Misha arches a brow. “You assume she wants the dance.”
She wrote on a dead man’s wall, ‘Catch me if you can.’” I bare my teeth at him. “I have always been very good at the chase.”
“Protections for the princess?” Dragomir asks, referring to my bonded.
“Triple her coverage tonight. Lucetta remains lead. She knows Cressida best. Pair two of ours to her hip and rotate the outer ring. I want eyes on every approach within five blocks.” I look up, my voice lowering. “No one tells Cressida we are using her place as the decoy grid. She will only agree, and I do not need her bravery tonight.”
Philadelphia is a wet mouth of smoke when we arrive. The townhouse at the edge of Fishtown looks like a hundred others—gritty brick, cheap blackout curtains, and a security camera tucked up the gutter like a spider waiting.
We take the back.
Sasha cuts the chain on the rear gate with a soft crunch. Zavid ghosts the camera with a magnet shroud while Yuri works on picking the lock. I love when my men are quiet, but I love it more when they’re fast.
“Two heat signatures,” Misha whispers from the alley, his eyes on the screen in his hand. “Back room. One moving.”
I nod. “On my count.”
We breach as one, not giving anyone inside time to prepare. The man at the table doesn’t even stand before his cheek caresses the wood as my knife kisses his throat. The second reaches for a pistol taped under the chair, but Misha puts him to sleep with the butt of his gun quicker than a prayer.
The table is a broker’s altar. Burner phones, a phony ledger, and three neat rows of vials that glow faintly red under the cheap LEDs with the familiar Reaper logo. I uncork one and the scent hits the back of my nose. There’s power there, but it’s tainted. Muted and not right.
“Don’t,” the man under my hand rasps. “You don’t want that.”
“I want many things I should not have,” I murmur, applying pressure until his face goes red. “Give me names.”
He licks his lips. “You’ll kill me.”
“Of course, I will. But that is what happens when you choose to play in my playground. You know who I am, and you know that I do not let go those who betray me. Your only choice now is how quickly it happens for you.”
Still, he hesitates, so I apply more pressure.
He cracks quickly. They always do when their options are narrow and they believe speaking the truth will keep them alive.
Fucking fools.
“The cargo comes in on B-H Fifty-Four. A reefer container with a big blue crown painted on the side. Two men in a white van will pick up and run down to cold storage on Noble. We don’t keep it long.”
“Where is the Reaper?”
His eyes flutter, but he keeps quiet, smart enough not to say a name. I tighten my fingers until his breath whistles past his lips. “Last. Question. Where. Is. She.”
There’s a beat of silence before he admits, “Not here. She doesn’t touch the ground. She sends others to do it for her. She . . . she said the Bogeyman will always chase the wrong shadow.”
I consider that angle. The charm in the dirt at the border and the photo slipping through Blackwell security as easy as breath. My smile turns violent. “I do not chase shadows. I eat what casts them.”
Releasing him, I step back and straighten the sleeves of my jacket.
Sasha hauls him upright. “What do you want done?”
“Bag both and deliver them to the pit. I’m done bending an ear to cowards who only find their tongue after I’ve ground their face into the dirt.”
“Are we bringing the stock?” Yuri asks, gesturing to the vials.
Stasia’s voice crackles softly over the comms. “Bring them. I want what’s inside.”
“Port’s moving,” Dragomir says from the door, his eyes on his phone. “B-H Fifty-Four just pinged the harbor beacons. Fifteen minutes out.”
“Then we’re late.”
