Page 41 of The Boss
She nodded. “Always.”
He lingered for a beat, letting the significance of her answer settle between them, then slid his hand down to lace their fingers as they moved toward the door together. Resolve hardened in him. This wasn’t just about the ledger anymore, or the Brand. It was about keeping her beside him through whatever camenext.
They arrived at the garage shortly afterward. It smelled like oil and cold air. The convoy rolled out and the city folded around them, glitter and grit, bridges like rib bones over the river. Mariah sat beside him in the back, body angled toward him, one hand on the seat between them, palm up. He set his hand over hers and didn’t let go until he needed to reach for his gun to check weight.
“You really think my brother set the bomb?” she asked quietly, watching the road instead ofhim.
“I think the simplest thing is the most likely,” he replied. “He benefits if I die. He benefits if the room sees the Boss bleed.”
“And now?”
“Now I think men don’t always do the smartest thing when their egos get cut. Stellan thinks humiliation is currency. He doesn’t understand what happens when he tries to spend it on me.” He looked at her profile, the lines of her face, the softness that hid steel. “If your brother wanted you alive to trade, he wasn’t my bomber.”
“Correct.” She blew out a breath she’d been holding for days. “Thank you for saying it out loud.”
He turned her hand, laced their fingers. “I will always say it out loud when it gives you air. Right now, we’re going to find out one simple truth.”
She glanced at him then, something unguarded moving across her face. She squeezed his hand once and looked away before he could turn that into anythingelse.
“Boss,” Tomas said from the front. “We’ve got movement south of K. Bay lights on. Minimal crew. Looks like a pullout.”
“Copy,” Leif said. “Take the second ramp. Don’t announce.”
The SUVs sliced through side streets to a vantage point Alaric had found. From the high edge of a disused loading platform, the riverfront lay below like a board someone had carelessly set pieces on. Two box trucks idled by Bay South. Aforklift crawled. Three men smoked near a stack of pallets. Another two moved like men who wanted to look like they worked faster than they did. The bay doors were open. Inside, rows of crates sat like teeth.
“Count nine outside, unknown inside,” Tomas said, glass to hiseye.
“Alaric?” Leif asked into the secureline.
“Ten more inside and a supervisor who thinks his clipboard makes him invisible. No Stellan. He’s late to his own party.”
“He’ll come to bless the purge,” Leif said. “He wants to watch his problem disappear.” Mariah came to stand at his shoulder. He let his arm fall across her back and kept her tucked against his side while he studied the field.
“What’s your move?” she asked.
“Cut the snakes at the head and tail at the same time,” he said. “No warning, no shots that travel, no bodies that float.” He pointed. “Those three smoke on a clock. They check their phones at the same minute. When they look down, we move. Forklift operator first. He can seal a door we need open. Trucks boxed with our cars. Drivers pulled soft and gagged. Inside crew put on their knees. Supervisor’s clipboard taken and used to write an address where Stellan likes to drink.”
“Why write it?” she asked.
“Because I want Stellan to read it later and know exactly how I found him. He can be afraid before we talk.” He looked down at her. “Stay behind the steel. If anyone fires at me, you duck lower.”
She stared up at him. “I don’t run.”
“You duck,” he said, and then he kissed her once, aquick hard stamp that tasted like command and tasted, God help him, like care. He looked over her shoulder and nodded at Tomas. “When they look at their phones.”
Time stretched the way it always did in the thirty seconds before a fight. The river kept moving as if it didn’t care what men did along it. The three smokers checked their screens in unison like they’d practiced apathy. Leif lifted two fingers. The team slid out of shadow like they’d been poured there.
Noise changed. Not louder. Closer. The forklift coughed and went quiet because someone had pulled a plug. One driver took a step too far from his door and found a hand at his mouth and a knife at his kidney. The other turned and met a face that smiled without warmth and then slept at a touch. Leif covered the distance to the bay in six strides that felt like one. Aman inside lifted his head to ask a question that never got asked. Leif’s fist answered. Bones cracked. Two men hit concrete. Three more slid to their knees and chose not to be heroes because heroes die faster in warehouses.
“Hands,” Leif said. They went up. “Mouths.” They closed. Silk ties tightened where they’d been handkerchiefs a minute ago. Alaric’s crew moved like music behind him, arhythm he trusted with his spine.
The supervisor clutched his clipboard like a child. Leif took it slowly, turned the first page, and found a manifest that said EVAPORATORS and a row that said CONTENTS and a column that lied. He pulled a pen from the man’s shirt pocket, uncapped it with his teeth, and wrote a name and instructions very neatly. Stellan De Angelis. Come now. Non-negotiable.
He held the board up to the camera Alaric had quietly pointed at him. “You good?”
“Sharp,” Alaric said in his ear, pleased. “He’ll see it as soon as he asks why his trucks missed their bedtime.”
Leif looked at Mariah. She stood just inside the lip of the bay door, eyes hard and bright, spine straight. Pride moved under his ribs with heat. He crooked two fingers. She came. He caught her waist with one hand and drew her in until his chest buffered her from the scene and from the cold breath of the river. Her pulse thudded against his palm where it rested just under her breast. He could feel it through silk. She didn’t moveaway.
