Rebel gives him a look that could freeze an ocean. “I don’t think so.”

Clearly not the answer Julio wanted. His jowls shake as he tries to marshal himself. “As you wish.”

Rebel walks farther into the room, ducking around the men with guns as though he neither sees nor cares about them. He throws himself down on the couch and toys with the toothpick he still holds between his teeth. I sit beside him; his guys position themselves around the room with their own guns out now, openly hostile.

“And what is it that you’d like to talk about?” Rebel enquires.

“Debts,” is Julio’s response. “A dealer in debts, Rebel. You’re a man who collects debts and makes good use of them. I have never been fond of debt. I’ve never lived beyond my means. I’ve never borrowed money or drugs. I’ve never taken anything that wasn’t owed to me without a clear knowledge of the consequences. I have been very careful about this all of my life, and yet these past five years I have found myself owing you something. I have to tell you, that does not sit well with me. Not well at all.”

Rebel sits and listens to this, twisting the toothpick over and over between his fingertips. “I don’t know what to tell you, my friend. We all find ourselves in uncomfortable situations from time to time. I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.”

“But I have lost sleep over it. It’s a terrible way to live your life, knowing that one small aspect of it is being controlled by someone else. So when I saw one of your little companions had wandered from the coop, I thought you coming to collect him might be an ideal opportunity for us to discuss this debt that you hold over me.”

“I don’t see that there’s much to discuss, but I’m willing to listen while you state your case,” Rebel says.

Julio turns and nods to one of his men, the guy who Rebel throat-punched at the door. He glares malevolently at Rebel as he crosses the room and disappears into a room beyond. I think he’s going to fetch Cade, but the man he returns with isn’t a Widow Maker at all; it’s Andreas Medina.

His hands are tied behind his back, and his mouth is bleeding. He can barely stand properly without the other guy propping him up. It’s only been an hour since we let him out of the Humvee and he looks like he’s spent the last few days being tuned up. Fair enough, he had a couple of swollen bruises and a hole in the leg from Zeth’s attentions, but this…this is something else altogether. Rebel does the eyebrow thing again, looking to Julio.

“Last time I checked, my boy was a little paler than that guy.”

This isn’t looking good. I know it; Rebel knows it; Julio knows it, too. “Please, Rebel, no more games.”

I get the feeling Julio’s not exactly happy he doesn’t know Rebel’s real name. If he did, I’m pretty sure he’d be calling him by his title the same way he does with Zee when he’s mad at him—Mr. Mayfair. Rebel’s been extraordinarily careful to make sure no one knows who he is, though. Julio could turn over every single rock and stone between here and Washington State and Washington DC and not find a scrap of a clue as to who the man is. Or was, before he walked away from his old life.

“Don’t let him do this,” Andreas croaks. “You said you’d protect me.”

Julio and Rebel both ignore the man. “I don’t have any problems with you keeping an eye on me from time to time,” Julio grunts. “That’s smart business. But when I found out you’d been planting people in my own house, spying on what I was eating for my fucking breakfast, I couldn’t have that. I was going to kill him right away, but then I realized that this was an opportunity. A good opportunity to muddy the water a little, if you will.”

“You had him feed me incorrect information,” Rebel says.

“If you want to put it like that, then yes. I know that he told you I brought you here to slit your throat, for instance. But I didn’t bring you here to kill you, Rebel. I brought you here to show you something. First things first, though—” Julio gives the guy holding Medina upright another nod, and the man reacts quickly, pulling a knife out of nowhere. It’s an automatic reaction; I reach for my weapon, but I’m already too late—the blade slices across Medina’s throat. An arc of bright red arterial blood sprays from the guy’s throat, his eyes bulging out of his head. Julio’s guy lets go of Medina and he drops to his knees, hands scrabbling at his neck in a futile attempt to close the wound. He dies with a look of horrified surprise on his face. A thick, viscous pool of red spreads slowly out from around his head in an almost perfect circle. People never really realize that that much blood, it has a smell. It fills my nostrils, the sharp, bitter tang of metal.

“Was that entirely necessary?” Rebel asks. He sounds bored, but I know my cousin; he’s furious.

“It served a purpose. I’m assuming it caught your attention, and right now I need to know that you’re very focused, my friend.”

“What do you want?”

“I want your files. All of them. I don’t just want what you have on me; I want it all. And I want it in three days time, otherwise—”

“Otherwise?”

Another nod from Julio. This time it’s aimed at a guy on the other side of the room, who pulls out a cell phone and tosses it to Rebel. There’s a video already loaded on the screen; a big white arrow is blinking at him when he lifts the thing. He hits play.

The screen stays dark for a moment, but the speakers explode with sound—a woman, screaming. “Omg, no, no, no, please stop! Stop! No! HELP! Please—”