And that…that scared the shit out of me.
Chapter 12: Dante
We had to move.
We left the hotel with nothing but burner phones and the taste of blood in our mouths.
Marco was half-slumped over my shoulder, one arm hooked around my neck, the other dangling behind him like a busted marionette. Jade led the way, eyes sharp, hands jammed in the pockets of her coat, knuckles probably white. She looked like she was hoping for a fight and praying she’d get one.
Nobody talked. Not in the hallway, not in the elevator, not when we slipped out the fire exit and into the alley behind the building. The door slammed shut behind us, loud as a gunshot. Cold air hit me straight in the face. Toronto felt different now. Less like a city, more like a cage.
Victor. That was the name he’d left us. No last name. No colors. Just a business card and that smile—the kind that says: I already know how this ends.
I’d seen his type before. Not muscle. Not cops. Worse. Freelance.
Which meant someone had paid real money to find Jade, and he’d taken the job.
The alley reeked of wet garbage and piss. I tightened my grip on Marco. “You good?” I muttered.
“Define good,” he mumbled back.
“Not dead. Not pissing blood. Not leaking brain matter.”
“In that case, yeah. Peachy.” He flashed a thumbs-up, then nearly lost his footing on an ice patch, coughing hard. “If I’m leaking, it’s metaphorical.”
Jade kept moving, boots crunching on the grit. She took the first corner without hesitating, scanning the street while pretending to check her phone. She’d picked that up fast. No more waiting for a cue from me. She just did it.
We ducked down a side street. Neon from a bodega flickered on the next block, spelling out CIGARETTES & LOTTO in a language only the desperate bothered to read. Marco smelled like sweat and trouble, but he kept moving. At the crosswalk, a white service van idled, a guy inside smoking with the window cracked. For a second, my heart jumped, but the man didn’t so much as glance at us. Just hunched over his phone, probably texting or watching sports. Nobody in Toronto cared who we were.
But I figured we had maybe ten minutes, tops.
“Where to?” Jade asked, glancing over her shoulder.
“Car’s stashed on King. Five minutes if we hustle.” My voice came out sharp, but she didn’t blink. Just nodded and picked up the pace.
At Spadina, the sidewalk got crowded. Rush hour: bankers, baristas, college kids, all hunched under awnings, faces chapped and blank. I liked crowds. Crowds meant cover. I kept my eyes on the edges: shadows, weird stares, anyone in a brown jacket or moving too smooth through the mess. Four maybe-somethings, but none stuck with us for more than a block.
Marco’s breathing was getting rough. Jade shot me a look, chin up, and I knew: if someone came at us now, she’d fight with anything, even a busted parking sign. Made me want to laugh. Almost.
We made it to the car—a Civic older than any of us, salt-stained and dented, but it started up first try. Jade took the wheel, cut left for the Lakeshore.
“Tell me you know where we’re going,” she said.
“I know where we’re going.”
“Is it safe?” Marco coughed, wiped his sleeve across his mouth. Blood, just a smear. “Because if it’s not, I’d rather bail now than die in a Tim Horton’s parking lot.”
“It’s safe.” I didn’t bother with the mirror. If they were smart, they’d use a relay, not follow us directly. “We hole up, I makea call. He left a number, right?” I tossed Victor’s card onto the dash.
Jade looked at it like it might bite her. “Not unless you plan to actually talk to him.”
“I’m not that dumb,” I said. “But I want to know who’s on the other end.”
The next twenty minutes blurred. We cut through side streets, doubled back, circled the block.
No tails. Not that I could see. Even with Marco groaning in the back and Jade gripping the wheel like she wanted to snap it, I tracked every car, every shadow, every flicker in the rearview. Just traffic and blue dusk, wind off the lake rattling the windows loud enough to cover anything else. No brown-jacket guy, no black sedans. Too soon, or too careful.
Jade was wound tight enough to break. She drove like she was trying to punch a hole through the city. I let her. Sometimes pushing forward was the only thing that worked.
