Page 8 of Shield

Vin nods. “About that.”

“About what?”

“The old man,” Vin says, his tone shifting. “We’ve been sitting on the Luminous job for months because we’re missing the codes we need to get into the safe, but apparently he’s changed up the program. He decided he’s going to make his move and go for it. We can’t let that happen.”

I go back to staring at my phone. I could give a fuck about the Luminous job. My focus is on Siena. Always Siena.

Vin keeps going, undeterred. “If Aurelio pulls the job, he gets the diamonds, the money, and the leverage to come at us strong when we start a war. And Giovanna Marino? She dies. If that happens, Lorenzo Marino goes looking for blood, and now we’re fighting this thing on two fronts.”

Siena’s no longer in the frame. I flip through the different camera views. When I don’t find her, I open another app.

“You won’t be able to hold Tommy back, either,” I grunt.

Vin nods. “Tommy’s been looking for her for weeks. Basically hijacked our best hacker trying to track her down,but he’s found nothing. He’s more fucked up than you are.”

I tap my screen frantically. Why isn’t this fucking app working?

Vin frowns at me. “Well, just as fucked up as you are. Wait, is that—” Vin snatches my phone away from me and stares at the screen. “Is this a tracking app? Holy shit, did you put a tracker on Siena?”

I grab the phone back from him. “Not on, in. I had Dr. Rossi put a tracker in her shoulder when he stitched her up. But it’s not fucking working—wait. There it is.” She’s at her usual lunch spot, a chicken place around the corner from her work. She’s probably there with Blake and Amelia like usual.

“Jesus Christ,” Vin closes his eyes briefly. “Listen to me. If we do the job, we find Giovanna. With Giovanna back, Tommy will join us in finally taking down the old man for good. When that happens—are you fucking listening to me? When that happens,Siena stops being a target.”

That gets my attention. “What about the flash drive?”

Vin sighs. “Aurelio only wants the flash drive for the information on it related to the Luminous job. Once the job is done, he won’t give a fuck who has it.”

I frown. “He doesn’t know that it has videos of him—”

“He doesn’t know. All he knows is that it has all the information we need for the Luminous job: codes, maps, contacts, everything.”

I squint at Vin. What game is he playing, making these videos of Aurelio? I’m about to ask him, when a sound from my phone grabs my attention.

Vin sighs again. “Fuck. I know you’re trying to keep her safe, but you don’t have to stare at her on a screen 24 hours a day. Put some of your guys on it.”

“Grit and his team are never more than 20 yards away from her at any given time,” I grumble.

I decide not to tell him that I also stand across the street from where she works just to watch her leave at the end of the day. That I’ve stood near the chicken place she goes to for lunch, wishing she would brush past me on her way in or out. That I routinely park on her street at night, usually driving one of his cars, long after she’s turned out the lights.

“Listen, man, I need you to get your shit together. Tommy is off the fucking reservation, and once we pull this job, we are investing everything we get into going to fucking war. Men, weapons, buildings. Do you hear me?”

Something inside me wakes up, a flicker of my old self stirring. This is what we’ve been working toward for years, me and Vin: taking out Aurelio and taking over the family.

I nod. “We don’t need the information from the flash drive?”

Vin shrugs. “I don’t know how he plans to pull this off without it, but we can’t let him try. If he can figure it out, so can we.”

I stand abruptly and walk to my desk. From the top drawer, I pull out the flash drive that I found in Siena’s jacket and toss it to Vin.

His face flushes red when he sees it. “This isn’t what I think it is, is it?”

“It’s corrupted. Mostly. But there’s enough to get started.”

Before I can move, Vin leaps up from the couch and tackles me to the ground. My instincts kick in and I’m about to grab him around the throat and choke him out, but I hear him laughing.

“Holy shit! You fucking asshole! You’ve had this the whole fucking time, haven’t you? Oh my God!” He belts a fewpunches into my gut before getting off me and punching the air happily. “This is fucking amazing. I’m not fucking happy you kept it from me, don’t get me wrong, but God damn! This is fucking ON!”

Shaking my head, I take his offered hand as he jumps up and helps me up off the floor. That wasn’t the reaction I expected, but I’ll take it. “Most of the files on there are corrupted. We’ll need to get Bennett’s hacker on it if we want to be thorough.”

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