Page 3 of Echoes and Oaths
With an exhale, Jinx grabbed the book Montoya had been working with and those in the open safe behind him before melting into the night. The laptop he’d shoved inside his shirt with the books and left the room. No alarms. No screams. Just a Shadow slipping into the darkness.
The fallout of his hit had come fast. Montoya’s death had rippled through the underworld like a tsunami, shaking the foundation of his empire. No one knew who had done it. Some had suspicions, but the explosion of the organization was bloody and messy. Hundreds died in the when the turf war ignited. Disappearing at that time wasn’t unusual. So many did. If he was noticed to be missing, people would assume he’d been killed.
Most whispered of a betrayal from within. Others claimed it was one of Montoya’s lieutenants fighting for power. A few suspected foreign assassins, but no one had proof.
The lieutenants turned on each other. Blood ranthrough the streets as Montoya’s empire had split apart and shattered into pieces. Alliances broke. Old feuds ignited. And in the storm, one man had clawed his way to the top.
Tomás Ortega.
He’d taken what was left of Montoya’s crumbling organization and rebuilt it. He was brutal and ambitious. But Jinx doubted he was ever feared like Montoya. There was an inherent weakness in the man. Jinx had seen it. Others had noticed it, too. But somehow, he’d covered it sufficiently to rise to the top.
And now, a new force threatened the Ortega throne and the country’s stability.
El Fantasma. The Ghost. A whisper in the dark. A name spoken in fear. Jinx had heard of him. Hell, all the Shadows knew of the cartel’s assassin. He’d become bold and was building an army of his own. Jinx glanced down at the packet of papers in his hand. He had two targets. One known. One a mystery.
There was unfinished business. And this time, he wasn’t just hunting. He was going to war.
“Your travel companions are pulling up.”
Brando’s voice crackled in Jinx’s earpiece, snapping him out of his thoughts. He glanced out thetinted jet window, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the tarmac. A black SUV rolled to a stop near the plane, dust curling up in its wake. The vehicle’s doors swung open, and two figures stepped out. Raven and Rook.
A slow grin tugged at Jinx’s lips.
Raven looked exactly the same. She was a figure that was utterly unassuming. She wasn’t the woman anyone would pick out of a crowd. Jeans, worn sneakers, and a faded T-shirt that had likely seen its fair share of laundromat abuse. Her dark hair was twisted up in a haphazard bun, a few rogue strands slipping free to frame her face. To the untrained eye, she was just a girl-next-door type, maybe a college student or an off-duty waitress. But Jinx knew better.
She was the same woman who’d once gutted a target with a paring knife in a hotel room in Prague, then walked out the front door, smiling sweetly at the doorman as she left. The same woman who could sever the balls off a wife-beating bastard and then bake cookies for an elderly neighbor in the same afternoon. Even Valkyrie, one of the deadliest assassins in Guardian’s history, had admitted Raven impressed her. And that wasn’t easy.
Then there was Rook.
Where Raven was a whirlwind of barely contained chaos, Rook was control incarnate. The man was a strategist, a thinker, and an executioner whose weapons weren’t blades or bullets but something far more insidious. Poisons. Undetectable. Lethal. He was a walking chemistry set, capable of turning a sip of water into a death sentence. And because of that, he was never, under any circumstances, allowed to bring food or drinks to any party they had. It was a long-standing joke among the Shadows.
Jinx exhaled and stood as Raven sprinted up the steps, her sneakers slapping against the metal.
“J.!”
He braced himself just in time.
She launched at him, arms wrapping around his neck as her momentum forced him a step back. Her hands found his face, and she peppered his cheeks with rapid-fire kisses before he could stop her.
“Stop that, woman!” Jinx growled, dropping her unceremoniously.
She landed lightly on her feet, grinning like a lunatic as she wiped at his face. “You have lip gloss on you now.”
He scowled, swiping at his cheek.
“They didn’t tell us who we’d be flying with.Where the hell have you been?” She crossed her arms, tapping a foot against the floor. “You missed Berserker’s birthday.”
Jinx shrugged, but his smile was knowing. “I was working.”
“Bullshit. We knew you weren’t on a job.”
“I was tracking someone.”
Raven narrowed her eyes. “Who?”
Jinx glanced left, then right, as if checking for eavesdroppers. “A lone wolf.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why did I not think it would be an actual animal?”
