Page 47 of A Love Most Brutal (Morelli Family #2)

MARY

Maxim’s note promised he would be out past dinner, so I took Sasha to my sister’s house where everyone was gathered for an early pasta dinner.

I maybe wouldn’t have invited him if he wasn’t sworn to permanent guard duty since the little home invasion episode, but everyone likes Sasha.

He can gossip with the best of them, and he and Leo run in similar circles.

He went to school with Willa and Sean, too, so they always are thrilled to have him around.

Maxim doesn’t call or message, not during dinner, nor when Leo unveils a cobbler he made, nor when the credits roll on the new superhero movie that Artie insisted we watch before he fell asleep halfway through.

I feel Maxim’s absence from my side or line of sight. In all his hovering since the break-in, I haven’t felt smothered. He’s a nice presence to have around, mindful of me, eyes watching, making me another cup of tea when mine runs empty, slathering too much butter on a piece of toast before bed.

Sasha drives us home after another serving of cobbler heated up in the microwave, but my phone is still quiet. It’s nearly eight.

“Has he messaged you?” I ask.

Sasha’s brows furrow. “He hasn’t messaged you?”

“No.”

We stop at a light and he glances at his phone. “Nothing.”

We sit quiet for a moment, rolling through the night time traffic.

“Meeting should’ve been over by now,” Sasha points out, and dials Maxim, whose phone sends him straight to voicemail. I try too, and am met with the same.

Sasha calls Jean who answers on the first ring.

“Jean here.”

“Hi, you seen Maxy?” Sasha asks.

Jean is quiet on the other side of the line for a moment, then, “Not since he left this morning.” We hear clicking of his keyboard through the car speaker. “No scans into the apartment since you and Mrs. Mary left.”

“Hm,” Sasha says. “Thank you, Jean.”

He calls Samuel next who doesn’t pick up on the first or second try.

We sit quietly in the car, stewing on the radio silence from Maxim.

“Should we check the Brickyard?” Sasha asks, already turning left down the street to take us in that direction.

I chew on the corner of my thumb, but then remember the germs and clench my hands in my lap to stop messing with them.

I squint out the windshield and run through the situation instead of panicking.

He didn’t go alone, he had Samuel nearby.

It’s not unheard of for him to be out late—so much crime happens under the shade of night for a reason—but not messaging either of us isn’t his way.

I gasp, remembering that I have a way of knowing exactly where he is.

“What?”

“The watch,” I say, already pulling out my phone and navigating to the tracking app I’ve yet to use.

“What watch?”

“The wedding watch,” I say like this should be obvious. “I put a tracker in it.”

Sasha looks flabbergasted by this, but whistles a long low tone. “You’re nuts, Mary. Brilliant, but nuts.”

“Please, Maxim would’ve done the same if he thought of it first.”

“He did,” Sasha says, and shoots a quick pointed look at my chest. I scrunch my nose but follow his gaze to the gold necklace Maxim gave me, his own wedding present. “You’re made for each other.”

I hold the warm pendant for a moment in my palm. I should feel betrayed, or hurt, or slighted like he didn’t trust me, but I feel only softness in my chest for the gesture.

“Well?” He nudges when I’ve been sitting sappy for too long.

I drop the pendant and look back at the little map on my phone, scanning until I locate the blue pulsing blue dot. I zoom in, confused by what I’m seeing.

“It says he’s by the East Shipyard. Did he say he was going over there today?”

“No,” Sasha says, hands tightening on the steering wheel as he turns the car in a U-turn to change our route. I sit back in my seat and watch the blue blinking dot, unmoving on the screen.

“Fuck. Is it a building he’s in?” Sasha asks, no shortage of concern evident in his voice. “Zoom in further.”

I plug my phone into the car and turn on the navigation. Seeing where it’s leading us, he curses again.

“That fucking building. Did you call your sister’s guy at the CIA about Tenneson?”

“A woman,” I correct. “Yeah, I sent a note last night. Why?”

“How did you send it?”

“I sent a guy to give her the note on her morning run. Why?” His intensity about this makes me feel like there’s something I really should know but have been left out of.

“And was it actually delivered?”

“Yeah.” I chew on my lower lip. Last I heard, she did get the message, but that’s usually as far as our communication goes. It’s not safe otherwise. It’s up to her now what she does with it. “What is this place anyway?”

Sasha’s hands tighten on the steering wheel as he speeds up. “It’s an old textile factory.”

Sasha didn’t even need the blinking dot to lead us to the abandoned factory by the water. I don’t see any lights in the building from where we sit in the quiet car up the street, but I can see some cars parked on the far side of it.

“I’ve got a very bad feeling about this,” Sasha says.

“Me too.” I pick at a hangnail and click my tongue against my teeth when I pull too far and start to bleed.

Every part of me is itching to rush in there guns blazing, but I remember the creature in my abdomen that my app has informed is now the size of a kidney bean. Nate’s lecture about not doing things alone bumps around my brain.

Because I indeed can be taught, I force a calm exhale and dial Leo. He answers on the third ring. It’s loud as hell through the line, though, so I know he’s out somewhere.

“Give me a sec,” he says and I try my best not to snap that I don’t have a sec and wait.

“Where are you?” I ask when it grows marginally quieter on his side of the phone.

“Just got to Leroy’s, why?”

“Have you been drinking? I need you to come to the textile factory by the East shipyard. I think there’s trouble.”

“Shit,” he mutters, but I hear footsteps and the beeping of his car so I know he’s already on his way. “Did you call Sean?”

“No, I need you to. I’ll call Ness.”

“Where’s Max?”

“That’s the problem,” I say. “Get here.”

I hang up before immediately calling Ness, whose phone rings all the way to voicemail, and Nate’s is the same. They’re probably already sleeping because they’re boring and go to sleep early. I call Nate’s phone again, and on the second try, he answers.

“ Yellow ,” he says in that way of his.

“Where are you?”

“Bubble bath,” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

I’m suddenly gripped with fear at the prospect of telling him the situation.

He’s so good, the best Morelli, I think, or at least the most wholesome.

He’s so excited to be a father, he’s such a baby hog as is, it’s going to make his whole life.

And Vanessa is pregnant , for Christ’s sake.

More pregnant than me. I shouldn’t bother them with this.

It’s not safe for them. It’s?—

“Mar?” Nate asks. I blink, closing my mouth and swallowing. Sasha looks at me with ducked eyebrows.

The entire world doesn’t have to be on your shoulders. You can share the weight.

I take a long breath. Nate’s about to hang up when I finally speak. “I’m sending you an address, I need you to get there as soon as you can. It might be nothing, but?—”

“Should we call in more guys?” he asks without missing a beat.

I take another breath. “Yes.”

“Drop the location,” he says, and then mutters an abbreviated form of the message to Vanessa. “Okay, I’ll be there soon. Love you,” he says before the line goes dead.

I sit in the quiet for a moment before looking to Sasha and giving a nod. Backup is already on the way, from the two I called and the messages Sasha sent. Maxim is probably in there having a meeting and it will be fine, no drama, no dead bodies, just a normal Sunday night.

I lower my window and force myself to relax in my seat. “Now we wait.”

We are a solid fifty-five seconds into anxiously waiting when the unmistakable sound of a gunshot goes off in the direction of the building.

“ Shit .” I’m already pulling open my door, and Sasha is doing the same. No more time to wait.

He leads the way down the block and I peer around his big shoulders, my hands holding my gun ready and pointed to the ground. He keeps one hand on the Glock at his hip.

This part of the street is quiet, mostly industrial buildings, not even ones with apartments on top of them.

A street light flickers pale white light as we approach the lot.

A segment of the chain link fence has been unlatched and lies on its side, flat on the ground.

We step carefully around it to not rattle the metal chain links.

My stomach roils, remembering this time last year when instead of an old factory, Nate, Leo, Vanessa and I approached a half-built office building in the dead of night. I was shot that night and the scar almost burns at the memory.

We are always getting ourselves in fucking situations .

It might be nice to have just a single month with zero situations; no crises for us to handle, no empty buildings to crawl around in the middle of the night, no weapon drops resulting in black eyes.

All of the lights appear to be off through the broken factory windows, but we hear voices around the far side of the building. It would be too risky to just waltz over there, so we find what was once a tall window and climb through the opening.

The factory floor is dusty concrete with various detritus strewn everywhere. Moonlight shines into the space well enough that we can make out a clear-ish path to the far side of the space where a hallway and offices reside, both empty so far as I can tell.

“Maxim is going to fucking kill me,” Sasha mutters, and I roll my eyes. I also feel stressed about Maxim’s worry, but it’s not in my nature to let on.

Plus, I figure if he’s in trouble, he’ll probably forgive me for saving him. Might not forgive Sasha though.

“Yeah well he can’t kill you if he’s already dead, can he?”

“Don’t say that.”