Stolen Lies (Fates of the Bound 2)

“How? People are never going to stop looking for them.”

“I have a few ideas.”

Lila narrowed her eyes.

“I do. Trust me.”

“You’ll run your plan by me before you decide to act. I don’t want to get stuck cleaning up your mess again.”

The waitress saved them from an argument, returning with sizzling plates of fajitas.

Tristan hadn’t been lying about the food. If Lila had thought the queso had been amazing, it had nothing on the fajitas. “What’d they marinate this stuff in? Unicorns and rainbows?” she asked, wrapping up strips of steak in fresh tortillas.

Her mouth watered as she chewed, the slight tinge of lime biting her tongue. “I should send Chef over to ferret out the recipe. She’s like a walking food analyzer.”

Tristan gave her a long look. “If I’d thought your family might steal the recipes, I never would have brought you.”

“We don’t steal. We partner. Voluntarily. Our deals are very generous.”

For a first date, it wasn’t half bad. Tristan spent most of the meal rubbing his leg against hers under the table. She didn’t pull away, though it made concentrating on her food more difficult. That and her constant worry that a spy might be watching.

After Tristan hopped up to visit the men’s room, she finally sent a message to Reaper’s partner. Are you going to keep blowing up my palm, or will you actually tell me what you want?

She received her answer a few seconds later.

One hundred thousand credits. You have two days.

She wrote back immediately. Just money? Is that all you want?

For now, my sweet. I’ll send you my account number soon. Fail to pay, and you’ll receive a very different sort of message.

Lila pinched the bridge of her nose. Paying would begin a dance she didn’t want. She’d never paid a blackmailer in her life, and she refused to start now.

After the meal, the pair returned to the truck. Lila finished her work for the security office while Tristan drove them to the fifth location, then she returned her laptop to her satchel. Unfortunately, location five turned out to be a waste of time. It was nothing more than another chop shop. Lila scowled on the way back to the truck and said nothing as Tristan drove to the next address. Her unmarked servant’s shirt scratched against her neck in the heat.

Twenty minutes later, Tristan parked a block from the corner of Antigua Way and Achilles Drive. The whole area had been filled with factories, though half had been shuttered when the last round of environmental regulations had passed a decade ago. She and Tristan were so far from downtown New Bristol that the skyline had pinched into a small cluster. Twelve towers poked out from the mass of metal and glass behind them.

Her mother would soon raze Wilson Tower, as dictated by tradition. The skyline would change again after the Parks built their tower inside their fledgling compound, marking them as newly highborn.

But Achilles Drive was far away from all that. The sidewalks had been matted by weeds and dirt and cigarette butts, and the voices on the street sounded tinny and quiet and eerie.

“It’s that one.” Lila jutted her chin to an abandoned factory. “There’s another on my list nearby, but this one is more likely.” The properties on all sides had been abandoned, leaving it inside a strange pocket of protection. Boot prints marked the dried mud around the perimeter.

“Guards,” Lila whispered.

Tristan frowned. They’d been dodging the occasional guard all day.

Still they pressed on. Though Lila didn’t spot any cameras, she turned on her jammer. They followed the prints, noting that none of them looked all that fresh. When they saw no evidence of a patrol, they peered into one of the dusty windows. Lila didn’t see anything at first. Just a dirty floor and a few tables far in the back.

Then she saw the toe of a worn boot and a pool of crimson nearby.

Lila pulled away from the window and grabbed her tranq gun and hood, while Tristan tapped upon his palm and sent for the others.

Fry, Dice, Frank, and a yawning Dixon soon appeared behind them, just as Lila slid her mesh hood over her face.

“Hood and I will go around the back,” Tristan said. “Fry, Dice, and Frank, take the front. Dixon, you’re up top.”

As Fry and Dice slipped around to the front of the building, a pale Dixon struggled up the fire escape, his boots quiet as he scrambled onto the roof.