Page 103 of Hell Breaks Loose

“Which might mean that he’s keeping it hush-hush. Which might mean he has an agenda.”

Sing abruptly walks out of the room.

“Plausible deniability. Nice.” I snicker, scratching my chin. “Why the fuck is Sing-a-ling helping us?”

“He’s not.” Alaya’s on her feet, and the room gets crowded for all the pacing.

“Care to share?” Ora sidesteps Alaya’s track, smacking her on the ass.

“I’m 99% sure this guy is ex-Chao Pho. Thai underground. Likely an ex-hitman.”

“I love it when she goes all super-spy-backstory.” Ora cups her chin in her hands.

Alaya side-eyes her with a smirk.

“From what I can tell, Sing is in ‘observe only’ mode here. Otherwise, his entire job is ‘keep Hellena safe’. Which extends to every facet of that end. A.K.A., keeping her out of trouble, or just keeping an eye on her while she does whatever the hell she wants. With Gavin there, he knows as well as we do that she’s ‘safe’.”

“So he wants us to tell Hellena that Marco’s watching? Make sure she doesn’t step out of line?” I posit, leading the train of thought.

“The opposite. With Gavin there, she’s more likely to go rogue and do whatever it is she set out to do when she came here without Sing’s supervision.”

“So he’s reverse-psyching her?” Sarcasm. Lots of sarcasm.

“Fuck if I know, string-bean. I just made all of that up.” Alaya flaps her lips, dropping back to her seat.

“Speculation, your honor,” I quip.

“No, I think you’re onto something…” Ora takes the thread. “Why wouldn’t Marco just announce himself?”

“Sneak attack?”

“No, but yeah. He’s trying to see what’s really going on when everyone thinks he’s not around to see it.”

“It’s a trap?”

“Definitely a trap. It’s always a trap with that guy!”

“So what you’re saying is that we should lure him into one.”

“He’ll see it coming.”

“Unless we have the schematic to his trap!” Alaya jumps to her feet.

“How do we get it?” But I think I know where she’s going with it.

“What’s Sing’s job?” Alaya bobs her eyebrows.

Which is how I got a tip on where to link up with one of Marco’s crews roving the city in disguise. Infiltrating a gang of ten hardened criminals isn’t the easiest thing, but there’s always at least one guy nobody would miss.

Who gets separated from the group with a little assistance.

Swarmed by Holy Ghost drug-addicted psychos.

Then manages to escape with his life, a little worse for wear. That worse for wear works so well to cover up any discrepancies in why I don’t look exactly like the guy.

And while those other nine brutes may not be ecstatic to have him, me, back, they welcome the extra hand because we need to secure the Devonde building for Marco. Because he needs a place where he can administer a certain drug he got several doses of recently.

An easy enough job.

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