Page 72 of Ricochet

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The cabbie screeched off with a warning that they were morons, and Adelia placed her blind faith in Lenora, who seemed unfazed by the dilapidated office buildings on one side of the broken road and the rusted fence enclosing the ominous docks on the other.

“This is the trip you said you always dreamt about.” Adelia hoisted her bag over her shoulder and followed acrossthe faded, pocked asphalt.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?”

She would’ve laughed and maybe even had more of a wild time enjoying this craziness if there wasn’t a MC with her head on their hit list and if she had a little idea of what they were doing, besides searching for the elusive monster. “Is this like a final meal?”

Lenora’s badass boot heel caught on the sidewalk, proving the womansemi-infallible as she caught herself from falling. “How so?”

“My final hurrah. We both know I’m dead meat, so you’re out here helping me accomplish the one thing I really wanted.”

Lenora paused, crossing her arms over her hip-length black jacket. “Like a cancer kid’s Make-a-Wish project, except for you’re a MC’s target, but you’ve done a lot of good?”

Adelia rolled her eyes. “There’s a reasonI never called you Ma.”

Lenora looked toward the heavens and muttered an offering to a biker god, finishing with, “You’re lucky you’re still walking.”

The dirty glass door of an old office swung open, and a middle-aged man rushed out. His slicked-back hair didn’t stop the fly-aways. He reminded Adelia of a drumstick, skinny legs and a swollen waist.

“Lenora! I didn’t expect to see you!” Hewaved them in, hugging her and kissing her cheeks. “And you are?”

“A friend.”

He didn’t miss a beat with the hugs and cheek-kisses. “We love friends.”

The hand waving continued, and the more his wrists flicked, the more obvious it became that his manners were less than polite and made of nervousness. “You should’ve called.”

“Then how could we surprise you, Silvio?”

“Love friends.” They walkedinto his 1980s wood-paneled office. “Surprises, not so much.” More wrist flicks ushered them into seats. “Have a seat. Coffee?”

Adelia had glanced at the line of burned coffee pots on a receptionist’s desk, across from where a half-full pot sat with the light off. “I’m good. Thanks anyway.”

“I wouldn’t drink your sludge if you paid me,” Lenora said.

His ruddy cheeks flushed but not from thecoffee jab. Sweat glistened at his hairline and at the bottom of his sideburns, though the office needed to have the heat cranked up a few degrees. “You kill me.”

Ha, he wasn’t the only one up on the chopping block, though Adelia kept that to herself.

“How’s business?” Lenora asked.

“Same.” He steepled his fingers. “You’re here to talk about the family?”

“Yes… and no.”

Silvio bit his bottomlip, and Adelia knew he had to know the monster. But she didn’t know why he was acting this way. People in their line of work crossed paths with the unsavory. Her personal brand of despicable was human traffickers, but another person’s might be gunrunners or drug traffickers. This guy had to have seen them all. It was the nature of his business. She couldn’t imagine there was anyone he wasn’t exposedto.

“Why are you so nervous?” Adelia stepped out of the shadows.

His eyes jumped from Lenora, and the answer didn’t come smoothly. Instead, the denial stuttered past his lips, and Adelia knew that Lenora was correct about Mayhem’s last shipment. Something had been wrong with it. Even if their guess as to what was off, there had been a problem. Otherwise this tough guy wouldn’t be acting thisuneasy.

“This is what we’re going to do.” Lenora ended Silvio’s painful repudiation on his lack of nerves. “We’re going to cross the street.”

“Why? You don’t want to do that.” He held his arms out. “We’ll talk. Catch up.”

“The hell with that. I want to see where our last shipment came in.”

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