Page 16

I nodded at Grant. I’d already anticipated that question and prepped his answer.

"The doctor who helped her," he stammered. "She . . . she shot him. In the hospital basement. He’s dead. I . . . I took his phone when she wasn’t looking."

Good boy.

His fingers dug into the chair's arms so hard his knuckles bleached white. Even now, hope flickered in his eyes with that desperate belief he might survive this. Fool.

As Aria's muffled voice fired orders, keyboards clattered in the background.

A smile tugged at my lips. They'd swallowed the bait whole and were probably frantically tracing the call. Perfect. Let them come rushing to their deaths.

"Why did she take you?" Aria's voice returned, sharp as a blade.

"I knew too much," Grant whispered, following our script perfectly. He slumped forward, and I shoved him back into the seat. Tears carved paths down his ashen face.

"Why hasn't she killed you already?" Aria asked.

"She was planning to," he slurred, fighting to stay conscious, “but she got some call about a plane crash. So she drugged me with something to knock me out."

His words grew heavier with each syllable. "I . . . I don't know where she went. But hurry. I don't know how long before she?—"

The phone slipped from his fingers, clattering against the floor as his eyes rolled back.

"Grant?" Aria's voice sharpened. "Grant, are you there? Shit!"

I kicked the phone, sending it splashing into the watery hole.

I tapped Grant's cheek. Nothing. He was out cold. Perfect. The sedative had taken him exactly when I needed it to. Aria had enough info to lead them straight into my trap.

I pulled my phone from my pocket to check the time. Shit. Three missed calls from Diego. That incompetent ass better be calling to tell me the pilot was dead, and my drugs were secure.

As I strode toward the exit, leaving Grant slumped in his chemical coma, dread coiled in my stomach. With Diego, it was always bad news.

"About fucking time," Diego barked when I called him back. “Where’ve you been?”

"Watch your tone, Diego. What’ve you fucked up now?"

"Me? I ain't done nothing! But Bayani—" His voice cracked like thin ice. "A fucking croc got him and dragged him under. There was so much blood, man. Just . . . everywhere."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a migraine building. These morons couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. "Did you at least kill that pilot?"

"Jesus Christ!" Diego's voice rose to a hysterical pitch. "Did you hear me? A crocodile ate Bayani! Like some horror movie shit. One minute he's there, next minute—gone."

"And what do you want me to do about that? Kill the croc?"

He made a sound like he was pulling out his own tooth. "We tried killing it but couldn’t. And then that bastard you sent killed Ramon.”

"What bastard?" My fingers tightened around the phone.

"The prick with the dog.”

"Dog?" Something cold slithered down my spine. "What kind of dog?"

"Big black beast. Like a shadow with fangs. Who fucking cares? The bastard put a bullet through Ramon's head like he was at target practice. Then vanished into the swamp with that pilot bitch."

My mind raced, pieces slamming into place.

A black dog. Military precision. It had to be Whitney's brother, Jaxson. That self-righteous bastard and his K9 were good at finding things . . . drugs, graves, bodies. They’d already uncovered half the bodies at Angelsong Orphanage.

He was the fucker who'd found Alice’s body. Fuck. Fuck!

"Two of my men are dead because of you!" Diego was still ranting, but I barely heard him.

This complicated everything. Jaxson wasn't some beat cop I could buy off or scare away. He and his goddamned brothers were notorious for their loyalty to each other. Like a pack of wolves. Wound one, face them all.

"Are you even listening? Two of my men are dead!" Diego's voice cracked with hysteria.

"Shut up, you fucking fool. Their deaths are on you. You idiots can't handle a simple delivery without turning it into a bloodbath."

"Fuck you! Ya bitch!" Diego's voice quivered with rage. "I'm done with your bullshit. You'll never see me or?—"

I ended the call.

"Fuck!" The scream tore from my throat, sending pigeons exploding into the air in a panic of grey wings. As I watched them wheel around the warehouse, I wondered how many would survive what was coming. Collateral damage. My Thomas would have been furious at me about that.

I strode to the stolen car, grabbed my bag from the passenger seat, and checked that I had the detonation device.

I ran my fingers over the device’s smooth surface. It was amazing that such a little contraption could cause so much destruction. I placed the device back into my bag next to Alice’s favorite hot pink lipstick.

I could just make out Grant's silhouette through the diminishing light in the middle of the warehouse. He was still slumped in his chair, exactly as I’d left him. The sedative would keep him under for another two hours. More than enough time for the Alpha Ops team to get here.

The pigeons had settled back and were cooing on the warehouse rafters again. Peaceful. Oblivious. Just like Grant.

"Sorry, darlings," I murmured, clicking the car door shut.

At the exit to the warehouse, I paused at the door to set the pressure plate in place.

My boy Fraser had designed this clever little device, which was small enough to be placed anywhere without drawing attention.

The instant one of the Alpha Ops Team stood on this, I would know that those bastards had arrived.

And then I would watch the greatest show of my life.

With the trap set, I strode out the exit door and walked along the old wharf’s graying planks that were already bathed in shadows.

I forced myself to think like Jaxson. What would he do next? He was methodical, precise. He would start with the pilot, get her somewhere safe. I slipped my handbag across my chest, slotting it tight against my hip.

I clicked my fingers. Jaxson had been at Angelsong when that Border Force plane went down.

No wonder he’d found the pilot so quickly; he was the closest asset to where the plane ditched.

I frowned. Diego had said the pilot was a woman.

It had to be Tory. That bitch from Border Force was the reason my last boat had been intercepted, and this current one.

She was going to die for that.

At the end of the wharf, I turned into the narrow alley between two old warehouses. The setting sun speared right into my eyes, forcing me to squint.

Alice always hated this time of the day, when shadows crept in and nightmares formed.

Alice! Jaxson would probably return to Angelsong with Tory to hook up with his brother, Whitney.

Perfect. I could eliminate all three of them at once.

I dialed Eddie Walsh, the crooked cop who’d been on my payroll ever since his daughter was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. I never underestimated the lengths a desperate father would go to for his sick kid. And Walsh, for all his grumbling, had proven useful more than a handful of times.

“I wondered when you’d call,” he said, his voice sharp with irritation. “They’re late. What’s going on?”

As I stepped over a rusted chain half-buried in the cracked concrete, I kept my tone calm. “Border Force spotted the boat and took some photos. Diego panicked and dumped the bags overboard.”

Walsh let out a low whistle. “Jesus Christ. What a clusterfuck. So I guess there’s no point in me hanging around here, then.”

Walsh had a simple job: meet Diego and the crew at the rendezvous point, oversee the transfer of the cargo to the waiting truck, and make sure the crew got paid. But with the product floating somewhere in the open water, Walsh thought he could go home and play happy family.

“I need you to do another job,” I said, determined to get ahead of his complaints.

He groaned, predictably. Walsh always acted like the work I gave him was a personal affront, as though it were some moral line he had to wrestle with before crossing. Deep down, I suspected he still had a conscience, though it clearly wasn’t strong enough to stop him from pocketing my money.

“What now?” he grumbled.

I glanced at my watch, and my mind raced. Time was slipping away. “This isn’t a request, Eddie. It’s an order.”

“Of course it is.”

A gull screeched overhead, circling the skeletal remains of an abandoned trawler that had been moored alongside the wharf for at least twenty years. “Jaxson Foster found the pilot before Diego did. I need you to eliminate both Jaxson and the pilot, Tory.”

“As in Jaxson Foster, the cop from Rosebud?” His voice was laced with unease.

“That’s right. Got a problem with that?”

“You know I do,” he snapped, anger and fear vying for control.

I exhaled sharply, my patience fraying. “Look, Eddie, I don’t have time for this bullshit. I’ve got enough dirt on you to bury you alive, and you know I’m not afraid to use it. So save the moral fucking crisis. Find Jaxson and Tory, and make them disappear.”

“How the hell am I supposed to find them?” he shot back. “This swamp is a goddamn maze. I’m not a bloodhound!”

“You’re a detective, for fuck’s sake. Figure it out.”

“B!” he barked into the phone, his frustration boiling over. “You paid me to meet the shipment. Not this! This is way out of scope?—”

“For fuck’s sake,” I cut him off. Money was always the focus with these people. Every last one of them was a greedy, spineless parasite. “Fine. I’ll double my offer.”

“It’s not enough,” he said, defiance creeping into his voice. “You want me to take out two people? One of them I know personally, and the other’s a goddamn Border Force pilot. Both of them are tied to the force. This is way bigger than the shit I usually clean-up for you.”

“A hundred grand,” I said, my voice low as I glanced toward the new wharf in the distance, aware that it would be the last time I ever saw it with my own eyes. “That’s my last offer, Eddie. Take it . . . or you’ll never see your daughter again.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

“Don’t you fucking dare touch my daughter,” he growled, his voice trembling with rage.

“Who said anything about touching Clara?” I let the threat hang in the air like smoke, thick and suffocating.

I could almost hear the gears grinding in his head, the frantic calculations of a man cornered. But he would take the deal. He always did.

He made a noise like he’d been punched in the gut. “I’ll do it,” he said finally, his voice hollow.

“And make sure their bodies don’t turn up,” I said, scanning the shadows ahead as I walked to the far end of the warehouse alley that hadn’t seen any business in decades.

“Understood,” he said.

“Good. Send me photos when you’re done.”

“You don’t trust me, huh?”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

He scoffed. “Must be hard to live in your shoes.”

“Fuck you,” I snapped, and ended the call. “Asshole.”

I shoved the phone into my bag. He was lucky I was leaving town, or I would add him to my kill list.

I rounded the corner of the warehouse, and the warm, salty breeze tugged at my wispy gray curls.

Shoving the annoying hair from my eyes, I adjusted the strap of my handbag across my shoulder and picked up my pace.

The old boards beneath my boots groaned like a wounded beast, and the weathered walls boxed me in their shadows as I marched toward where I’d parked my motorbike.

In the distance, the setting sun streaked the horizon behind the jagged mountains with fiery orange and blood-red hues. Soon, the warehouse explosion would add its own fiery inferno to the scene.

The thought sent a blaze through my chest. The countdown was on. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I yanked my Indian motorbike out from between two graffiti-scrawled dumpsters, leaned it on the stand, and tugged my change of clothes from the saddlebag.

Working fast, I stripped off the nurse’s uniform and flung it into one of the dumpsters.

I didn’t care if anyone found it. By then, I would be long gone .

I pulled on a black shirt and pants, a leather jacket, boots, and a helmet.

The gear felt like armor as I suited up, but everything seemed to take too damn long.

My pulse hammered in time with the ticking clock in my head, like a jackhammer pounding against my skull.

The drug haul was supposed to be on that truck before midday.

That bitch pilot should be dead by now. I still hadn’t heard from Cooper to confirm he’d reached Angelsong.

Making a note to call him once I was on my way, I slid my phone into the holder mounted on the bike’s dashboard. The screen lit up, displaying the status feed to the alarm, which would trigger when that warehouse was breached.

It would take me about two hours to reach Angelsong. At some point, I would need to pull over along the highway, so I could livestream the moment the Alpha Tactical Ops team got blown to hell.

With a quick kickstart, the bike roared to life, and I drove out of the narrow alley. As I hit the main highway, the setting sun did what it always did . . . dragged up memories of Alice.

God, I missed her.

Killing Alice had been the hardest decision of my life.

I leaned forward, gripping the handlebars tighter, and the engine growled beneath me as I pushed the Indian to eighty miles an hour. The wind screamed past my ears, drowning out everything else as I barreled toward Angelsong . . . to Alice.

With every mile, I clung to the hope that the plans I’d set in motion today would hold together. Fuck that drug shipment . . . I didn’t need the money anyway.

Avenging Alice’s life was all that mattered now: my single, unyielding focus.

A gnawing feeling settled in my gut. All the curveballs I’d been thrown today felt like nothing more than the opening act.

The real storm was still ahead, and I had the sinking suspicion I was racing straight into it.