The Fixer's Debt
In Narco City, Hugo turns up caged and cursing his captors with bad luck — and the only price that buys him free is one Marcus Gray will hate himself for paying.
A tip pulls Marcus, Siru and Vivek into Narco City, where the gang boss Marisol Vega is holding a feral, furious Hugo in the vault levels of the Crypties — a cat who's cost her three buyers and can't be sold, can't be killed, and can't be kept. Willy Jones, cornered by rival collectors, points them to Vega's real price: not money, but a favor, timed to a dawn inspection she can't afford to fail. To get Hugo out, Marcus has to do the very thing the underworld does — and does it. They escape with the cat as the block seals behind them, but the debt is real, and a torn ledger page leaves them one very inconvenient question about Willy Jones.