Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(6)

CHAPTER TWO


Breaking In


POPPING MY SHOULDER back into place wasn’t pretty. I managed not to yelp as Derry twisted and pressed. Once the bone slipped back into the socket, the pain gave me a hard, electric jolt and then subsided. I breathed through it. Like always.

“Good,” Derry said, but I could tell his attention was on the dead man impaled on the pipes a few meters away. “Help me get him off there?”

“Tarp first.”

I was the practical one, the planner, and Derry went to salvage some scrap of plastic big enough to wrap the body. I walked over to stare at the corpse. Didn’t bother me, though it was gruesome.

He provoked us, I reassured myself. Who sends a kill order over a stolen purse?

That made no kind of sense . . . except to a narcissistic sociopath like Torian Deluca. The box might have held his daughter’s personal chem stash or maybe it went deeper, but this was also about his stung ego. By exterminating me, he’d wipe off the stain to his pride and send a message to anyone who might be thinking of messing with his property.

This wouldn’t end like he wanted. I wouldn’t go out that way.

That was what I tried to tell myself. But despite Derry’s apparent coolness, he was still shaky, coming off whatever he’d scored while I was out hunting up our lunch money. I wondered how much he’d spent on his high. And where he’d gotten the coin.

While Derry was gone, I rifled the corpse’s pockets and came up with an H2, late-model thing, encrypted. It didn’t have a simple fingerprint unlock; I tried pressing the dead thumb to it, to no effect. Deluca bought next-level stuff. We can take it to Conde, I thought, but then realized that wouldn’t be smart; Deluca would have real-time tracking on his men, and finding this device would be child’s play. Conde would kill me if I left him exposed like that, and he’d never touch this if he knew how bloody it was. He was probably pissed enough that I’d sold him stuff stolen off a Deluca.

I’d seen him crack enough cases to know the basics, so I grabbed a thin piece of metal—had been a fork once, maybe—and pried the thing open. The chip sat nestled in the center of all those tiny connections, gleaming lush gold. I yanked it out, put it on the cracked pavement, and used a brick to bash it to pieces.

Then I pocketed the device. What Conde didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and it’d be a waste to destroy such a pretty piece of work. I could sell it later, probably.

The dead man had a fat pouch of old currency coins instead of an e-money card, which I guess wasn’t a surprise; he was a crim, after all. Funny. I was making more off his death than I got off Deluca’s daughter. You killed somebody. You should feel bad about it.

But I didn’t. He’d been a dick, and now he was dead, and that was that.

Derry came back with a tattered but sturdy length of plastic from the dump nearby, and together we lifted the body off the pipes with a nasty squelch. It leaked, but the tarp took care of the mess. I tied it closed around his neck, waist, and feet with scrounged bits of wire and cord.

Swiping the sweat from my face left a smear; I felt the stickiness of blood, breathed in the copper. I’d forgotten about the gash on my arm. If enforcement scans the scene, they’ll find it’s lousy with my DNA. Not that enforcement spent a minute more than they had to out here in the Lower Eight anyway.

“Z,” Derry said then, as I secured the last bit, and I looked up at him. His face was set and pale, and there was a bad tremor in his hands. “They’ll kill us for this.”

“Deluca won’t call in the cops,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter. He sent this snake for you, and he’ll keep coming.”

“Then we run.”

“Where? Where does Deluca not get us?” Derry’s eyes shone bright amber with fear. He’d comforted me at the start, but reaction must be setting in, and he was starting to think about his own chances. Plus, he was coming down; he’d been on and off the stuff as long as I’d known him. For some, that was how they coped with life in the Zone. I never asked why, because in the Zone, the past was a minefield, and some borders shouldn’t be crossed.

I hesitated, considering the chem in my pocket, rich-girl goodies, probably potent as hell. I should give it to him. But I’d been trying to keep Derry off the stuff. But it might keep him focused. You need him steady.

It surprised me a little to be so calm as I analyzed our odds of escape. Damn. Derry’s right. Torian Deluca had a worldwide reach. He was absurdly rich, ruthless, and dedicated. You didn’t get to stand where he did without being willing to commit to the body count.

“I didn’t kill his kid, I just stole her purse! He might let it go.”

“Now?” Derry tilted his head at the body. “You think? That guy sure acted like this was bigger than a snatch and grab.”

He was right. Getting rid of the suit had been necessary, one way or another, but his death opened up a whole new barrel of shit. “We sell his device and use the cash to get out,” I said. “Way out. We’re not on the net anyway. He’ll have a shit time tracking us once we’re off our usual turf.”

Derry didn’t look convinced. I wasn’t either, but it was our best hope.

At last he nodded. “We’ll bury him in the dump. Let’s go.”