Gabriela Perez was in the car, careening down the road. She had underestimated the autistic boy’s expertise, she thought grimly, as she gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white. She had not waited for her lover’s brothers to come to her aid; they were fools, pus*ies, she thought contemptuously as she raced down the road.

Her hitman had got to the hospital where Liam O’Grady and his brother, the sick fellow, were staying. The man she had sent, Wahid, was a druggie, a youth who had become a pimp and was now too far gone to disobey her. He had managed to capture the girl, the one who was the...