Page 87 of Long Way Down

“How do I know it’s not a trap?”

“You don’t. But we have reason to believe it’s in this organization’s best interest to cooperate. They’re nervous; they were the first to reach out to us after Waverly’s empire collapsed.”

Pongo frowned. “Why isn’t Mav the one telling me all of this?”

“He’ll call you momentarily, I would assume. He’ll provide more details. My office is acting as cover for all underground contact, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Pongo muttered. He didn’t like it, though.

Ian gave a flick of his fingers that was clearly dismissive, and Pongo stood. “After midnight, remember. Be sure to have the ringer on.”

“Yeah. Send nice flowers to my funeral when I get a bag put over my head and beat to death, yeah?”

Ian gave a thin, tight-lipped smile. “Of course.”

Outside the office, Pongo was in the process of pulling his phone out of his pocket in the elevator when it rang. Maverick.

“Okay,” he said when he answered, “what’s up with Moneypenny thinking he’s the boss of everybody all of a sudden?”

He couldhearthe frown in Mav’s voice. “What?”

“I was gonna go with Pussy Galore, but that didn’t seem appropriate given…everything.”

A beat passed. Then Mav let out a sigh that was nearly a chuckle. “You’ve been to see Shaman, then.”

“I’m in the elevator.” He bit back thefucking bastardthat formed on his tongue and fumed silently at the black marble wall in front of him instead.

Ian’s question about Dixie had surprised him, yes, but the second surprise was the realization, as he’d stood and walked back through the lavish office, that he wasangryabout that question. That he wanted – no, needed – to lay eyes on her suddenly, maybe even hands, and make sure she was whole and that there wasn’t a blacked-out car rolling past her building, weighing the liability she posed to the club.

“Nathan,” Maverick said, and Pongo realized, with a little bit of horror, that he was breathing harshly through an open mouth, his pants echoing sharply off the close walls of the elevator cab. “Nate,” Maverick repeated, voice dropping to that concerned, soothing register he’d used when they first met, back at summer camp. “What’s wrong?”

Had anyone else asked that, Pongo would have laughed them off with a few platitudes, shrugs, and killer smiles. But it was different with Maverick – the only Dog who’d known him before he patched in. Who’d seen him big-eyed, and frightened, and furious as a kid who’d just learned how unfairly balanced the scales of justice tipped if you were just a regular schmuck trying to do the right thing.

He sighed, the faint, blurred outline of his shoulders drooping in the marble across from him. “Look, I get it that Ghost trusts this guy, and that Ghost is the Big Boss Daddy, or whatever, but this…I’ll be honest, I don’t like this.”

Maverick echoed his sigh. “It’s different, yeah.”

“You shoulda heard how many times he said ‘we,’ like he was one of us.”

Another beat, one that shoveled a little deeper into the sinkhole that had opened up in the pit of Pongo’s stomach. “Well. Heis, technically, in all the ways that count.”

“I know that,” Pongo huffed, and he did, but… “I know that he’s ‘The Money,’ or whatever, and that he’s…it was just weird, is all. Hearing someone in aturtlenecktalk about what I needed to do for the club, you know?”

Maverick breathed a quiet laugh. “Yeah, I hear ya.”

“It’s different from the way we used to do things.” Now, he knew, he sounded petulant, like a child whose routine had been upset, but if he could get away with that with anyone, it was with Maverick.

“It is,” Mav agreed. “And if I’m honest, it’s pulled me up short a time or two. This guy walks in who we’ve never met, rich as hell and talking like a character in a movie, and handing out orders.

“But the club’s different, too. We’re not collecting vigs and busting kneecaps behind Waldbaums anymore. There’s over twenty chapters internationally, and we’re moving a lot more money and product than anyone ever thought possible in Duane’s day, lemme tell you.”

The elevator arrived with a polite ding and Pongo frowned to himself as he traversed the lobby; there was a man in tails playing a grand piano over by an indoor koi pond.

“Whether or not we like him, personally, Shaman, and his money and resources, have enabled the club to level up around the world. People know us, now. We’ve got sway. And with Abacus busted up–”

“I know, I know,” Pongo said, pushing out onto the sidewalk where a doorman who wished him a pleasant afternoon. It was raining, and he dragged his hood up over his head. “We need him now more than ever.”

“Yeah.” Maverick sounded pleased, glad he’d arrived at the right conclusion. “We can’t stay still, kiddo. A shark can’t stop swimming.”