Hunters, Matt Rogers [pdf ebook reader .txt] 📗

swept up to his nose, which had swelled so significantly as to make his eyes puffy and his cheeks purple. The splint masked most of the visible damage, but the picture wasn’t pretty.

He said, ‘If it was, then it was quite the way to go out.’

They heard movement in the hallway. Violetta tensed up involuntarily, but King recognised the familiar gait. He swung himself out of bed — he’d slept fully clothed — and padded out of the tiny bedroom.

Slater was in the process of passing by. The man stopped and turned and regarded King. Slater’s nose was swollen, too, but there was no splint or gauze padding it. It wasn’t as bad of a break, even though he’d been hit harder. You can never predict how the human anatomy will react to blunt force trauma. Sometimes you take a colossal strike full in the face and it doesn’t even faze you. Sometimes you get tapped in a soft spot and you’re sent into a world of hell.

King said, ‘You look better than me, but that’s not saying much.’

‘We’re getting old.’

‘Are we?’ King said. ‘Or is the competition improving?’

Slater said nothing.

King said, ‘Gangbangers, corrupt officials, ex-military. That’s who we’ve been going up against, our last few operations. Last night … that was another level. Those two were the best this country has to offer. And they’re lying dead in our house.’

‘It’s not our house anymore. They made sure of that.’

‘And it cost them their lives.’

Slater said, ‘You sound awfully confident for a man on the run.’

A pause. ‘You overheard last night?’

‘I heard enough.’

‘You don’t sound happy.’

‘We’re running? That’s what we’re doing? That’s what we’ve been reduced to?’

‘You want to have this argument here? In the hallway?’

Slater rolled his eyes. ‘You want to sit down in front of a fireplace in opposite armchairs with a whiskey tumbler in each hand? Would that seem sexier?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

Slater stuck his head through the doorway and saw Violetta in bed, her knees tucked up to her chest, her chin resting on one knee. She turned her head to meet his gaze.

Slater said, ‘You’re on board with this?’

She hesitated. ‘It’s different for King and I now.’

He shook his head. ‘Not this different.’

He ducked out, storming to the kitchen.

Violetta’s face was flushed with frustration when King turned to her and tapped the side of his head twice. She soaked in the meaning behind the gesture, then nodded her understanding. Her annoyance fell away.

Post-concussion symptoms were plentiful, and they included irritability, anxiety, depression, mood swings, and even memory issues. King had been there before. Violetta hadn’t. But she could imagine if King hadn’t reacted in the slightest, then he knew what Slater was going through.

They gave Slater a wide berth for ten minutes, allowing him to cool his head, then joined him in the kitchen. Alexis was there, brewing instant coffee. The smell was awful, but it was all they had access to. King realised he didn’t miss the luxury, didn’t miss the multi-million dollar estate, but what he did miss was a proper coffee machine.

The kitchen was morosely quiet as they drank down warm mugs.

Then Slater took a deep breath and said, ‘I was out of line before. El Salvador it is.’

King and Violetta nodded.

Alexis was still hunched over, moving with care, and she didn’t utter a word of protest. Pain had made her more human. She was vulnerable now, and she’d go wherever they deemed necessary. With her ribs burning and her mid-section inflamed, the experience gap between her and the others had become apparent.

She said, ‘So what now?’

‘Alonzo emailed us what we need late last night.’

‘Which is?’

‘Proof of Central American citizenship, international driving permits, and numbers for anonymised credit cards.’

The technical description washed over Alexis, making her glassy-eyed. ‘To the airport, then?’

King shook his head. ‘One thing first.’

‘And that is?’

‘Passports.’

34

Antônia had a safe house of her own in Santa Ana.

She’d breezed out of Torres’ estate without any of his security giving her a second look.

Well, that was a lie.

They’d all looked at her more than twice, but never out of suspicion or hostility, mostly fixated on the summer dress bouncing off her rear. Then she’d floated down the humid lanes until the surface beneath her shoes became an uneven mass of potholes, signifying a transition into the poorer suburbs. She moved through the barrio until she made it to the edge of a sprawling industrial zone, then ducked into a walk-up style apartment building that had fallen into disrepair long ago.

Her apartment was a shoebox, so small she could nearly reach out and touch both walls if she stood in the middle of the small living area, but it was all she needed. She fished her work phone out from under the sofa cushion, intending to check in with her superiors and report the successful operation.

Then the phone rang in her hand.

She read the contact name and raised an eyebrow, then answered with a purr. ‘Hello.’

‘Been a while,’ Alonzo said.

‘That it has.’

‘Where are you?’

‘You know where,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you in front of that special computer of yours?’

‘I am. I thought it would make you more comfortable to tell me yourself.’

Sweat pooled in the small of Antônia’s back. Ninety-five percent humidity and an absence of air-conditioning. ‘Comfort isn’t something I take into consideration.’

‘Are you working?’

‘You know that, too.’

Alonzo paused, then sighed. ‘I might as well get to the point…’

‘You know how I like it,’ she said with a smile. ’No foreplay. Straight to it.’

‘Do you remember what you told me?’ he said. ‘Six months ago, at The Beekman.’

Antônia remembered that night fondly. The vintage-style room, the big bed, the rush of passion and sensation, the delicacy of his touch, something she didn’t think existed any more.

She said, ‘I told you that you were a good man.’

‘Which you said was rare in our world. That’s why you were drawn to me, instead of the testosterone-fuelled alpha males you could have had with the snap of your fingers. Fellow operatives and the like.’

Her