Page 35 of For the Love of Animals

The instant we got out of the car, Nate grasped my hand, and I couldn’t say I minded. He made me feel safe, protected, and even though I was capable of looking after myself, it was nice to share the load. The parade was in full swing, and we had to fight our way through the crowds as the floats went past, followed by dancers and bands and acrobats.

“Why don’t we watch from here for a while?” I asked. My shoes had also been a last-minute purchase, and I’d gone for style rather than comfort.

“Sure.”

I stiffened as Nate moved behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“What are you doing?”

“Stopping the rest of the male population from staring at your ass.”

Maybe so, but that didn’t stop all the women from staring at his. His suit was the reverse of Lozano’s, black with white embroidery and a blood-red shirt, and I almost offered to adjust the button on the pants for him. I wouldn’t have minded a faceful of Nate. But he seemed more interested in the people around us than me, so I had to take what I could get while we waited for Lozano to eat lunch.

That was the genius of Nate’s plan. We didn’t need to add the second part of the binary agent because Lozano would do it himself. The mixture on the inside of the gloves would be activated by isopropyl alcohol, you see, and Lozano covered himself in the stuff before every meal when he used his hand sanitiser. Once the two ingredients reacted, they’d create enough sarin gas to kill him.

First his nose would run, then his eyes would water, and he’d start to drool and vomit as acetylcholine built up in his body and prevented his neurotransmitters from working properly. His vision would blur. He’d piss himself and shit himself, and since sarin has no taste or smell, he wouldn’t even know why. A few minutes later, he’d convulse and die, and by the time doctors reached him, delayed by the crowds and the traffic around the parade, the gas would have evaporated.

A nasty way to die, but since he’d been responsible for so many murders in Mexico over the past few years, I couldn’t bring myself to care.

But you’d better believe I scrubbed my hands after I sprayed that stuff inside Lozano’s gloves.

“What time is it?” I asked Nate.

He held up his wrist, and I tilted it so I could make out the hands on his watch under the sun’s glare. Twelve fifty-seven. Three minutes to go if Lozano stuck to the timetable.

I fidgeted in Nate’s arms, and he hugged me tighter, brushing a thumb over my hip bone.

“Shh. If it happens, it happens. Otherwise we’ll try again.”

“I might not have a job if it doesn’t happen.”

“You’ll have a job. I’ll give you a job.”

“What do you mean, you’ll— Oh shit.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my ex walking towards us. Antonio el acosador as Teo had named him. The stalker. He may not have seen me yet, but he would. The creep had some sort of weird radar that homed in on me whenever he was nearby.

“What’s wrong?” Nate asked.

“My ex-boyfriend is walking towards us. Fuck.”

Far from tensing up like me, Nate seemed to relax. “Is he the guy you hate?”

“Huh?”

“Last night, you said you hated somebody. Was that him?”

I racked my brains, and a chill ran through me when I remembered. Those three words. I hate you. And if Nate had heard me say them, he must also have heard what came before. My gasps. My groans of pleasure as I got myself off thinking about him. His cock, specifically. Dreaming of how it would fit so perfectly between my legs.

“How did you…?”

My cheeks heated, and I wished I’d worn make-up as well as a mask. The most embarrassing moment of my life, and I wanted to run to the end of the earth but my feet wouldn’t move.

Nate cupped one hand over the sugar skull broach, which I’d pinned to my left breast again.

“It was transmitting.”

“Just kill me now.”

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