Page 30 of South of Justice

His eyes narrowed. “How?”

“I don’t know yet. But I can trace financial pings, encrypted messaging, network activity—anything. If they’re moving him, there’ll be a footprint. No matter how careful they are.”

It wasn’t just survival. It was the boy. His name—Noah—had stuck in her head like a splinter. If there was a way to help him and not die trying, she’d take it.

It hung between them, a lifeline hastily braided, already fraying.

He said nothing, just scrolled his eyes over her face. She didn’t like being looked at, and the way he was doing it was deeply unsettling.

“Well?” she prompted.

Ryan hadn’t moved. Not since she made the offer.

Lucía sat across from him, hands still folded on the table. Her eyes tracked him, waiting. She wasn’t fidgeting. She didn’t look scared. But he could tell she knew she was vulnerable.

He had her gun. Not pointed at her. But it was there, clasped lightly in his hands. The ball was very much in his court.

He got the sense that she wasn’t used to that. Wasn’t used to not being in control, of not being the smartest, most capable person in the room. He gathered from the way she spoke there hadn’t been many occasions when she wasn’t. He studied herface, reading her: calm exterior, looking for possible signs of internal damage.

You have five days.Two, at most, left now.

And Lucía’s voice echoed:I can find him faster than they can.

Could she?

He didn’t know her from a hole in the wall. He sure as shit didn’t trust her. But she hadn’t begged. She hadn’t bargained. She’d laid out a plan, sharp and fast.

And she’d flinched when he mentioned the boy. Not the way someone flinches when their own life is in danger. The way someone flinches when they recognize a life that shouldn’t be wasted.

He looked down at her gun, turning it over in his hands. “Colt 1911. Doesn’t seem like…you.”

Her gaze sharpened. “How on earth would you know what seems like me?”

He shrugged. When it came to weapons, he just knew. She seemed like the kind of person who’d favor something efficient and unremarkable. Sleek. Modern. A Glock, maybe. Not this—an old slab-sided relic from a bygone era.

Her eyes dropped to the weapon. “It was my grandfather’s. Then my dad’s. I’ve had it with me since…”

She trailed off, but he caught the words she hadn’t said, or some variation of them anyway.Since I had to leave. In a hurry.

A relic, maybe. But people didn’t carry their past for nothing. Especially not when it weighed this much. He knew, because he’d had to do the same. More than once. And he’d watched others do it, too.

“You don’t trust me,” she said.

“No.”

“I don’t trust you either.”

“Good.”

They sat in silence again.

“If you double-cross me,” he said quietly, “there won’t be a second warning.”

Lucía didn’t blink. “Noted.”

He nodded once. Lifted her gun and slid it across the table.

She took it with one hand. Didn’t aim it at him. Didn’t thank him, either. But something passed between them in that moment. Not trust.