Chapter 18 · Ballistics and Dead Names

Lucian Corvo pried the pouch out of my fist one finger at a time.

I let him. My hand wouldn't have held on anyway. Everything on me was shaking, my jaw, my knees, even the stupid little muscles under my ribs. Sound water ran out of my hair and down the collar of his jacket. He'd shoved it onto me somewhere between the pier edge and the SUV. It smelled like gun oil and him, and I hated how fast I'd stopped noticing.

"Heater's on full," he said. "Shut up and breathe."

"I didn't say anything."

"Your teeth did."

Outside the tinted glass, the North Loading Pier sat under dead floodlights. The diesel stink was so thick I could taste it. Behind the container stacks, the runner I'd dragged out of the hold was still lying on the concrete with his throat opened up. Not my work. Not Lucian's either, he'd said. The worst part was I believed him.

His phone was a brick. Mine was at the bottom of the sound. No radio, no signal. Just the heater roaring and the engine ticking.

He thumbed the pouch open.