Evan took a step closer. “So look at me. Look at me closely. And ask yourself: Do I look scared?”

The big man leaned in, the glow of the computers turning his face into a shadow-ravaged landscape—empty eye sockets, pronounced jowls, the curve of one cheek. His thick lips pulsed, the first show of hesitation.

Evan’s gun remained at his side, just like Hector’s. They faced each other across the desk.

When Evan was fourteen, Jack had trained him how to fast-draw. It wasn’t with High Noon theatrics—unholster, lift, and aim. It was a two-millimeter tilt and 3.5 pounds of index-finger pressure.

The shadows shifted across Hector’s face. His beefy hand twitched around his gun. He moved first.

The plywood walls gave off a good echo.

*   *   *

Later that night Evan eased into the alley that ran behind the dilapidated apartment that accommodated Anna Rezian’s family. A sheen of blood had hardened on his left forearm, cracking like dried mud when he moved. He’d washed his hands and his face but could feel the leftover flecks on the side of his neck.

There’d been backspray.

He lifted his black phone from his pocket. It was a RoamZone model, encased in fiberglass and tough black rubber, the screen protected by Gorilla Glass. He kept it on him.

Always.

It was a lifeline. Not to him, but to those who called it.

He sent a text to Anna: OUTSIDE.

As he waited, a concern niggled at the base of his skull. He had seen something in Hector’s house—he didn’t know what it was, but it was wrong. Was his client in danger? No. He’d been thorough. Not a threat to her. Not a threat to him. Something else. Something important but not immediate.

Anna’s backlit silhouette appeared at the mouth of the alley about ten yards away. She wore a nightie, her spine hunched, her dry hair sticking out. The alley formed a wind tunnel, the October air whipping at her brunette tufts, making them wag stiffly.

“You’re safe now,” he told her.

Her feet were bare. He could see the tremble in her knees.

“I thought you were one of them coming to get me,” she said. “I thought walking down here would be the last thing I ever did. But then … but then it was you.”

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said.

“What does it mean? That I’m safe?”

“You don’t have to worry anymore,” he said.

“About what?”

“Any of it.”

“Addison?”

“Has other concerns now.”

“And his boss? The guy behind it all?”

“He died.”

Anna trudged forward, her scalp shiny in the spots where she’d plucked out her hair. Her face held the same look he’d seen in his other clients, a worn-through, hollowed-out expression that came from falling out of the slipstream of life.

“Albert is safe?” Her voice cracked. “And Eduard?”

“Yes.”