Celeste drove home alone through streets gone empty and quiet, replaying the sound of the biker's head against the cab over and over, the wet, final crack of it.

"Those Aurelius women," she muttered to the windshield, "act like they own the whole world." She said hissing throuth her teeth

Ruben's man, one of his best, apparently, reduced to a broken thing on the asphalt without her even getting out of the car in time to see it happen properly. She was almost, grudgingly, impressed.

Mostly she was furious, because impressed men like Ruben did unpredictable things, and unpredictable was the one thing she couldn't currently afford.

The console screen...