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Dixon’s hand clenches mine and my heart races. This is it.
“—I won’t do it,” I say, too quickly.
“No fucking way,” Dixon says at the same time.
Moose blinks. “You don’t want to do introductions? Do you just want to go by pronouns? I mean, I’m a pretty modern guy, I can do that, but it does put us all in an awkward place.”
“You’re more than modern, Moose.” The woman follows her words with a tender squeeze of Moose’s big arm. “And if going by pronouns is what your guests want to do, we can do that.”
It takes a moment before my breathing resumes, and then I let out a relieved sigh and give an apologetic glance to Dixon.
“No offense,” I say. “There’s just no way… if it was going to happen, that I’d want to…”
“Never,” he says.
“You’ve never?” I say, confused.
“No, I have. Lots of times,” he says, using a startled tone that makes me question whether he has at all. He sounds exactly like the kids in middle school who would claim they totally had a girlfriend, but she went to a different school. In a different state. In Canada.
“Sure. I believe you,” I say.
“God damn it, don’t take that tone, Alexandra,” Dixon says. “You know I have.”
“Please, stop for a second,” the leather-wearing man says. “Look, I’m used to finding the right hole in a mess of writhing, oiled, masked-up people, but I simply cannot figure out what the fuck you two are going on about.”
Dixon shakes his head and turns to the man in leather. “Let’s get on with introductions. I’m Dixon Green, this is Alexandra Reyes, and you two are…”
“Seraphina Voss,” the woman says. The way she says her name is flowing, elegant, like the sound of silk sliding against smooth skin.
“Kyle,” the man says.
I blink. “Seraphina Voss and Kyle… Voss?”
Kyle shakes his head. “No, we’re not related. That’d be freaky, considering the shit we do to each other. I’m just Kyle.”
“No fancy nickname?” Dixon says.
“No. Just Kyle. I like my name. Do you have a problem with it?” He says.
“No, no. Kyle’s a good name. A nice name. A… sexy name,” I say, trying not to think about the fact that, until this moment, the only other Kyle I knew was a kid who sucked his thumb all the way through eighth grade.
But thumb-sucker Kyle didn’t have armed men waiting in the shadows.
“She’s got it right,” Dixon adds. “Kyle is a good name.”
Kyle nods, releases a sigh, and Moose turns and gives him a hug.
Seraphina clears her throat. “Moose said that you’re looking into someone known for doing discrete work, that you need more information about them and who might have hired them. Is that right?”
I nod and take out my cell phone, opening it to the pictures I took of the man who tried to kill me. I pass it to Seraphina. “This is him. I need to know who he is, who he’s worked for, who he’s worked with, and any information you have on him.”
Seraphina's sharp eyes scan the image with an intensity that makes me feel like she's dissecting every pixel. She shows the phone to Kyle, and they share a silent conversation in a quick exchange of glances. Then Seraphina hands the phone back to me, her lips pursed.
"This won't be easy," she says. "But we have what you need. We know him."
“What do you mean? It should be easy to just tell us who he is, right?”
Dixon gives me a look like I should know better.
