A car passed between Syn and the SUV. Then another.

Reaching behind to his belt, Syn took one of his two suppressors from its holstered position at the small of his back. Then he drew one of his forties. As he screwed the cylinder onto the end of the barrel, the metal on metal made a soft, pliant sound.

Dematerializing, he re-formed behind the Suburban.

In silence, he proceeded down the length of the SUV, keeping his back flat to the steel panels and the panes of glass. When he got to the driver’s side door, he knocked on the window.

The man put the thing down. “What the fuck do—”

The gun made a huffing sound as Syn pulled the trigger. The bullet went directly into the frontal lobe and came out the far side, thunking into the back seat.

As the driver started to slump, Syn caught him before his forehead hit the horn. Forcing the deadweight onto the center console, Syn reached in, popped open the door, and unlocked everything else. With hard hands, he dragged the dead body out, and carried it around to the rear where he stored it into the cargo space in the back.

Returning to the driver’s seat, he got behind the wheel, put up the window most of the way, and sat with his gun on his thigh.

His phone went off in his leather jacket, the subtle vibration transmitting through the pocket and onto his chest wall. Getting the thing out, he cut the power to the unit and put it back. When another rattling sounded, he looked down. A cell phone was slotted into a drink cup holder, and he picked it up. The text notification on the screen read: ETA 2 mins. Home next.

Precisely 120 seconds later, the side door of the squat, concrete building opened, and a piece of meat with a set of jowls like a St. Bernard’s came out. Syn recognized the guy from when he’d entered the place the night before last. He’d been sitting at the bar with the younger version of the old man.

And what do you know, behind the bodyguard, Gigante lumbered out of his establishment, his cigar shoved into the corner of his trout mouth, his jacket open, his big belly exhausting the structural integrity of the buttons down the front of his shirt.

The bodyguard walked ahead and opened the door to the back seat, letting Gigante get in first.

“Sal, you can’t keep this car warm, huh?” Gigante said as he hefted himself up. “I hate the fucking cold. What’s the matter with you.”

The bodyguard shut the door. And Syn turned around to the back seat and discharged two bullets into Gigante’s huge chest. The old man gasped and clutched his sternum, his ham hands fisting up his shirt, the cigar falling out from between his lips and throwing up sparks as it bounced off his leg.

The bodyguard opened the front passenger door. Syn pointed the gun at his face and discharged another pair of slugs.

The man fell to the ground in a slop of limbs.

Syn refocused on Gigante. The mobster’s eyes were wide, the whites flaring around the dark irises as he gasped for air.

“I don’t have a problem killing females,” Syn said. “Or anybody. But I’ll be damned if you hurt Jo Early. Say good night, motherfucker.”

The final bullet went into the front of Gigante’s throat, the torso jerking in response, a splash of red arcing forward and speckling the side of the bucket seat in front. Struck by a bored hunger, Syn reached out and ran his forefinger through the stain on the leather; then he brought the blood to his mouth. As he sucked it down, he loved the taste of his kill and stared into the man’s eyes for a little longer, listening to the gurgling, the gasping.

The sound of screeching tires brought Syn’s head around. Another car was turning into the alley, summoned by someone, something.

Syn dematerialized out of the driver’s seat, ghosting away, leaving the carnage behind. Death had been coming fast for Gigante. He would not last long.

And even if the man did, Syn didn’t give a shit.

His female was safe. That was all that mattered.

* * *

Jo took her time throwing away the paper plates they’d used, the napkins that had been wadded up, the empty box that was stained in a circle in the center and had cold cheese clinging to one edge. As she topped off the Hefty trash bag in her bin, she felt as though she were dismantling something she’d imagined. Packing up a fantasy. Putting a puzzle that had been completed away.

And it was for what could have been that she moved slowly and sadly. In her kitchen, standing over her trash which now had to be taken out, she had the thought that she wished she’d used two of the four mismatched plates she’d taken with her when she’d left Dougie and the boys’ apartment. If she’d used washable plates, she could have at least kept what he’d eaten on.

Which was pretty pathetic, really. And God, this was too much of a profound loss for what was really going on. That man was nothing but a stranger coming and going out of her life, a storm passing after an intense sexual experience that had ended on an unsettling note.

Yeah, so where was the post-hurricane renewal?

Her phone ringing held little interest, but she went back over to her purse because she could use a distraction.

When she saw who it was, she answered fast. “Bill? Bill?”

“Hey,” her friend said. There was a pause. “I’m sorry I’ve been kind of out of touch.”

“Oh, no. Listen… how is Lydia?” Jo went over to the sofa and sat down. “How are you? Is there anything I can do for you guys?”

“No, I think…” Bill cleared his throat. “We are where we are, you know? The doctor says we can try again after waiting a month. And you know, at this early stage of things, it was probably a chromosomal problem that… well, was incompatible with life. That’s what they called it.”

Okay, compared to losing a child, the fact that Jo was in a funk over some guy seemed downright offensive.

“I am so sorry,” she said, her voice cracking. “Children are a blessing.”

“They are.” Bill took a deep breath. “They sure are, Jo.”

There was a long period of silence, and Jo closed her eyes as she thought about her birth parents, the mother who had brought her into this world and the father who had been in on the miracle at the ground floor, so to speak. When Jo had been growing up, she had given into the temptation to think the pair of those parental hypotheticals were totally different from the Earlys who had adopted her. She convinced herself that living in her real parents’ home would have been one long birthday party with balloons and cake and presents every day and all night. No more cold, drafty house with too many rooms. No more stiff, formal dinners in the dining room. No more sense that she was a nuisance, unwelcome in spite of the fact that her entering Mr. and Mrs. Early’s lives had been a willful, deliberate act on their part.

But yes, the stolen-princess narrative had been one she’d spun as a youngster, her true, virtuous parents out there somewhere in the world, swindled out of their rightful place in her life, mourning her loss as they fruitlessly searched for her.

She had waited for a rescue for so many years. So many. But now that she was an adult? She knew that there was no castle waiting for her on top of a mountain. No “real” parents still searching for her. No one that truly cared, one way or the other, about her future.

Which was why she had to be the hero in her own life.

“Jo? You still there?”