantic eyes peeped outta the dark, one black pair, one hazel.
"Rayan!" I blinked away curls of white fog. Still half-blind, I patted Rayan's limbs. "Are you bleeding?"
"I'm fine, man!" Rayan shrugged outta my grip. "You were rolling on the floor screaming. Debs helped wake you up."
The hazel eyes blinked at me, my vision clearing to reveal the rest of Debs. Red hair, eyeglasses, cute blouse up top, sweats and fluffy socks with teddy bear ears poking outta her wheelchair blanket down below.
"I'm Debs, your parole officer."
Fuck.
What madness had Debs just seen? I shook her hand way too enthusiastically for a non-crazy person. "Sylvia gave me pills for the blackouts. I'm getting better."
"It's OK, Jason." Debs waved a stack of papers at me. "We just need a positive report from the officer leading the Alcor case, and you'll complete parole early."
"Oh. Damn."
Dante Russo was leading the case.
Early release suddenly seemed like a distant dream. I'd stolen Dante's spot at the clock tower. I'd almost fucked up his intel collection at Vogel. I'd even hit on him. No way was he gonna give me a good parole report.
"You can't blame Dante for hating this situation."
"Look, he was the one checking me out—"
"No, Jason." Debs peered at me over her glasses. "Nobody told you?"
"Told me what?"
"The CIA agent, Stephanie Grey, killed by Alcor just over a year ago. The whole reason the Alcor case is open. Well...she was Dante's girlfriend."
Dante's girlfriend.
It couldn't be.
Dante's girlfriend had been killed by Alcor. Devastated didn't begin to describe how Dante musta felt. How would I have taken things if Leila had been ripped away from me forever like that? The very thought of it had my heart untethering from my chest.
"What..." I covered my face, a shockwave of shivers rattling through me, "...what happened?"
"Steph was doing reconnaissance on Alcor in Saudi and...local police found her in a warehouse, zip-tied and shot in the back of the head. They confirmed that her death was typical of Alcor warning kills.
"Everyone loved Steph. She was like sunshine around María PD. Dante's been obsessed over the past year, working like crazy to find evidence to indict Alcor leaders and get them tried in an international court. Not like he can even find out who Alcor's leaders are. Everyone's so worried about him."
Shakes hit me something fierce. I wrapped my arms around myself. "That's why everyone's been stressing about me working with Dante. That's why he can't bear to be near me. I'm Alcor. Every time he looks at me, he sees...his girlfriend's killers."
Dante truly had been looking at my scar, maybe even my Alcor tattoo, when he watched me changing. I was the face of the crime family that killed his girlfriend.
"He'd bought Steph a ring. He was going to propose when she got home from Riyadh, but..." Debs swatted away a stray tear.
So, Dante visited that quiet spot high up on the clock tower to grieve for his fiancée. Cooperation with a paroled Alcor operative musta been torment for him.
"I did something bad yesterday, Debs." I shook my head at my bungling fucking idiocy. "I...I tried to...proposition Dante. He ran away. He musta thought I was mocking him. I'm such an idiot."
"Dante will come around." Debs pressed a concerned hand to my wrist. "Is there anything I can do for you today?"
"Rayan's been trying to find my Mom. She's not home, or picking up her phone. I'm worried she's with some sketchy guy."
"I'll ask San Diego PD to send me an update. I'll let you know."
How dumb I'd been, blundering into something too big for me to understand. The ghost of Stephanie Grey had been haunting my every interaction with Dante. Me showing up in María musta made Dante feel like he was losing Steph all over again.
I didn't think it was possible to hate her more than I already did. But my body fucking reverberated with newly-kindled hatred for her, for ending Stephanie Grey's life. For destroying Dante's life. María PD needed to dismantle Alcor.
123B Moreno Drive, October 24
Sylvia paced back and forth along her fluffy lilac rug with her phone pressed to her ear, the occasional "yeah" and "uh-huh" coming forth. A terrified black cat wound between her legs as she paced, yet somehow Sylvia didn't fall flat on her face.
From what I could glean from the phone call, Sylvia was getting shit from her fiancé about me staying with her. The fiancé whose old clothes I was currently swaddled in. Kinda wished she'd broken the news to him before she'd dumped all his clothes onto the bed and suggested I try them on.
Sylvia's guest room was a powder puff of lilac lacquered furniture and matching drapes. Her kitchen was dotted with scratching posts and kitty toys. The fridge was pretty-much empty save packets of cat food.
"Your man seems kinda big." I held up my dangling shirt cuffs. "Like, steroids-big."
"Slinky? Diablo? Where are you?"
Sylvia collapsed into the bedside chair and dangled a kleenex at her feet. Two pairs of green kitty eyes peeped out from under the bed. But their fear of me was overridden by the dancing white kleenex square, which they ripped to shreds before zipping back under the bed.
"I got you a security job at the McCloud Steelworks. Community Service wages, but since you're not paying me rent you'll be free to..." Sylvia's eyes scrolled up and down my torso as I slid her boyfriend's old shirt off, "...buy all the protein shakes you want."
I shrugged on another shirt and buttoned it at lightning speed. Under normal circumstances I'd have preened under the attention, but the last time a police officer supposedly checked me out didn't end well.
I knotted a silk tie sloppily over my shirt collar. "Does your man not own a single hoodie?"
Sylvia clapped manicured hands. "You look perfect for tonight, Jason."
"Tonight?"
"You and Dante are collecting intel."
"Only if Dante is OK with that."
"Trust me, Jason. This is the fastest way. We get our intel, you get your parole, Alcor gets dismantled. Then you're free to buy a motorcycle and serenade Leila Abdelli."
"I'm not doing this for a fucking motorcycle."
"Oh, Lover! There you are!" Sylvia dragged yet another cat from under her chair and held it high over her head. Three jealous miaows rang out from the bed.
"Casper Vogel owns an apartment and hotel building on Huertas Island. Dante's surveillance showed two Vogel goods-handlers driving there. We can't get a warrant for raiding the hotel without evidence of a crime. You'll both pose as hotel guests, and steal any wall-mounted electronic employee swipe-card system you can find in the hotel. We'll then have evidence of which official hotel workers are also delivering Alcor shipping containers to Vogel at night."
"Evidence that Casper Vogel is paying them for moonlighting? Tax evasion? That's lame."
Sylvia grinned. "Tax evasion is illegal activity. It's a start."
"Fine. I'll just guard Dante while he does all his ninja hacker shit."
Sylvia sashayed over and pulled at my tie. "You're good at ties."
"Used to work for Don Genovese. Looking good in an Italian suit was half the job. What is it with women and suits?"
Sylvia scooped up Lover from the bed. "Money, Jason."
☆☆☆☆☆☆
My scar pulsed with its familiar scalding heat as I watched Dante typing into what looked like a cellphone with color-coded wires, ports and jacks spider-legging out of it.
"T-minus what?"
It was so obvious that Dante couldn't even look at me. He'd focus on my shoulder when we talked, his muscles taut and his eyes wide. Like being around me caused him the most intense pain.
"We still got a few minutes. Gabi made some fake I.D. One. We stash these bags on the fortieth floor. Two. We blend into the fundraiser party on the thirtieth floor ballroom. Three. I get the swipe-card box, while you look out for anyone you recognize from Alcor's leaders. Four. We get outta there."
"I'm not gonna fuck anything up this time. You're the boss."
Dante's eyebrows jumped. He hadn't expected me to be cooperative.
"I...I'm so sorry about what happened the day we met. Messing up your Vogel intel plan, and...harassing you. I was...a total fucking idiot. I shoulda apologized right then. And, I've given up my spot on the clock tower. It's yours."
"When did you find it?"
"When I was sixteen."
"Way before I did. It's yours, Red Demon."
"No. I want you to have it. I don't deserve it." My scar's rhythmic throbbing dimmed as I spoke. "I...I used to...be a pickpocket. When I was a teenager. It's been years but...when I saw your ring in the box at the clock tower, I was so tempted to steal it. Maybe I wasn't seriously gonna do it. But I thought about it. I've been such an asshole to you these past days. I'm sorry. Debs...told me about Stephanie today. I'm so sorry, Dante. For what Alcor did. I'm sorry that you have to work with me."
As if in acceptance of the apology, Dante took out his phone. The lock-screen was a photo of a woman. Blondish hair, pretty. Not my type, but her smile made her beautiful. Like she loved the photographer.
"Debs talked about her like...she was the sun shining on everyone at María PD."
"She was." Dante's throat rolled with unshed tears. "I need to get this case to an international court."
"I'll help you get justice. Anything you need from me to take down Alcor, just ask."
"OK."
"I know I'm...creepy, and stupid, and violent. I'll keep outta your way. I should stay away from you all." Unsure how it had happened, I'd begun to recount it all. Every revolting little thing about me. "I get these blackouts. I don't know if Sylvia told anyone. I black out, and when I wake up...I've hurt someone. Or lots of people. I'm living with Sylvia and I'm scared I'll...I wanna find my Mom and go live with her in San Diego. But I might hurt her too. I'm not safe...for anyone."
"Sylvia will work something out, Red Demon." Dante nodded, almost imperceptibly, like he was convincing the both of us. "She always does."
"She gave me pills but I don't know if...if my brain is too fucked up to get fixed."
Dante fell back to his work, elegant eyebrows twisting as he clipped at colored cables with pliers. "You just need to rest, Red Demon."
"I'm rested."
"I mean your soul needs to rest. Sounds like you haven't had peace in a while."
I chuckled at that. Dante Russo, who lost his soulmate to Alcor, wishing the Red Demon peace. "Guess you haven't had peace since I first showed up at your clock tower."
"I told you. You found it first. It's yours." Beautiful eyes met mine for the briefest second. The first time Dante had ever looked at me. "Besides, I could use the company up there."
The suits and the fake I.D. worked a charm. By the time I'd stowed my wallet and scrambled up the hotel steps, Dante had melted into the fundraiser crowd. I bustled after him, dodging celebrities' elbows and teetering trays of martinis as I went.
"I'm going for the card-scanner," Dante hissed into my lapel. "Lie low. Look for Alcor. Fortieth floor in ten."
Lie low. Easy for him to say. Dante seemed to fit in so well, a beautiful VIP declining canapés with a charming tilt of the head as he swanned past Casper Vogel, Hamish McCloud, Constance Lyons and the gaggle of other shady one percent assholes sipping champagne and pretending they were philanthropists. Steelworks, breweries, automotive factories, pharmaceuticals: between them Vogel, Lyons and McCloud owned almost everything—and probably everyone—in María.
I'd seen Lyons and Vogel on TV dozens of times, but what had made reclusive billionaire McCloud venture out from his bunker? Did he have a stake in Alcor's mystery tech? Figured that the mogul that kept furthest outta the limelight would have the most secrets.
Another turn of the room and Dante had disappeared completely. I surveyed the guests for any hint of Alcor, not that she'd show her face in the States, ever. She was too clever for that. Too cautious.
Edging around a cluster of celebrities, I caught them fawning over an engagement ring. My eyes ran up the arm of the ring's owner. A sparkly dress, curly hair, a face with regal beauty.
Leila.
She looked different. Radiant, somehow.
She sat at a table, canapé in hand, the chandelier lights reflecting off the gargantuan diamond weighing down her finger. She'd always had money, but this was truly her crowd now. Yves Faisant stood next to her, droning on to a bored-looking old dude in tweed.
"Jason?" she mouthed over the jazz band and the chatter, gesturing at me to join her at the table. She looked so fucking amazing that all I could do was stare.
When my faculties returned, I put a foot forward. I needed this. This was my only chance to convince Leila that she had something with me that she could never get with Yves Faisant: chemistry. We were from different worlds, but that hadn't stopped us from being together three years back, and wouldn't again. Leila got me. I got her. We worked.
But I was on a mission. Dante was my boss for the night. We were on point three of the four-point plan.
Fuck.
I had to go. But, if Leila was still hot for me, I knew where her office was. Wouldn't take a second to stroll over there and remind her what we'd had. Our forever could wait another day. I gave my future wife a little wave and left for the fortieth floor.
Dante wasn't there. Two minutes of total fucking panic later, I saw him slinking along the corridor, a cuboid bulge around the size of a swipe-card data box under his suit jacket.
Bingo. We had the entry and exit times for every Vogel worker in the hotel, including those moonlighting for Alcor.
Just as Dante reached me, two Vogel security guards busted outta the elevators.
"Let's go, Red Demon." Dante led me around the corner where a colossal potted palm hid two small backpacks against the doors to the hotel's roof. He slid one backpack onto his back, throwing me the other.
I stared at him, terror-stricken. "Go where? We're on the fortieth floor!"
Dante smiled.
OK, so I was absolutely, definitely gonna get back with Leila. But damn. I'd never seen Dante smile, and his beauty nearly fucking floored me.
"Pull your cord when I tell you." Dante kicked open the alarmed roof doors. "Trust me."
My ears felt like they were being ripped out by the blare of the roof-alarm as Dante dragged me across rain-soaked roofing sheets, the two security guards meters away.
We jumped.
A distant voice called, but with the the terror and the adrenaline and the whooshing of the wind in my ears, I couldn't make out the words.
"Pull your cord!"
I pulled. Probably way too late.
Fuck.
We coulda been at the thirtieth floor or the third floor when my parachute opened. The whooshing became a hiss, and I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, scrambling under my crumpled parachute.
No pain, no blood. I was whole. I'd made it.
"Enjoy losing your base-jump virginity, Red Demon?" Amazing, magnificent, fucking badass Dante Russo held out a hand and dragged me to my feet.
Parachute nylon swirling around me, half-insane with adrenaline, I managed to choke out, "Let's do it again."
☆☆☆☆☆
Best night ever. I hadn't fucked up the plan because Sylvia and Dante had only told me half of it.
I slopped cat food into four bowls, topped up water and checked cat-flaps. My phone buzzed along the lilac table, probably Sylvia reminding me to feed the cats. Kinky, Motherfucker, and whatever the other two kitties were called, were nowhere to be found.
The phone-screen lit up: Debs. Why was my parole officer calling me at one AM?
"Hey, Debs."
"Jason, I'm so sorry."
"What's happened?"
"San Diego PD found your Mom earlier tonight. I'm so sorry, Jason. She's dead."
Translations:
Acho - Puerto Rican Spanish, slang, "man" (abbreviation of muchacho, "young man")
Ya rab - Arabic, "oh my God"
Hajar al-Aswad - the sacred black stone set into the Kabaa in Mecca. It's a site for pilgrimage and used to be stroked by pilgrims as part of their worship.