Page 26 of Contested Crown

“How do we get into Los Santos?”

“We’re going to need new IDs, new phones. We have enough cash now, but we’re going to need to talk to a forger.” I raised an eyebrow. “This is when you protest that that’s too dangerous.”

“You’re the one who would know better than me,” Cade said. “What do we need IDs for? We’ve gotten along well without them so far.”

“The city is different. Most of the rent-by-the-hour places have a list of people Declan wants found. If we show up without ID, that’s a red flag. If we show up with a different ID, we have time. If we go to a bar or a club for information, we need ID. Also, there’s a lot more cops in the city. If we don’t have ID when we get pulled over, then we’re going straight to jail.”

“And that’s how Leon can track us down,” Cade said grimly. “This forger, do you trust them?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, running my fingers over the keys again. The sharp teeth caught on my thumb. “Yesterday, I would have said no, but after talking to Rick…”

“You realize that you might not be the only one who wants Declan Monroe gone?” Cade’s words were sharp, incisive.

“Yeah, exactly.” I shook my head, getting out again to open the garage door. It took a bit of shuffling to get the car out, the door closed and locked.

Then, we were on the road. This time, we took the 128 toward the city, getting off at an exit that led us through the last suburb next to Los Santos.

There had been a pretty good chance Rick wouldn’t sell us out. He owed me his wife’s life. She had gotten in deep by cheating a gambling operation two degrees separated from Declan.

I’d smoothed things over, made things right. Rick had come up with the money, but I had been the reason that she didn’t lose her fingers along with her ability to gamble in the city.

Rick owed me, but he’d shown me actual loyalty yesterday. He had thought I could take on Declan and win. Moreover, he had thought that was what I wanted.

I didn’t like to think about it, but I knew that a lot of people would help me, if they thought my end goal was to take down Declan Monroe. People like Krista.

“The forger I know, she’s tied to Declan—most people who do anything illegal in the city are—but he doesn’t like her, which means that she doesn’t get the business she should.”

“The enemy of my enemy,” Cade said.

“Yeah, exactly.” Los Santos tapered off into suburbia gently. Some areas became the suburbs through increasingly expensive, larger houses. Others became the next city by cheaper apartments, entire blotches of red on the crime statistics pages.

I pulled up, parallel parking in front of an apartment building with three boarded windows on the bottom floor. Cade looked around, frowning at the foggy morning light.

“Are you sure that the car will be safe here?”

“No,” I admitted. “But we don’t have much of a choice.”

We got out, and Cade looked around, as though a thief was going to leap out of the bushes immediately, stealing our radio and hubcaps with us standing on the sidewalk.

Decisively, he walked forward, pressing his palm to the window. Black tattoos crawled down his arm, delicately gliding over the glass, moving over the rest of the windows and door handles.

Both my eyebrows shot up, and I gaped for a moment. “You have that much magic?”

Cade’s breath was coming harshly, and he wet his lips, pulling back his chin and raising it. Sweat clung to his brow, his skin pale and eyes dull.

“We should go. Quickly.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I led the way into the apartment complex, past the security gate that was propped open with a brick, up to the third floor. The apartment building was shaped like a U, the inner courtyard all bleached yellow weeds that had been baked to death by the sun. The stairs between the different levels were worn all the way down to the concrete, the paint chipped off entirely.

I walked to apartment 303, knocking sharply on the security gate. In the corner of the doorframe, there was a small glint of black glass—Krista’s camera and security system. Behind me, Cade was still breathing heavily. My fingers twitched. I wanted to reach out and check if he was okay, but I couldn’t, not when I knew we were being watched.

The door opened, the heavy scent of pot wafting into the open air. Krista rubbed her eyes exaggeratedly.

“Miles? Is that you?” Krista spoke slowly, each word distinct, a junkie trying to convince a cop of his sobriety. “I heard that your head was mounted on Declan’s wall. Or am I hallucinating?”

“Hey, Krista. Are you going to let us in?”

Krista laughed, leaning forward and unlocking the security gate with a key. She waved us in. I opened the gate, stepping back and putting my hand on Cade’s lower back, ushering him in.