Shadow Man: Grayson Duet: Book One Read online

  I go to climb out of the car.

  “Wait,” she says, gabbing my arm to stop me. “I don’t know who or what you’re running from, but take as much time as you need, okay? No one’s going to find you in Santa Perdida. Perdida means lost in Spanish, and everyone who ends up here is a lot of that. Most of Colombia can’t even find it on a map.” She lets go of me and snatches up her cigarettes from the dash. “On the downside, there’s no Internet and about a minute of free cell signal a day.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I say, wondering why a free spirit like Vi would want to hide herself away as well.

  “Cool, you’re hired. First drink is on the house—”

  “To celebrate our second deal of the day.”

  “Right.”

  We shake on it and cross the dusty sidewalk together. The humidity isn’t quite as intense here, but it’s still a dead weight pushing down on my chest.

  Vi goes to open up, and then stops. “Mierda! Shit!”

  “What’s wrong?” I move closer to see what’s caught her attention.

  “Look.” She pushes at the door without unlocking it, and it swings freely. Inside, the terracotta tiles are littered with overturned tables, broken chairs and bottles; and the strong punch of spilled alcohol has us both reaching to cover our noses. “Someone trashed my bar,” she says angrily. “That’s what’s fucking wrong.”

  11

  Joseph

  We keep a safe house in Miami. It’s an empty apartment in midtown that cost us two million and looks like a shade of pastel blue threw up all over it. It’s standard real estate for this city.

  I pull up outside just as dawn is declaring victory over a total bitch of a night. I sit there, engine idling, taking savage swigs from a half-empty bottle of whiskey; watching as the colors of a new day spread like wildfire until the whole of the sky is ablaze.

  There’s no spun gold, though. That color is nowhere to be found. I’ve looked in every bar, every club, every hospital, bus terminal, airport, and I’m so fucking done…

  I almost laugh at myself then.

  My mouth almost stretches into a grin around the top of the Jack Daniel’s as I take another swig. I’ll never be fucking done when it comes to her; the same way I’ll never stop reaching for my chain. It’s not comfort hanging around my neck, it’s penance. It’s the sum of all the blood I’ve spilled. The metal crushes my skin the same way all the fucking shit in my heart crushes my organs.

  There are so many unspoken words inside of me right now, and no fucking release for any of them. Like those I said to her the night I freed her from her cage. The ones she can't remember… Still, I’ll carry the burden of my promise until her pain separates from her past like crude oil and water.

  I sit there, drinking, until the whiskey bottle is empty. Until all my thoughts are hemorrhaging into one another, creating a continuous band of noise that’s somehow easier to tune out. I make a quick scan of my surroundings, purely out of habit—noting the lone jogger and the old dog walker—and then I’m exiting the SUV and letting myself into the apartment building.

  My hands are still stained with my crimes. I can’t remember when I last slept or when I last ate, and I’m feeling the aftereffects of both as I enter the apartment, letting the door slam shut behind me. Gray carpets, gray walls, three-thousand square feet of open floorplan and no furniture. The blinds are down, and weak sunlight is carving white stripes into the wooden slats but it’s still dark as fuck. The whiskey’s dulled my senses. I don’t hear the click of the gun until it’s bearing down on me in all its grim greeting.

  “I bought you breakfast,” rumbles a deep voice. “I thought you might be hungry.”

  “Is it a bullet or a bagel?” I don’t bother reaching for my own weapon to return the favor. If he wanted to kill me, I’d be dead already. “If it’s not toasted, I’m opting for the bullet. No one should have to put up with that shit.”

  Dante chuckles, and lifts his muzzle to the sky, clicking his safety back on. He’s leaning against the long stretch of white island that separates the kitchen from the living area, ankles crossed—his presence by far the darkest shadow in the room. “You Americans and your culinary kinks,” he muses. “My wife has the same affliction.”

  “Then your wife has decent taste in food, if nothing else. What the fuck are you doing here, Dante?” Truth be told, I’m more than surprised to see him.

  “You look like shit,” he observes, tossing me a warm paper bag. “Not like you to pull an all-nighter.”

  “Not like you to step foot in a country where the bounty on your head is bigger than the GDP of Peru,” I fire back. “Not unless you have business here, which I believe we concluded yesterday. Nor when your wife has recently given birth to your first child.” I open up the bag and the sweet scent of the bagel is more sobering than a cold shower. “Damn, this smells good. I don’t know whether to kiss your ass or your gun.”

  “Gun would be preferable… I’m here on her request.”

  The bagel pauses halfway to my mouth. “How so?”

  “First, tell me why I had Rick Sanders bitching at me late last night.” He slides his gun into the front of his jeans. The man in black is the devil in disguise. I’ve seen him do the kind of sin that turns saints into killers. “He’s a not happy drug dealer, Grayson. Did you finger his girlfriend or piss all over one of his clubs?”

  “He’s an asshole,” I say, wrapping my mouth around something other than a bottle of whiskey, and one that tastes a hell of a lot better.

  “Yes, but he’s a clever asshole who saved our lives last year,” says Dante, switching his tone to a shade cooler than ice. “We've been through too much together to let your dick get in the way of things now.”

  “Did you come here to reprimand me?” I take another bite, chewing slowly, holding his gaze. He’s barely shifted position the whole time we’ve been talking, and that’s a bad sign. I know this man better than he knows himself. When he goes ultra-calm, people die. “What’s my dick got to do with shit, anyway?”

  “If you want her, take her.”

  “Who? Rick’s girlfriend?”

  I’m being obtuse. I don't like where this is headed.

  “Don't stand around on fucking ceremony, Grayson. I didn't.”

  “Is this your one piece of dating advice, Dante? Newsflash: kidnapping doesn't do it for every woman.” This conversation is slaying my appetite. I chuck the remainder of my uneaten bagel in the trash. “We should have been straight about why the Russians took her six months ago.”

  There’s a pause. “We made the decision not to. That woman fucking hated me for marrying Eve anyway. Why make it worse?”

  “It’s not sitting right with me anymore.”

  “Then ignore it, like you’ve ignored every other sin you’ve committed in the last two decades. What makes one lie so special?” He cocks his head and narrows his eyes. “What are you not telling me?”

  “No more than usual.”

  He curses in Spanish, and I know I just took the winning point—game, set and match. The whole ‘knowing him better’ thing doesn’t work both ways. He can’t read shit about me, and it drives him to distraction, but when you work for someone like Dante Santiago, you better be damn sure you have an ace up your sleeve. It evens up the mayhem; it’s a good thing to ta-dah like a fucking magician when he’s close to slitting your throat. A bored Dante is an executioner-in-waiting.

  “How did you lose her?”

  This catches me off guard. Motherfucker.

  “Rick’s got a loose mouth.”

  “Rick… Eve… My wife is sick with worry. Her friend is a liability. Part of me thinks we should have left her to rot in that fucking cage in Amsterdam.”

  Now it’s my turn to act like an effigy of death. Dante carved up my stomach once, and I’m not averse to returning the favor over her.

  “Is that really what you think?” I say quietly.

  He glares at me, psyching me out, and then his lips start
to twitch. “Jesus Christ, you’re an uptight asshole today.” He strolls toward me, holding out a piece of paper.

  Eve’s right. Her husband is a dictatorial head-fuck. I once heard her scream it at him, and I remembering thinking she had the measure of her lover already.

  “Of course I don't think we should have left her in Amsterdam,” he says. “I only said it to see that dead-eyed shit you display when my depravity bites too hard. And to confirm what I already know…”

  “And what’s that?” I say, snatching the piece of paper from him.

  “I’ll leave it up to you to figure out.”

  “Cryptic.”

  “Honest.”

  “Delusional,” I mutter, deciding on this occasion that my deference to him can fuck right off.

  Dante hisses under his breath, but his gun stays put. “We're amoral motherfuckers, but we did good this year. We destroyed an international sex trafficking ring and swiped a layer of black off our souls.”

  It’s not enough.

  Never enough.

  Nothing will make up for the decisions we made over her.

  “What the hell is this anyway?” I say, shaking the paper in his face.

  “Full disclosure, but answer me one thing before you open it up.”

  “What?”

  “Do you feel her in your fucking bones?”

  It takes a beat for his words to register. That’s twice he’s caught me off guard.

  “Do you feel her in your fucking bones?” he repeats, his face as serious as I’ve ever seen it. “When you bleed, does she heal? When you kill, does she save? Do all the shattered, fucked-up parts of you want to fix for her, even all the jagged, serrated shit?”

  “The jagged, serrated shit’s unfixable,” I say automatically.

  “Everything’s fixable if you’re willing to pay the price.” There’s a pause. “Anna took a flight to Cartagena from Miami International at 4:30 a.m. this morning.”

  “Impossible,” I roar. “I checked every manifesto that left before 9 a.m. There was no Anna Williams onboard.”

  “Anna Jackson,” he corrects smoothly. “According to Eve, she changed her name a few years ago, but never updated the paperwork.”

  “What the fuck!” How the hell did I not know this? “Why Colombia?” Is it relief I’m feeling? Anger? Fear? That country is a lawless land since Dante abdicated. She’ll need me more than ever down there.

  “It was the first flight out. She must have been in a hurry… Gomez’s people have already located her. Small village a couple of hours drive from the city. The address is on that piece of paper, but there’s a complication—”

  “Why are you telling me all this? I haven’t answered your question.”

  His mouth starts twitching again. “Yes, you have.”

  What?

  “You get one warning, Grayson,” he says, losing all traces of humor suddenly. “Which, to be fair, is more than I give most people… I don't care if you fuck her, leave her, marry her, divorce her. Whatever happens, you keep your mouth shut about what happened last year. The truth will hurt her and it will hurt Eve. Understood?”

  Yeah, I understand. His wife is his life. Any wrong done to her is a certain death sentence. Two decades of friendship, history and loyalty will vanish sideways up my ass.

  “I'll call you when I land.” I turn to leave.

  “Hang on; there’s a caveat.” The tone of his voice is another warning. “I need you mixing business and pleasure down there.”

  “How so?”

  Dante rams his hands into his jeans pockets and re-crosses his ankles. He’s as irritated by what he’s about to share as I am for the holdup. “Gomez is feeling the heat from Los Cinco Grandes, mostly lit by that irritating fuck, Fernandez. Twenty dead yesterday. Shot up in a local bar. And the main processing plant in Leticia was raided the day before. We must protect the supply chain for Rick Sanders because, asshole or not, we owe him.”

  “So, what do you need me to do?”

  “Deliver a message to Los Cinco Grandes in my absence. I may not reside in Colombia anymore, but I’m still their fucking king. It’s still my fucking country. Anyone not willing to play by my rules suffers the consequences. Gomez has an army at your disposal, should you require it. You know what to do.”

  I nod. “Anything else?”

  “Anna’s found herself a new friend. One who’s knee-deep in this cartel shit.” I go very still. “Shoot up the whole of Colombia if you must; kill every drug cunt you come across, but not the girl. Protect her. Protect them both. But don't trust her an inch.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A big fucking problem,” he says, scowling at me. “I’ll deal with her in due course, but first I need some time with Eve. I need to act like a husband for once, and then I’ll be flying out to Colombia myself. ETA by the end of the week.”

  Color me intrigued. There’s no way I’m walking out of here without knowing more.

  “What’s so special about her?”

  “Like I said, it’s complicated.” He picks up his cell and keys and moves to follow me out of the apartment. “I need your word on this as well, Joseph.”

  “Then give me a hint, and I’ll back off.”

  “I owe my past a favor,” he says grimly. “And the bitch just came to collect.”

  12

  Anna

  We spend the rest of the day sweeping up glass and tossing broken chairs into the small yard behind the storeroom. Vi doesn’t say much. She doesn't share with me who she thinks trashed her place, but she knows more than she’s letting on. There’s an anger bubbling away inside of her. It’s there in the way she catches her tongue between her teeth as she sweeps the tiles; it’s building up behind her dark eyes like a gathering storm on the horizon. Any minute now, the sky will crack and the truth will come raining out of her.

  Whoever did it left a note behind on the mess of her counter, crumpled-up and soaked in aguardiente. No words—just an insignia of a green and black viper with fangs dripping blood. Vi tried to scrunch it up and throw it in the trash before I could take a look at it, but I can be super quick like that. Even so, we stuck to our respective narratives. I’m here to fade away, not burn bright with questions.

  Dusk starts creeping in through the open back door, followed by a couple of stray dogs. By then, we’ve managed to restock the top shelves, and all the rescued chairs and tables have been set right with clean ashtrays.

  “You want that beer now?” she asks, throwing her cleaning cloth down on the counter and wiping the sweat from her brow. She tied her black hair into a ponytail about the same time her makeup sweated off a few hours ago, but her feisty vibe is still very much front and center.

  “Sounds great.” I watch her flick the sign on the door to ‘open’, even though we haven’t had a single customer all day.

  “Two cold Costeñas coming right up.”

  She leans over the bar as I bend down to pet the black and white stray weaving in and out of my legs. My back is killing me and my palms are rough with blisters, but I find I don't mind these new aches. They’re self-inflicted. I earned them. I didn’t entice them. I didn't tease and beg, or suffer for them.

  She watches me as I run my hand up and down the dog’s rail-thin spine and coo nonsense at him. “You’re good with animals,” she says, waving an untapped bottle in my face.

  “I used to volunteer part-time at a shelter in Miami.” I straighten up with a wince.

  “I can see you doing that,” she muses.

  “In another world. In another life...” I glance toward the back door. The warm air is alive with the sound of grasshoppers and pauraques, and with unfamiliar smells. Like always, my eyes automatically reach for the sky. “Which way is west?” I ask her.

  She joins me on the back step and points her bottle to the right. That’s when I see it—cruising low on the horizon—caught between the light and the dark. It’s not the moon I’m searching for, but it doesn't feel quite so alien to
me tonight.

  “What are you hoping to see up there?” jokes Vi. “The US colors?”

  “It’s a waxing crescent,” I tell her, taking a sip of my beer. “It's the first phase toward a full moon. It’s a glimpse, a sliver, but it’ll be gone again by midnight.”

  “Are you an astronomer as well as a bartender and an animal whisperer?” she says, sounding impressed.

  I shake my head. “More like a super-amateur selenologist. Thanks for the beer.”

  “Thanks for helping me clean up the mess.” She glances back at the bar to avoid my unspoken questions.

  “Tell me about your aunt,” I say, sinking down onto the step. “Do you have any cousins?”

  “I did, but we lost them to the war on drugs.” She settles down beside me, the heat of her body a sweetener to her sad revelation. I watch her pick at the label on her bottle with her ruby-red nails. “Matias and Manny,” she says. “Matias was caught in a crossfire in Bogotá, five years ago. He was sixteen. A baby. A local trafficker offered him a quick paycheck, and he forgot to ask questions first. We buried Manny last year. This is—was his bar. Afterward, I moved back to Colombia and picked up the debts he’d forgotten to pay. It’s just me and my aunt now, but she lives six hours away…”

  It’s an opening for me to ask more, but to do so would mean offering up something in return. I’m not ready for that yet, so we take the next couple of sips in an easy silence instead; the waxing crescent gleaming bright in the sky like the crack in the door she just gave me.

  After a while, I steer us toward safer territory.

  “What did you study in the US?”

  “How to avoid getting a job.” She laughs and stretches out her long legs in front of her. “I learned how to surf and I developed an appreciation for social media and gel nails. And I loved designing my own tattoos.” She offers me her shoulder so I can appreciate the detail up close.

  “Did it hurt? How long did it take?”

  “Long enough for me to smoke about four-hundred dollars’ worth of weed.”