“I have a partner.”

“Two bottles go poof,” I said. “As soon as I drop ’em at Number Ten, I’m gone, sí? And you guys can drink good whisky and sing ‘Viva la revolución’ or whatever. I’m begging you. This is my job, man.”

One minute later, Remy was driving off twenty-eight hundred richer (minus the two hundred), and I was walking the private road with two cases of scotch whisky—shy three bottles. Halfway along the road, I ditched the booze behind a fern, extracted my weapon from my belt and continued on.

Number Ten Santuario del Sol was a key-lime-pie green two-story Spanish villa with a red clay tile roof, crowded in on all sides by giant ferns and several young palm trees. Hidden within the overgrowth were two security cameras and a laser trip wire twenty feet from the door. None of the modest security measures meant anything considering the tall cathedral arched front doors were open. It was a stagnant ninety degrees, so I doubted the door had been left open for a cooling breeze.

I entered, low and fast.

Nothing but the distant copper-penny taste of blood drifting in the sea salt air . . .

Winding staircase to the left.

No one.

Large open-concept dining room and expansive living room to my right.

Nothing.

Following the sound of the ocean . . .

. . . through to the balcony . . .

Bingo.

On the tiled balcony, reclining on a chaise with his back to me, fingertips resting on the rim of a glass of white wine, was the man I’d come to kill: Mr. Sloane. Relaxed. At ease. Taking in a small corner of the world’s beauty while the rest of the world burned.

And someone else.

A crossed pair of long, shiny woman’s legs, high arched feet in white stiletto heels. I turned my attention—and the barrel of my gun—to her.

I finally got a good view of the woman: a platinum blonde I’d seen before. The Flowers of Vietnam restaurant in Mexicantown. The one who dropped Renard off at Belle Isle.

The woman smiled at me—the kind of smile that draws a man inextricably into a woman’s web. The last things he feels are elongated incisors piercing his jugular vein.

“Had a feeling we’d see each other again,” she said.

I moved slowly around to face Sloane.

Eyes glaring open. Blue tongue jutted out. Throat cut. Red blood staining the front of his white terry robe.

“You?” I said to the woman.

“Oh, God, no,” she said with a modicum of disgust. “That I leave to others. And even then, my people aren’t so—sloppy.”

“And your ‘people’ are?”

“Exactly that,” she said. “My people. My assets. Not yours. Ever.”

“You’re CIA.”