Текст книги "Our Lady of the Ice"

Автор книги: Cassandra Clarke

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Sala’s neighborhood was exactly the sort of place you’d expect a Hope City bureaucrat to live. The houses here were tall and narrow and pressed close together, with small patchwork yards full of cheap grass and stunted Hope City trees. No one was out, despite the warmth on the air. Space-heater warm, almost. Eliana shrugged out of her coat and tossed it into the backseat of Essie’s car.

She walked the three blocks to Sala’s house.

It was nine thirty in the morning. Eliana had selected the time because she knew most of the people living in this neighborhood would be at work. Specifically, she figured Sala would be at work, hunched over his fancy atomic-powered robots. And she needed his house empty.

Breaking and entering wasn’t much of a crime for a girl who had grown up in the smokestack district, even though she knew it could get her license revoked and land her in jail for a few months. And normally she would have waited, just like Mr. Vasquez had taught her, biding her time and asking questions. But Lady Luna was paying her for speed as well as discretion, and so Eliana slipped back into her favorite secondary-school hobby.

Sala’s house looked like all the other houses, only his yard didn’t have any trees in it, just some patchy grass and a couple of empty flowerpots. Eliana walked around to the side of the house as if she lived there. A metal gate led into the back garden. It wasn’t locked. She stepped through the gate, letting it click shut behind her. The back garden was small and cramped and overgrown. Still nicer than Eliana’s crappy tenement apartment.

At the back door, Eliana slipped the metal file out of her purse. After a second or two of fumbling, the motions came back to her: insert, twist, flick your wrist. The lock snapped. Eliana pushed the door open and stepped inside, pocketing the file. At least she was wearing a pair of her mother’s cotton gloves. More than she’d ever remembered to do when she was younger.

The house was darkened, the air still. Not a lot of clutter. Eliana scanned the narrow living room, the dining room, and the kitchen and didn’t find anything. She went upstairs. A bedroom, an office, a bathroom. She went through the office first, shuffling through the papers stacked on the desk—mostly bank notices and check stubs from the city and a few memos about phone calls. Eliana looked at each memo closely. Juanita Villarreal, Hector Cabo. Phone numbers were scrawled across the bottom.

Something caught her eye.

Eliana tossed the memos aside. A matchbook lay on the desk, crammed up next to a cup of pens. Black background, a flame-colored flower twisting across the surface. It was the same design as the one on the sign at the Florencia, that popular bar on the edge of the docks.

A bar owned by Ignacio Cabrera.

Eliana flipped the matchbook over. Opened it. She didn’t find anything.

She was numb. Christ, if Cabrera already had the documents, Eliana would never be able to get them back. Not unless she asked Diego, and she knew what he would say—

Downstairs, a door slammed.

Eliana froze. All the breath poured out of her body. Footsteps echoed across the bottom floor.

Get out, she thought.

She slipped out of the office. The footsteps were still downstairs. She took a deep breath, trying to calm the rattle of her nerves. She’d done this before, been inside a house when the owner came home. A couple of times she’d even managed to escape.

She crept down the stairs, pressing her feet against the baseboards so they wouldn’t squeak. She went a couple of steps and stopped to listen. Silence. She went two more and stopped again. This time she heard the murmur of a voice. One voice. The occasional pause. Maybe he was on the telephone.

Eliana crept the rest of the way down. Nothing was waiting for her at the landing except a clear two-meter shot to the front door. She peered around the banister. Didn’t see anybody. But she could hear the voice more clearly now.

“—on the list today? . . . Listen, it’s imperative I hand it over directly. . . . No, I won’t tell you what it says. It’s for his eyes only—”

For a moment Eliana was torn. She knew she needed to get the fuck out of the house, but part of her wanted to linger, listen in on the conversation, see what she could learn.

Somewhere off to the side, a floorboard creaked.

Eliana’s whole body went cold. But the conversation hadn’t ended.

“I did all the work! I want the credit!”

Decision made. Eliana stepped off the last stair and walked quickly to the door, pulled it open, eased it shut.

The neighborhood was as empty as before.

The only difference was a car parked in the drive, small and cheap, the paint rubbed off in spots. Looked like a bureaucrat’s car.

Eliana walked down the pathway, her heart pounding in her ears. She went four houses down and then broke into a run, racing to the place where she’d left Essie’s car. She’d never moved so fast, jamming the key into the lock and then into the ignition. The engine roared. She gunned forward, pulling around to Sala’s house.

The car was still there.

She let out a long, adrenaline-fueled sigh of relief and slumped against her seat. She parked the car two houses down, next to a scrubby little oak tree. Switched off the engine. She had a clear enough view of Sala’s front door.

This, Mr. Vasquez had taught her to do.

Eliana regained her breath, and then she regained her thoughts. No documents in the house, but that conversation sounded like Sala had something. She supposed it could have been some city matter, but then why was he taking the phone call from home?

Sala’s front door banged open.

Eliana was seized with a brief, residual panic. For a moment she forgot what she was supposed to do and she just watched as a fussy, faded man locked the house door, pocketed his keys, and wound down the pathway. But he didn’t get into his car. He just stood by the gate, squinting down the street. Not in her direction.

Eliana took a deep breath and turned on the car engine. The faded man glanced at her, glanced away, uninterested.

Tucked under his arm was a slim brown envelope.

Documents, Eliana thought.

The distant whine of a car engine drifted around the corner. Eliana tried to melt into her seat. The faded man perked up, straightened his coat. Eliana was almost afraid to breathe.

At the end of the street, a car appeared. Long and sleek and low to the ground. A black paint job, dark tinted windows.

Eliana’s stomach clenched.

Cabrera. He controlled those cars, a whole fleet of them, Diego had told her, as ubiquitous as his reprogrammed robots. You saw one of those cars, you knew Cabrera’s men were up to something.

The car pulled up to the curb. The faded man stepped in. As soon as the door shut, the car flew past Eliana, exhaling white clouds of exhaust. She watched it go, her breath coming short and fast.

She didn’t think they’d noticed her.

She shifted her car into gear and turned around in the house’s driveway and followed them.

Eliana had never actually tailed anyone before. Mr. Vasquez had advised her against it, saying the city didn’t have enough vehicles on its roads to disguise you. And he was right. Eliana puttered along in Essie’s shambling little car, pressing on the brakes every time the black car loomed in her vision. At one point, the engine died, and the black car slid out of view.

“Fuck!” Eliana jostled the keys, pushed on the clutch. She’d never really gotten the hang of driving. Essie would kill her if she’d broken her car.

Better Essie than Cabrera, Eliana thought, although the words were in Diego’s voice.

The engine rattled to life. Eliana took a deep breath and moved forward along the empty street, then turned where the black car had turned. But it was gone.

The Florencia.

Of course. Where else would Cabrera do business?

Eliana pulled up to a stop sign. She rested her hands on top of the steering wheel, her palms slick with sweat. Her heart beat so fast, she thought she was going to be sick. But if Sala was headed to the Florencia, with that brown envelope in one hand—

Eliana thought about the money Lady Luna had laid out on her office desk. Enough to set aside twice what she usually did toward her savings to leave Hope City, even after she’d paid Maria and Essie. And that was just from her retainer.

The crossroad cleared. Eliana took a deep breath and shot forward into the intersection. She’d never driven to the Florencia before, but she knew its general location. And some city man had helpfully hung signs pointing her that way.

Ten minutes later, she was there.

Eliana parked in one of the paid lots, climbed out, locked the car. The wind whipped across her face, cold and damp. Real wind, blowing in through the entrances at the docks.

She stood for a moment, considering. Then she unlocked the car, pulled open the glove compartment. Her gun was tucked inside there, waiting. Bullets in it and everything. She pulled it out and stuck it into her purse.

The Florencia was located on a narrow side street lined with empty storefronts. Eliana knew the way from here, since Maria liked to dance at the Florencia now and then. Eliana was used to looking for it at night, though, when the name was lit up in garish neon and people spilled out onto the street, drunk and laughing. But during the day, you’d think the Florencia was as abandoned as its neighboring establishments, because of the barred-over windows and the cheap, peeling paint on the facade.

Friday and Saturday night might have been enough to turn this place respectable. Tuesday morning wasn’t.

The wind gusted as Eliana made her way down the street, moving closer toward the entrance, and she tucked her face into her scarf and listened to her breath and to her footsteps as she walked. Both echoed in the stillness.

A black car was parked in front of the bar. Eliana stopped and stared at it. She was aware of the weight of the gun in her purse. Not that she’d ever shot the thing at anything other than the targets at her licensing class.

She could still turn back. Call up Lady Luna, tell her Cabrera had her documents after all, Lady Luna would have to find someone else. But that would mean losing a hell of a lot of mainland money, and Sala was in the Florencia. Right now. Sala, and those damned documents.

Eliana reached into her purse and jerked back the safety on her gun. Then she pulled out her red lipstick and put it on. She needed to disguise herself as one of Cabrera’s girls.

No one guarded the Florencia door. Eliana pulled on the handle, expecting (hoping) it to be locked, surprising herself when it swung open with a long, low creak. Music tumbled out, a sad, dark drone. She stepped in. Most of the lights were off, the tables lit with little red candles. A girl danced up onstage, half her clothes spilled around her feet. She had more of an audience than Eliana would have expected.

“Can I help you?”

Eliana startled at the voice. She looked over and found a well-styled little man standing beside a stack of menus.

“Um, I’m meeting somebody.” Eliana scanned the dining room. It was too dark to see, and she hadn’t gotten that good a look at Sala’s face. “I see him. There.” She pointed in a noncommittal direction.

The man blinked at him. “Would you like a menu?”

“Sure.”

The man handed her one from the stack, and Eliana took it. She strode away, still scanning for Sala. She could feel the man near the door staring at her, but she shook it off, sliding between the tables. Lights bounced off the stage. The music bore into her. She passed a pair of old men with cups of coffee; she passed a young man in a business suit scratching something on a pad of paper.

And then she found Sala.

He didn’t see her. He was sitting at a table at the edge of the room, staring up at the dancing girl and smoking. He had a bottle of wine with him, and he topped off his glass, not taking his eyes off the stage. The envelope lay on the table, his hand pressed on it like an act of protection.

Eliana walked over and sat down at his table.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Someone told me about you.” Eliana tilted her head, smiled. “Said you like to have fun.”

He drew the cigarette out of his mouth and exhaled smoke. His hand was shaking.

“Who,” he said, “are you?”

“Just one of Cabrera’s girls. Is it true? You like to have fun?”

“No.” He turned away, took a long drink of his wine. In the dim light it looked like blood. “Go bother somebody else.”

“What you got there?” She laid her fingertips on the edge of the envelope.

Sala went still. Onstage, the girl twirled around and around, her skirt flaring out from her hips. Then that skirt was flying through the air and landing in a sparkling heap at the edge of the stage. Someone off to the side applauded.

“Take your hands off that,” Sala said, in a cold, hard voice. Eliana jerked her hand back as a reflex.

“Touchy,” she said, trying to make her voice light.

Sala glared at her and sucked hard on his cigarette, the ember flaring. Then he jammed it into the half-full ashtray. Beads of sweat shone on his forehead, jeweled in the red lights.

It was warm in here. Rich-man warm. But Eliana could tell that wasn’t why Sala was sweating. The guy had no idea what he was doing.

“Must be important,” she said, leaning back, toying with the end of a lock of her hair. “To get you so worked up.”

“It’s nothing.” Sala lit another cigarette. He kept glancing nervously around the dining room. Eliana wondered if he had a gun. She hoped he didn’t. Because she was about to do something very stupid.

The music was still carrying on in the background. The girl was still dancing. It was an old song. Eliana remembered her mother listening to it, dancing around the living room alone. It was after Eliana’s father had died, around the time when her mother went to work at one of the atomic power plants. Her mother had hated that, making energy for the mainland when she couldn’t afford to return there herself.

“I’m really not interested,” Sala said, not looking at her.

“That’s really too bad,” Eliana told him, and then, before she had a chance to think about it, she shot her arm out and grabbed the envelope out from his hand. He resisted. Sala’s eyes widened and burned with anger.

“What the—”

Eliana used up all her strength to rip it away from him, and then she ran. She tore through the dining room, music pounding in her ears, hoping she hadn’t torn whatever was inside the envelope. Sala shouted something. The businessman looked up at her, bored, and then she was in the entranceway, and then she was outside, the dome lights blinding.

“Get back here, you fucking bitch!”

Sala. Eliana whirled around, caught sight of him in the doorway. His hands were empty. No gun.

She shoved the envelope into her coat and ran, down the side street and out into the open bustle of the docks. Sala was still shouting behind her. People stopped, looked at her, looked at him. She ignored them. She just kept running.

Mr. Vasquez had taught her, when he’d first made her his assistant instead of just his secretary, that she needed to learn how to run and she needed to learn how to shoot. She’d never really learned the latter. But running came easily to her, even in her pumps and stockings, and it wasn’t long before she’d made it to the supply market, a few blocks from her car.

She collapsed onto a bench beside a fish vendor and sucked in air. White dots of light kept flashing in her vision, but the more she breathed, the more sporadic they became until they disappeared. Sala wasn’t anywhere in sight. She’d lost him.

Eliana reached into her coat. Pulled out the envelope. She undid the fastener and slid out the contents—not enough to read, but enough to check. Looked official, whatever it was. Parchment paper, rows of smudgy boxes filled with off-center typing, like a birth certificate.

Weird.

She slid the document back into place. Fastened the envelope. The fish vendors were shouting at each other, swapping dirty jokes and roaring with laughter. Eliana set her purse in her lap, dropped her hand inside. She still expected Sala to appear out of the crowd, but he never did.

And when she was sure it was safe, she walked to her car, and then she drove back to the smokestack district.

CHAPTER FIVE

DIEGO

Diego was down at the Loro, sharking the pool tables while he waited for Garcia to show up with Batista Almeida’s money. The bartender had the radio on, tuned to a news station; the newsman was going on about the electrical troubles that had been plaguing the city the last few days. That was the phrase they used—“electrical troubles.” Everybody Diego knew was calling it what it was: blackout. The lights had been growing dimmer and dimmer, and flickering sometimes. You’d hear the hum of a heater, and then, for two or three seconds, you wouldn’t.

The news was blaming it all on the AFF, of course. Probably got their information from the city. The city was always blaming the AFF or the robots for their own damn problems.

Diego was in the middle of a thirty-dollar hustle when one of Mr. Cabrera’s robots showed up, sliding in through the maintenance hatch next to the jukebox. The guy Diego was scamming, some poor lost soul from Madrid, saw it first, jerking his head up and then missing his shot by a mile.

“The hell?” he asked.

Diego looked over his shoulder and scowled when he saw the robot. One of the newer ones, egg-shaped and covered in lines of lights. Its shell had been carved up with that flower from the Florencia’s sign. Mr. Cabrera left his calling card on anything he could.

The lights glowed green. It had a message.

“What the fuck is that doing in here?” the Spanish man asked.

“They come in sometimes.” Diego leaned his pool cue against the table. “Excuse me.”

He walked away. The robot whirred behind him. Diego could feel the Spanish man watching after them both, but Diego knew better than to finish up the game if Mr. Cabrera was waiting.

“Hey!” the Spanish man yelled as Diego pulled open the door leading outside. “Where are you going?”

Diego ignored him. He went out onto the street, the robot tagging along like a puppy. This part of town, the streets stayed empty, even during the day.

“I’m waiting for Garcia,” Diego said.

The lights on the robot’s back flickered.

Diego sighed, rolled his eyes. “Come on.” He led the robot down the street a couple of blocks until he found an alley where no one would bother them.

“All right, you little asshole,” he said. “Show me what you’ve got.”

The lights flickered again. The damn thing wanted authentication. Jesus. This wasn’t going to be anything Diego wanted to hear.

He pressed his palm against the robot’s sensor. A pause, then the lights went blue, and the robot spoke in Mr. Cabrera’s voice.

“Are you alone?”

“Yeah, man, I’m alone.”

The robot stalled out, lights flickering again. It didn’t like his answer.

“Yes,” Diego said, all proper like he was talking to Mr. Cabrera himself.

The lights went still. “I need you to come to the Florencia as soon as you get this. Not as soon as you’re able. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Confirm you got the message.”

Diego kicked at the gravel in the alley. Garcia was going to be fucking pissed, showing up at the Loro without a contact. No way to say that to the robot, though. It only understood two things: “Yes” and everything else, which pretty much amounted to “no.”

“Yes,” Diego said.

The robot didn’t move, and for a minute Diego thought he might have answered wrong. But then with a click and a whir it shot straight up in the air and disappeared into the dome lights. Dim, of course, dimmer than they ought to be.

As soon as you get this.

The Florencia wasn’t far from here, maybe twenty minutes on the train. He left the alley, heading for the closest station. It never occurred to him not to.

Mr. Cabrera asked him to show up, he showed up. The man had seen something in him when he was a little kid—a hardness, he’d told Diego once, a strength that the other kids lacked. And so Mr. Cabrera had dragged him out of the streets. He’d saved Diego’s life. Coming when he was called was the least Diego could do.

*  *  *  *

The Florencia’s CLOSED sign was blinking in the window when Diego got there, washed out by daytime lights. Mr. Cabrera closed the Florencia sometimes in the afternoon. He liked having the cooks make a special lunchtime steak just for him.

Diego banged on the front door of the Florencia until Mateo answered, his pale, thin face set into his usually snooty frown. “You’re late,” he said.

“I was at the Loro, doing my fucking job. Let me in.”

Mateo sneered, but he pulled the door open. The Florencia was eerie when it was all shut down like this, no afternoon regulars smoking cigarettes while the girls danced onstage.

“Making you stick around, huh?” Diego asked as he sauntered in. The stage lights were still on, he noticed, that dark murky blue that was supposed to make the girls look their best.

“Someone had to be here to let you in.” Mateo slunk back over to his place at the podium. A stack of menus sat waiting for the evening crowd.

“He’s back in the office,” Mateo added.

Diego didn’t answer, just made his way first through the dining room and then through the swinging doors that led into the narrow hallway that took you out to the docks. Mr. Cabrera’s office was the first door on the left. Diego knocked once to be polite and then went in.

“I got your message,” he said.

Mr. Cabrera was at his desk, smoking a cigarette with slow, considered movements. A record played in the background, some jazzy number Diego didn’t recognize.

“Good afternoon, Diego,” Mr. Cabrera said. “I trust it’s been going well?”

“Sure.” Diego lingered in the doorway. It was funny, how Mr. Cabrera could make him nervous like that.

“I’m sorry I had to call you away from the Loro,” Mr. Cabrera said. “But I have a job for you.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“Sit, sit.” Mr. Cabrera gestured with his cigarette, the pale smoke drifting in thick lines through the room.

Diego’s skin was already crawling, but he couldn’t let Mr. Cabrera know that. Showing Mr. Cabrera his weaknesses always made him feel like an orphan again, like Mr. Cabrera would decide he didn’t want to take Diego in after all.

He sat.

“I had a meeting today,” Mr. Cabrera said. “With a little weasel of a man. An engineer from the city.”

“That so?”

“It is indeed, Diego. He’d been trying to get in contact with me since yesterday, in fact, claiming he had something that could destroy an old acquaintance of mine.”

Diego shifted in his seat, waiting. He wondered how involved this job was going to be.

“You know who that acquaintance is, Diego?”

“No, sir,” said Diego, “I don’t.”

A pause. Mr. Cabrera breathed in his cigarette smoke.

“Marianella Luna,” he said.

Oh. Her. Mr. Cabrera’d had it out for her ever since her husband had passed six months ago. She’d taken up with Ortiz and his ag domes, a little scheme that threatened Mr. Cabrera’s whole wintertime smuggling enterprise.

“You finally ready to take care of her?” Diego fucking hoped not. Too high-profile, and he hated that kind of work.

“No.” The answer was slow to come. Considered. “At least not at this juncture.”

At least not ever, Diego hoped.

“No, your target is the man I was supposed to meet with this afternoon. He’d promised me a way to remove Lady Luna from the equation, without the risks of our—usual methods.”

Just come out and say it, Diego thought, feeling hollow. Killing people.

“Unfortunately, he showed up for our meeting empty-handed. The story he gave me was elaborately far-fetched—he claimed one of my call girls ran off with his proof.” Mr. Cabrera laughed. “Suggested I search the whorehouses. I did, but we didn’t turn anything up.”

“Proof of what?” Diego asked.

“Come again?”

“You said the girl ran off with his proof. What was it for?”

“I’ve no idea, which is what I need you for. He refuses to tell me outright—wants the reward for his effort, I suppose. The man’s a complete idiot. Too used to dealing with city bureaucrats. But I’m sure with a bit of your persuasive techniques he’ll give up the information easily enough.”

“Why would a whore steal proof from him?”

“Feeling chatty today, Diego?”

Diego shrugged.

“I doubt any of my girls was involved at all. Who knows what the man was playing at, but it didn’t work. Which is why he needs to be punished. No one toys with me like that.”

That was really what this was about, Diego knew. Not just getting the information from some city engineer. Mr. Cabrera was big into honor and vengeance and punishing the stupid. It was a code Diego had learned after Mr. Cabrera had taken him in, but not one he’d ever completely understood.

Mr. Cabrera rummaged through his desk drawers and pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded over three times. He handed it to Diego, and Diego opened it up. It was an address.

“He lives there. I don’t know if he has a family or not.”

Diego didn’t say anything.

“I don’t need him dead, but I’d like the information before sunup tomorrow. Do whatever you feel is necessary to get it.”

Diego folded the paper as small as he could make it and then slipped it into his wallet. “Sure,” he said. Then, “And his name? Just to make sure I got the right guy.”

“Oh, of course.” Mr. Cabrera smiled. “Sala. Pablo Sala.” He stood up, and Diego did the same. They shook hands. Always the businessman, Mr. Cabrera was.

“Feel free to take one of the cars,” Mr. Cabrera said. “You know you’re one of the few men I trust with them.”

And Diego couldn’t help himself, hearing that. He smiled.

*  *  *  *

The dome lights were dim by the time Diego arrived at Sala’s house, despite it being the middle of the afternoon. A boon for Diego, since darkness made him seem more sinister, which got the mark talking faster. About the only benefit to these blackouts.

The houses cast long shadows across the patchwork yards. Diego drove past Sala’s house and then parked half a block down. His gun was a weight in its holster.

Get in, get it over with.

The houses all seemed abandoned, their doors and windows shut tight. Diego walked up to Sala’s front door. Rang the doorbell.

A minute passed. Another. Diego shifted his weight, started looking for ways to break in. Maybe Sala wasn’t here. That was always easier anyway, hiding out in the dining room until they got back home.

The door creaked open.

“Yes?”

“You Pablo Sala?”

The man in the doorway blinked, his eyes round and enormous behind his glasses. “Yes,” he said. “Who are you?”

“I work for Mr. Cabrera.” Diego smiled, although he didn’t do it to look friendly. “Sent me to get some information out of you.”

“Oh, well, I don’t—”

“You mind if I come in? It’s fucking freezing out here.”

“I guess—”

Diego pushed through the doorway. Sala turned and stared at him. Diego pulled the door shut. Flexed the fingers in his right hand.

Sala took a step back. “Look,” he said. “I’m not ready to meet with him yet. I’ve got to get the documents back first, okay? Some little bitch stole them—”

Diego lashed out at Sala and hit him square in the chest. Sala went flying backward and hit the floor hard.

“He doesn’t give a damn about your documents,” Diego said. “Just tell me what was on them.”

Sala scrambled backward. “I told him to search—”

“He didn’t find anything.”

Sala’s face darkened, and Diego kicked him in the side. Not too hard, not enough to do any permanent damage, but enough to hurt. Sala gave a yelp of pain and curled in on himself.

“He wants to know what’s in the documents.” Diego pulled out his gun. “He thinks you’re wasting his time.” And then he dropped down to his knees and slammed the gun across Sala’s face, hard enough that Sala’s nose cracked and blood gushed over his mouth.

“I’m not, I swear!” Sala tried to squirm away, but Diego pinned him down. Sala’s eyes were wide with fear, but his voice didn’t tremble when he spoke. “I’m not stupid. I want credit for this. I put my job on the line. Does Cabrera really think he’s the only one who has thugs in this town? If Alejo Ortiz found out—”

Diego paused, ready to hit Sala again. “The councilman? The guy from the commercials?”

“Yes!” Sala fumed. “But I’m not telling you any more, Mr.—”

Diego struck him rather than offer a name.

Sala bucked against the floor. “I can get the proof again,” he gasped. A few drops of blood sprayed across Diego’s face. “She wouldn’t let them go missing this long, no way in hell. Probably paid off the girl who stole them from me.” Sala pushed himself up to sitting. His arms trembled. Diego watched with that cold detachment he’d cultivated over the years. It wasn’t something that Mr. Cabrera’d had to teach him either—that, he’d learned as a child, scrabbling for his survival.

“That’s why you couldn’t find them,” Sala said, peering up at Diego, his eyes already turning dark and swollen. “The girl’d taken them over to her.”

“None of Mr. Cabrera’s girls would do that. They’re loyal.”

Sala laughed. Blood oozed between his teeth. “So maybe it wasn’t one of his girls. Maybe it was someone pretending, ever think of that? I bet some detective sent his secretary after me. Tell him to shake down the PI firms.”

Diego’s heart stopped beating. He took a step toward Sala.

“What?” he said.

“The girl who ran off with the proof!” Sala rubbed at his temple. “God, I should have seen it earlier. Marianella hired someone—”

“What’d she look like?” Diego wrapped his hand around the gun’s grip. Properly. The way you grip a gun for shooting. His thoughts whirred in panic. “The girl who ran off with your proof?”

“Why does it matter?” Blood gleamed on Sala’s face. “I told you, just go to the PI firms—”

“It matters.”

“I don’t kn-know,” he stuttered. “Young. Good-looking. She was wearing red lipstick.”

Diego thought about waking up in Eliana’s bed after a night out, his face and neck smeared with red. Red on the pillows and the sheets.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Diego stared at Sala, and Sala crawled backward across the floor, eyes darting back and forth. Looking for some weapon, probably. Diego couldn’t stop shaking. How could she be so stupid? So fucking stupid. He’d told her to stay away from Mr. Cabrera. That fucking PI who’d hired her had told her to stay away from Mr. Cabrera.