Page 64 of Inez

"Dead, I presume?"

“Tortured. Beaten, electrocuted, and eventually given Colombian neckties."

"Not definitive, but that speaks to Rafael's favored torture practices, the electrocution thing in particular." I steel my voice so it doesn't shake. "He devised a process that is…quite effective. It is extraordinarily painful, but unlikely to result in even accidental death." I can't suppress a shudder. "It took some experimenting before he arrived at the system he uses now. Many of his victims died as he tried to figure it out."

Solomon is quiet for a moment. "Personal experience, eh?"

"Indeed." I clear my throat. "That's an excellent indicator that he's here in LA, but not proof. Where are you all?"

"We’ve been in LA for a few days. Let's rendezvous and put together a plan."

We agree on a rendezvous point and time, and end the call.

An hour and a half later—because LA traffic is its own form of hell—we're all together again, finally. We’ve met up outside an abandoned warehouse in the port—a location provided by Fonz, who is LA-born and -raised, and who spent his entire adult working life here.

It warms my cold, dead heart to see the way the girls greet their men. Car doors are flung open before the vehicles have even stopped and the pairs run to meet each other with an exuberance that would make you think it's been months rather than days.

Lorenzo, Fonz, Taj, Toro, and I stand together to one side, watching the couples whisper and kiss and act like love-sick teenagers.

Fonz spits on the ground at his feet. "Jesus, these people. Get a goddamn room or something, fuck. I gotta piss." He hobbles off, muttering under his breath.

I watch him go, and they glance at Toro and Taj in turn. "What's his problem?"

Toro answers. "He despises the idea of love. He won’t speak of it, but I think he experienced some form of betrayal at the hands of someone he loved, and it has made him bitter and angry."

"And you?" I ask.

Toro rolls one broad, heavy shoulder. "I would like to find love for myself, but it does not seem to wish to find me. I am unlucky in love."

"Taj?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Love is a not needed thing. My parents and grandparents were arranged marriages and have much happiness. I, too, was married this way."

"You are married?" I ask, surprised.

He shakes his head. "No. Not anymore." He goes to the back of the Suburban and busies himself loading bullets into magazines—conversation over.

I notice his gaze flicking occasionally to Anjalee, and I see a wistfulness in his expression. I join him loading magazines.

"I see the way you look at her," I murmur. "Anjalee."

His movements become jerky and unnecessarily forceful, answering in the same. "She resembles my…wife—ex-wife."

"Ah."

He snorts. "No ‘ah.’ You do not know."

"No," I agree. I don't."

He glances at me. "It isn't in some dossier somewhere?"

"The outlines, yes. The context, reasons, and fallout? No."

"I am not in love with Anjalee. I do not look at her in that way." He glances at me. "I do not wish to discuss this any further, if you please."

"Of course. But if you wish to, you have friends here, now. Brothers. Sisters."

"I am not a Broken Arrow."