Free Zero Sum Game by SL Huang Page A

a muscle in his cheek twitched as his eyes flicked back and forth between me and Rio. Rio—you don’t have to know what Rio’s capable of to realize how dangerous he is. People underestimate me sometimes. Rio, on the other hand—the only reason people ever underestimate Rio is a lack of imagination.
    “This is Arthur Tresting, PI,” I said. “He was following me.”
    “And he’s still alive?” asked Rio mildly.
    Tresting swallowed.
    “Didn’t seem worth it,” I admitted. “Plus, I think he has information.”
    “What kind of information?”
    I opened my mouth.
    “Hey,” cut in Tresting. “I shared my intel with you, Russell. You.” His eyes flickered to me and then to Rio and back again. “You ain’t gotta believe me, but I’m telling you, if you spread it around it’ll get us both killed.”
    “I trust this man,” I answered, adding a trifle flippantly, “but you should know, it’s not the best way to keep something secret, telling a girl you only just met all about it.”
    He glanced at Rio again. “Maybe not.”
    “Besides, you’re the one who wanted to work together. You work with me, you work with my—the people I trust.”
    Tresting hesitated.
    “You’re the one who keeps telling me we might all be on the same side here.”
    Still he hesitated, and it occurred to me—Tresting might be an excellent PI, but when it came to this case…I remembered him saying he’d been on it for months, and I realized that despite all his bravado, he was desperate. Desperate enough to go out on a limb and try to ally himself with someone he only had the most tenuous of reasons to believe might not sell him out to the highest bidder. He probably didn’t trust me to offer him a drink of water in a rainstorm, but he was taking a risk to break whatever deadlock he had found himself in.
    Which put me at a definite advantage here. Excellent.
    Tresting wet his lips and stepped forward, holding out a hand toward Rio. “Arthur Tresting. Sorry we got off on the wrong foot, brother. From what Ms. Russell says, I think we might have some similar goals.” His voice was tense, but civil.
    Rio stared at the hand, and then looked askance at me. I couldn’t tell whether he was calling me an idiot or calling Tresting one. He looked back at the PI, not taking his hand. “Rio,” he said. “I work alone, though Cas keeps what company she likes.”
    At least, that’s what he started to say. As soon as he said his name, Tresting’s face twisted, and before Rio was halfway through his next sentence the other man had gone for his gun.
    I was faster, but Rio was closer. Tresting might be a ridiculously quick draw, but his gun hadn’t even cleared when he cried out, and the gun was suddenly in Rio’s right hand while the left whipped forward into Tresting’s face. I heard a sickening crunch as Tresting staggered back, but I was already diving in; I came up alongside Rio and twisted with his movement as he brought the Beretta up—the vectors of force and motion lined up and clicked into place and then the nine-mil was in my hand instead of his. I raised it and pointed it at Tresting myself.
    Not that I truly thought Rio would have fired—at least, not without getting all the information we could first. But just because I didn’t think he would have pulled the trigger yet…well, you know, I would have felt bad if he had.
    Rio had let me take the weapon as soon as he realized I was going for it—which, truth be told, wasn’t until after I already had it off him, but the whole thing happened so fast it made little difference. He relaxed and stood looking at me calmly, which was pretty much what I had expected him to do. Rio and I had never gone head-to-head, and I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which we would. I wasn’t sure what would happen if we did. I was better than he was, but Rio was…more willing.
    “Okay,” I said, pointing Tresting’s own gun at him as he hunched against the side of his truck. He had