“Where?”
He laughs, red on his teeth. “You picked wrong, Shady.”
I slam his head into the concrete.
Not enough to kill him.
Enough to make the message clear.
I pull my knife and press it beneath his jaw.
“Where is she?”
His eyes roll, pain making him sloppy. “Ask Carmen.”
There it is.
Too easy.
Too pretty.
A lie with perfume on it.
My phone rings again.
This time I answer without looking.
Diablo’s voice hits hard. “Report.”
I stare at the white rose crushed under my boot.
“They took Lady.”
Silence.
Then Darling screams in the background, so raw it cuts through the line and carves straight into me.
Diablo’s voice comes back lower. Deadlier.
“Who?”
I look at the man under my knife. At Cherry crying by the elevator. At the blood on the concrete. At the city that just reached into the sky and dragged my woman down from it.
“Mutherfukers hit the garage,” I say. “They used Cherry. Left a rose. One of them said ask Carmen.”
Vice curses somewhere on Diablo’s end.
Magic says something I can’t make out.
Darling is crying Lady’s name.
I close my eyes for half a second.
Just half.
Then I open them, and whatever soft thing Lady woke in me this morning burns down to ash.
“Lock the city,” I tell Diablo.