Page 29 of Godless
Bullets sparked off iron around us as we half-ran, half-jumped from the fire escape to the alley below. I hit the alley at a dead run. My shoulder was definitely fucked, but adrenaline kept me moving. Lorenzo stayed ahead, weaving between dumpsters. I followed because stopping meant dying.
"There!" He pointed at a motorcycle against the far wall.
Lorenzo straddled the bike and fired it up. The engine's roar bounced off alley walls. I climbed on behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist because physics didn't care about my rage.
My father's blood was still under my nails, and Lorenzo's hands were painted in it. Yet here I was, holding onto the man who'd killed him because both our organizations had decided we were better off dead.
"Don't get any ideas," I said against his ear, loud enough to carry over the engine. "This doesn't change anything. The second we're clear, you and I are finishing our conversation."
"Hold tight," he said. "And maybe try not to stab me in the back while we're moving."
"No promises."
He gunned it, and we tore into Rio's night with the taste of blood and betrayal thick on my tongue.
Lorenzo stopped the bikeoutside of a warehouse that was connected to an old air strip. I winced at the pain in my shoulder. Rio’s heat and humidity pressed down on us, making it difficult to breathe.
I couldn't believe my father was dead. It wasn't fair. Lorenzo was here, alive, heart beating under my palms while my father lay cold in a booth at Sanctum. My father was dead because of the man I was holding onto like he mattered.
Let go. Get off the bike. Walk away.
My hands wouldn't obey. My fingers remained locked around him as if I released him now, something worse than grief would rush in to fill the space.
It’d been twenty years since my mother had wrapped her arms around me, and just as long since I’d hugged Gabriel... Or anyone else. When was the last time I’d touched someone so casually?
I didn’t know, but my body acted as if I were starving for it.
I forced my fingers open. The absence of contact left my palms cold despite Rio's heat.
Lorenzo dismounted, swayed, then caught himself on the handlebar.
I looked away. "I'm leaving." Was that my voice? That didn’t sound like my voice.
Lorenzo went still. "What? You can’t just leave.”
"You heard me." I swung my leg over the bike. "Thanks for the ride. Good luck with the whole 'everyone wants you dead' situation."
I made it three steps before his hand closed around my wrist.
I jerked my hand away as if he’d burned me. Maybe he had. Every time he touched me, it sent a jolt of heightened awareness through me and made my body do things I couldn’t explain or control. Every nerve ending screaming yes, more, don't stop.
“Rafael, wait.”
"Wait for what?" I demanded. "So you can explain why you killed my father? Give me some bullshit justification about the coin, about having no choice?" I stepped closer, and he stepped back. "I don't want to hear it. I don't want to be near you. I don't—"
The warehouse door swung open.
A man stood in the doorway, honey-brown eyes sweeping over us both before landing on the blood. "Hey, you want the whole of Brazil to hear you two lovebirds arguing? Shut up and get inside before every operative in the city is on top of us."
My teeth ground together. He was right, and I hated him for it.
"Why is he alive?" A second man appeared behind the first, this one armed with a katana.
"Jasper." The first man's voice carried a warning.
"It's a reasonable question, Diego." Jasper took a drag from his cigarette. "Lorenzo just killed his father. One of them should be dead."
My hands balled into fists. "Ask him."
