Chapter 14 · He Didn't Shoot

"Don't move, pretty boy." The gun barrel pressed into my ribs before I even got my car door open. Cold steel, warm garage, and my heart trying to punch out of my chest.

"Wrong car," I said, hands up, back against the frame. "Wrong husband too, if you're looking for a payout."

"I know exactly whose husband you are." The guy leaned in close enough I could smell cheap cologne over gun oil. "Falcone's little signature. His real name on a marriage license. You know what that's worth to the people he burned?"

"Guess I'm about to find out."

"Step back from him." Nico's voice came from behind a concrete pillar, flat and quiet, which was somehow worse than if he'd been yelling. He had his own gun out already, arm straight, eyes doing that thing where they go completely still right before he does something permanent.

The guy — I clocked a scar under his left eye, a ring with a crest I didn't recognize — didn't flinch. "Vince," he said, like that name should mean something. "You remember me, Nico. You remember the Alvarez job. The one you finished halfway and left me holding the other half.