Standing alone in the Bronx, I decide that loitering probably isn’t a good plan. Walking toward the subway, I think about the train transfers and various stations I’ll have to go through to get home from here. It’s offensive, but not surprising, that Travis would leave me in this situation. Then again, I’d rather put up with the inconvenience of transferring trains and even the risk of wandering around the Bronx at night than spend more one-on-one time with Travis. Plus I wouldn’t have been able to let him drop me off anywhere near my real home anyway.

Being a mystery can be an enormous amount of work.

I wonder if Travis thinks the same. I run over the conversation in the restaurant. So the guy wants to open an account. So what? Travis had gone over all the tedious details involved in that. What information they were required to share, what deposit amounts have to be reported to the IRS—so much talk about Mexican currency exchange houses. As far as I could tell there’s a currency exchange house that Javier works with and he wants HGVB to work with them too . . . I think.

I frown as I follow the steps down into the subway station. I’ve spent a lot of time studying the things I thought might be helpful when taking on the Gables, but clearly not enough. Spanish and English are my two languages, but it’s like reading about Chaos theory from a textbook. I can read the words but that still doesn’t mean I get it.

The financial world will always be foreign to me.

But Javier? There’s something about him that seems more dangerous than the average gangbanger. And danger is something I am familiar with.

I wait on the platform for my train, ignoring the woman who is retching by one of the pillars.

If Javier does call me . . . well, then perhaps I’ll give Micah a call. I’ll want him or someone who works for him nearby. I’m not going to let anyone end my life before I make sure the Gables are wishing someone would end theirs.

chapter twenty-three

It’s almost one a.m. when Lander’s text comes through.

I need to see you.

I’m lying awake in my bed, staring at the cracks in my ceiling, trying to play through the night’s events in my head in hopes of making some sense of them.

But the truth is I can’t focus. As soon as I slipped out of the armor I wear for Travis and into the soft cotton of my nightshirt, it’s Lander who occupied my mind. I smile as I read his message. He doesn’t really think I’m going to rush over to him in the middle of the night, does he?