250A Malvinas Avenue, October 27
A crazy desperate thirst drove me from Dante's bed. My head felt like it was packed with cotton balls. My back pulsed with a dull rhythmic throbbing that no amount of Advil could numb.
Dante's room was spotless; no sign of the night's chaos save his bloodied rug rolled tight against the wall, and a rusty spot on his bedsheets where my bandage had leaked. Cannibalized laptops and modems littered one side of the spartan bedroom. A gray toolbox lay open on the desk, its contents scattered around what Dante had apparently been working on while I'd slept: a tiny silicone-encased ball attached to a delicate optic fiber. A secret camera.
I stepped back from the high-tech toys on the desk with a sinking feeling. If intelligent, well-equipped and determined Dante Russo hadn't taken down Alcor in a year, how the fuck could I, with nothing but two throwing stars and a death-wish?
Next to Dante's modified micro-camera lay a boxcutter, a little column of sharp steel sheathed in yellow-and-black plastic. As tiny as it was, the sight of it sent white-hot bolts of pain shooting through my scar. I tore my eyes away and stumbled against the closet with my head in a whirl and my scar scorching like a burning coal.
The number of bottom-rung, disposable henchmen I'd mangled with my kris in the depths of a demon-frenzy, yet the sight of a pissy little boxcutter made me cower like the worst of them, my scar aflame and sweat-beads trickling.
A boxcutter must have been how they'd done it. Short of weapons, Sergeant Kate Jones's Marine Corps sadists had probably sliced open my brachial artery with whatever packaging tools had lain abandoned in the warehouse in Jeddah.
Slow, steeling breaths calmed me the fuck down enough to peel my scantily-clad self off the closet door. I needed clothes. Dante wore the most beat-up clothes ever, so my jaw dropped when I opened his closet onto multiple boxes of Nikes with sweet colorways, T-shirts with vivid designs, and stylish hoodies. The guy owned the sickest clothes but dressed in faded threadbare shit through choice, not poverty like me, at least until Hamish McCloud's cast-off business-casual showed up in my life.
I wrestled on a green T-shirt and gray sweats from a clothes pile that was freestyling on the closet floor. The T-shirt looked sprayed on, and the sweats sat tight on my hips, my Alcor tattoo winking at me in the bathroom mirror as I threw glass after glass of water down my neck.
The tunnel vision of the night gave way to a pleasant noontime view; Dante's apartment was airy and stylish, like it was rented by a grown-ass dude, not some twenty-six-year-old gargoyle-climber. I shuffled past a set of photos on the hallway wall: Steph and Dante in front of a waterfall, Debs giving a thumbs-up to the camera.
Debs? Why was my parole officer's picture on Dante's wall? My eyes lingered on the photos while I strode on toward the kitchen.
And straight into a man.
Our heads knocked together with a hollow crack. The man reeled along the counter into a crouch while I staggered backward. The room spun around me until I got my bearings.
He was wearing an Italian suit. Not an everyday office rat, this guy was suave. He eyed me with the confident gaze of the one percent. Dante didn't tell me he had a brother.
Maybe in his mid-thirties, big bro had Dante's eyes and Dante's elegant stance. But, although he was fine as hell, he didn't possess that effortless beauty that Dante had. Coal-black Romani eyes scanned upward, taking in my bare feet, Dante's tight-ass clothes, my dozy red-eyed stare.
"Hi." I gave him an apologetic smile. "Dante's at work. He said it was OK for me to grab some cereal–"
"Don't mind me, pal!" Homeboy sidled away from the counter, flicking open a cupboard and pulling out a box of granola with suspicious agility as he passed. "All yours."
He held out a slim hand while I fumbled with the granola, trying to stay upright. A giddy smile grew and shrunk on his face, like he could barely contain his delight at finding a big ole Boricua in his baby bro's bed.
"Vincenzo Russo. Vinnie. I'm Dante's cousin."
"Jay." I shook his hand with as much gusto as I could manage without shit getting spinny. "I know Dante...from work."
"Great to meet you, Jay. Really proud of you guys at María PD. Come have dinner with us soon."
"Thanks, Vinnie. I'd love that." I reached for the milk nestled in the fridge door. Dante's sweats rode lower on my hips as I stretched.
Vinnie bellowed out a wail that sounded like a wounded beast.
The shriek scared the fuck outta me, sending me cowering against the counter. Milk glugged onto the floor. Vinnie leaped backward, his hand slipping into a drawer behind him at lighting-speed and emerging with...was that a butcher blade?
I set down the carton and stepped outta the milky puddle, shooting my palms in the air. "Vinnie?"
But the dude's eyeballs were fixed on my torso and blazing with so much fiery hatred that he coulda incinerated my guts with a stare. I glanced down the expanse of caramel skin and wiry hair at my waist.
Fuck. Vinnie was staring at my Alcor tattoo.
He replied in a genial, carefree tone, like he totally didn't plan to cleave off my head. "You're going to tell me exactly what you're doing to my cousin, Red Demon."
Shorter and thinner than me, I'd have taken him in two moves if I hadn't been freshly-shot and wobbly. Besides, beneath all that suave confidence, I could make out a dark kernel of terror in Vinnie's eyes. Terror that Dante was being forced to endure the Red Demon for the sake of the Alcor case.
He followed me along the counter with that same jolly expression, the butcher blade gleaming as he waved it back and forth in front of my nose.
I found myself inching backward with my hands in the air. My head started to whirl with nausea. "It's not like that! We're doing fieldwork for..."
Too late. My knees turned to mush under me. I crumpled to the floor.
The blade fell still. "Red Demon?"
Woozy with blood loss, black wisps started to crowd my vision. "I'm good. Just a scratch."
Vinnie tugged at my T-shirt and prodded at my bandage. "Who did this?"
God damn it, Vinnie. I didn't have the energy to lie.
"Vogel. I found intel connecting them to Alcor. They shot me. Dante fixed me up last night."
Vinnie's face was set like concrete. "This is what's going to happen. I'm going back to work. I'm going to let you rest enough to get your shit together. And then, you're going to leave this house, stay away from my cousin, and stay away from the Alcor case. Do you understand, Red Demon?"
"Yessir!"
Vinnie Russo disappeared beyond my peripheral vision. The front door slammed, making me jump so high that I thought I'd popped a stitch. Minutes later the stars decorating my vision cleared enough for me to uncurl on the kitchen floor. Still dizzy, I stumbled out the door and trudged downtown among the raincoats and umbrellas of the lunchtime crowds.
My head still light and my stomach tying knots in itself with hunger, I commiserated myself on a park bench outside Sylvia's cat-lair. He'd misunderstood our relationship, but Vinnie was right; Dante shouldn't have been forced to work with an ex-Alcor operative, and could never truly be friends with one. Besides, my time in María was ticking away. I was going to Riyadh to kill her, and possibly be killed. I didn't need friends. Especially not if I was likely to black out near Dante and...the thought of harming Dante in any way made my scar throb.
But, no matter how much I pushed it into the depths, one buoyant thought bobbed to the top of my brain's filthy pond, making my heart thud so hard that it hurt. For the briefest moment, Vinnie had been happy that his little primo was seeing a fellow cop. It meant only one thing: Dante Russo was officially, tantalizingly, gloriously not straight.

La Perla Negra, October 31
With a stitched gunshot wound in my back, I needed to avoid all physical activity, and to rest as much as possible. Which is why I found myself in the mosh-pit below La Perla Negra's main stage wearing a screeching girl on my shoulders and a nylon vampire cape that I'd found abandoned in the mens' room.
I hated punk, but damn, Black Dahlia were sure to win Battle of the Bands. Robby was killing it on the drums, meticulous with every snare, sixteenth, and cymbal-crash, yet somehow keeping up his Halloween band-persona of a lunatic caveman banging shit with a stick.
Sweat-drenched and tired of being a caped beast of burden, I jettisoned my wasted girl and my vampire cloak, and made my way to the chill-out rooms, the Black Dahlia vocalist's bat-pitched soprano whistling in my ear as I left.
A cavernous maze of industrial gray steel, tired sofas and four ganja-ridden dancefloors, I knew every sordid inch of La Perla Negra. Leila had hated me going there, but the Don would often do business in the back offices, leaving me in the corridor to witness María's club-going flotsam and jetsam.
I made my way to the chill-out room to catch a breath and paw away sweat, Hamish McCloud's borrowed white shirt glowing under the blacklights as I stepped toward the nearest empty sofa.
Holy shit.
Gabi and two women were sprawled on the floor. They threw me sloppy waves and doped-up smiles. They were chewing the insides of their cheeks and lips with manic energy. Closer inspection revealed that their pupils were dilated to fuck. Occasionally a tongue would lol on reflex, and they'd smile stupidly at each other before collapsing into a group-cuddle.
They were on pills, not that I had a fucking clue which. Pills were for stupid kids, not grown-ass women, police officers at that.
My eyes landed on the slim form of a man nestled behind Gabi. He slouched inelegantly in the dirt of the club, Gabi's hand in his, his other hand curled around a water bottle.
Holy double-shit.
I couldn't believe it. A familiar Romani guy, stunning despite the faded jeans and the sweater with a gaping hole in the elbow. He looked up at me, black eyes blinking slowly, like he was royally fucked outta his skull. "Hi, Jay."
He smiled one of his heart-stopping smiles, as if we were sharing a conspiracy. Nobody had the right to look so beautiful when high. My scar started to burn.
"C'mon," he said, springing up from the floor and pulling at my wrist.
My heart clambered up my ribcage and into my throat. Dante was taking me somewhere to be alone.
We crossed the corridor into a vast room littered with filthy sofas, bass reverberating through speakers, and our clothes glowing in blacklight-violet. Trashed clubbers in dollar-store Halloween outfits sprawled in groups, chatting animatedly and sipping at water, all of them grinning with that witless pill-smile.
Dante pulled me to a sofa and spun me around, wordlessly hitching my shirt up behind me. Soft fingers probed at my bandages. Of course. He'd gotten me alone to check my scar. Even when high in a club, Dante was always at work.
"No infection." Dante's tender fingers slowed down, exploring, like he was enjoying the sensation of prodding at my pain. "It's healing well."
"Man, that hurts," I whined.
"Sorry. Let's go back to Gabi." But he made no attempts to move. The room was beginning to fill with people, and he nestled into the sofa, as if staking a claim. "What did you see in Sirius Labs?"
I smiled at him. "More work-talk? Let's chill for a second."
"I am chill." Dante stuck out a long tongue, his mouth gaping and eyebrows working, as if he'd just tasted something incredibly bitter. Stupid pill-kids.
"Casper Vogel was making a presentation to a bunch of international billionaire types. A dude with a lamb stormed outta the room."
Dante's eyebrows raised into charming arches. "Did you overhear anything?"
"Only science words: hormonal instability and extracorporeal membrane."
Dante shook his head, clearly mystified. "I'll tell Sylvia that I collected that intel, not you. We'll get direct evidence of what they're up to. I'll take photographs of meetings to find out who Alcor and Vogel's buyers are. I'll hack Sirius Lab computers, data logs, equipment–"
"They'll be waiting for us this time."
"Us?" Dante chuckled into his holey sleeve. "No way I'm letting you go back there. They'll be looking for you. I'm going this time, with backup from María PD."
I was fine with that. I had no doubts that Dante would find whatever evidence he needed to implicate Alcor in a medical contraband case. I had to focus on ending her.
"I'm sorry about...your cousin's misunderstanding."
Dante put his head into his hands. "I'm the one who should apologize about Vinnie. I had no idea he'd be home. He's very...protective of me and Debs."
"Debs lives with you?"
"Yeah." Dante began to pick at the hole in his sweater. "She and Vinnie are getting married next year."
Black pill-blown eyes caught mine, making dangerous words fall outta my mouth before my brain could stuff them back in. "Your big primo seems pretty keen for you to date. He loved me when he thought I was just a devilishly handsome Puerto Rican cop, and not the Red Demon."
Dante didn't meet my daring little overture with uncomfortable silence. Instead, he laughed. And, of course, his laugh was even more enchanting than his smile. I covered my face with my hands to hide whatever smitten expression had been plastered there.
"Vinnie's been so worried about me since... He says I need a social life."
"He's not you, Dante. Only you know what you need. It's only been fourteen months since you lost Steph. Take your time. Sylvia will take down Alcor. You'll get closure. You'll wear those awesome clothes in your closet again. And if you still don't feel like a social life, that's OK."
Dante wrapped his arms around himself. "And if Alcor doesn't go down?"
"Then time will heal things. Same for me, and my Mom."
"Let's go back to Gabi."
But I wasn't ready to bust outta the little sofa-cocoon we'd made around each other. For a few brief moments I had the most beautiful man in the world all to myself. Couldn't blame me for not wanting to say goodbye. "Five more minutes, Dante."
"Sure."
Dante smiled away at the dancing light patterns on the opposite wall, which was daubed with a mural of flitting ghosts. His huge eyes were glazed over, his foot tapping to the music, as if enjoying Black Dahlia's new record playing in his head. As much as I hated drugs, I understood why Dante got high. For a brief hour or two, the pills had untethered Dante from grief and revenge. This was the most carefree that he could ever be in this post-Steph, post-Mamá purgatory we were both living in.
As I watched him, my heart began to beat with a strange rhythm of its own. Another fanboy reverie fluttered into my mind from somewhere, fragmented yet whole. My eighteen-year-old pickpocket ass leaping and springing my way up to my favorite secluded spot on the clock tower. I'd swing down onto the windy platform only to find a fellow teenage gargoyle-climber there. He'd smile serenely at me, black eyes shining.
"I'm Dante." He'd have a gentle voice, deeper than expected. "You found this spot first. It's yours."
I'd protest with a smile. "I'm Jay. It's not my spot anymore. It's ours."
What if we'd met years ago on the clock tower? What if I'd never taken the long descent toward Don Genovese? What if I'd never led Alcor to María, and to Mamá? What if Dante had never suffered the pain of losing Steph?
Freed from our own personal torments, could I have been worthy of Dante?
After long moments of being lost in the effects of the pill, Dante offered me another one of his heart-rending smiles, cow-eyes blinking like he couldn't quite bring me into focus. Then, his eyes locked onto mine, and widened with pleasure.
He gasped, his mouth opening into a gorgeous oh. A most delicious pill-wave of euphoria musta been washing over him. I kept gazing stupidly back at him. A trick of the pill that he'd taken, it looked so much like desire shining out of those eyes. But I knew that it couldn't be.
A meaty hand grabbed my shoulder, breaking my gaze. I turned to find Robby's flushed face inches from mine.
"We fucking did it! We got the thousand dollar prize money!"
Caveman-Robby hauled me off the sofa and into a deranged waltz. At the same time Gabi appeared outta nowhere and dropped onto the sofa, her ladies collapsing next to her and sharing out water bottles. Dante was lost in the chatter, our short-lived little spell broken.
Lost in the sweaty jumble of bodies on the dance floor, my first thought was to get Robby drunk enough to lend me his thousand dollars to buy a flight to Riyadh. But my second thought, and every thought after that, was of Dante.
It dawned on me that things hadn't been like this with Leila. I'd wanted to make her mine. She'd been a challenge, a game, a mountain to climb. But with Dante, I just wanted him to heal. Would going to Riyadh to kill her heal Dante, or send him further into grief?
Sat on a sofa with a wasted woman in the crook of each elbow, bass reverberating through my skull, I watched Robby lurch around the dancefloor with the other members of Black Dahlia.
I wanted quiet. I wanted the clock tower's platform. I wanted the silent warmth of my fellow gargoyle-climber's presence next to me.
Trapped in the web of my thoughts, I almost didn't notice when blackness rippled over my vision. I tried to shove away my sofa companions, but my limbs were suddenly anvils, my jaw grinding in an effort to warn the women to run.
My mind clawed at its tethers in terror, but nothing could stop the slide into unconsciousness.
Blackout.

Translations:
Boricua - Puerto Rican person, how Puerto Ricans refer to themselves
Primo - Spanish, cousin