Page 70 of Ricochet

“Um, well.” Adelia rarely saw Lenora without a solid answer to everything. “What are you going to do?”

“Convince Silvio, as his, his family’s, and Mayhem’s attorney, that he needs to tell me if he double sold cargo before.”

That sounded all kinds of unethical, but Adelia had nowhere to stand on certain ethics. “What does that mean?”

“If he sold us a container ship, but wedidn’t use the entire space, he might sell the space again to someone else who would use our container, not knowing it’s ours.”

Adelia pursed her lips. “Sounds sleazy.”

Lenora didn’t react—and she always reacted.

“What am I missing?”

The hollows of Lenora’s cheeks looked sunken in. “Think about it like this…” She reached into her purse, tapped out a cigarette, and lit it, taking a long draw,and flicked the ash before she needed to. That was something Adelia only saw her do when she was preoccupied with too much at once. “Silvio would know if there was a way to handle the marine logistics. It could be an effective way to move all types of merchandise.”

“People? No. There’s so much risk.”

Lenora grimaced. “Not really.”

“Really?” Adelia didn’t want to hear that the risk wasn’t thathigh.

“Like Mayhem cargo. We expect a percentage lost, but the return on the investment is worth the cost of any loss.”

Adelia’s stomach churned. She’d long ago stopped with her most logical argument of ‘but they’re people’ and muttered, “They should care about the risk.”

“That’s the question you are in a very good place to ask,” Lenora said.

She inched back. “I don’t understand.”

Lenoraleaned closer. “Who does Silvio know that few ever learn about?” Adelia bit her lip, not sure where Lenora was going. “Everyone.”

“Exactly. Think more specifically.”

She clacked her teeth, mapping out who Silvio would know. Buyers and sellers. The names and networks that the most notorious would die to get their hands on— “Oh…” Adelia whispered reverently. “The monster at the top of the supplychain.”

Lenora nodded.

Adelia’s blood raced. She never bothered with the middlemen because the hierarchy was more important. “If we find out, we can go monster hunting ourselves.”

Again, Lenora nodded, holding her gaze. “If Silvio’s family is trying to protect their clients, and one of them is the largest trafficker in the world, we may find a sole source to the biggest importer in the country.”

Between the bagel quelling her hunger and Lenora gifting her this information, Adelia felt more alive than she had in days. “We’re going to Baltimore.”

“There’s a one-way to Baltimore-Washington International that we can make if you want to blow this place.” Lenora stood up. “Or there’s cash, clothes, and granola bars in that bag. A burner phone and—”

Adelia jumped up and wrapped her arms aroundLenora. “Thank you.”

“Cut it out.”

She squeezed tighter. “In a minute.”

“That Colin guy is adorable, by the way,” Lenora said for no purpose other than to make Adelia stop hugging.

“Don’t use his cuteness against me!”

“I don’t think Tex will shoot him.”

“Lenora!”

“Then again, your Pops almost killed you, so what the fuck do I know?”

Adelia would’ve hugged Lenora again but thought betterof it. The last thing she needed was soft, mushy feelings getting in the way.

Lenora clucked. “I’m parked back here. Let’s go.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Lenora spun on her and tried to wrap Adelia in a chokehold. “Thank God, Cupid’s arrow didn’t turn you into a pansy. You’d be a pain in the ass to go hunt a monster with.”

“You have no idea how comforting it is that you never change.” She strutted offso that Lenora couldn’t accuse her of going soft again. “Let’s go before someone we know sees me and blows my head off.”

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