Page 49 of The Boss

My smirk falters when my eyes zero in on her tight ass without my permission. Trouble. That’s all she is. She won’t find anything out here, I’ve made sure of that. Shecouldfall though. She could get lost and end up scared, in shock, dehydrated.

I get out my phone.

Quinn: Eyes on my wife. Woods, third sector.

I put my phone in my pocket and follow after my men. I should feel content, she’s covered, literally and figuratively. She’s ditched the acts, the outfits. But I feel twitchier than before. I want to follow after her, walk with her, see what else she asks. See what she sees, how she puzzles us out. Because she’s right, we are a weird clan. I just don’t want her to figure out why.

I glance her way again, she disappears behind a corner in the trail, ponytail swaying as she goes. That hair looks like thick silk, like a rope I could hold, tug…

Ugh! No.

“Mac,” I call out, agitated, “Come back to the dirt with me.”

“What?” He asks as he hustles back from the group to join me in the rear.

“Let’s go back to the clearing, you and I.” He lifts a brow so I elaborate. “I need you to beat some sense into me.”

CHAPTER 25

Luna

“I’ve got the guards’ schedule memorized,” I say quietly, looking around for any kind of trail markers as I walk. I haven’t left the cleared path so theoretically I can just turn and walk back in the direction I came. Theoretically.

“Good, that’s good!” I hear Mia in the background on Ellie’s end of the line.

“What, you think you can just run out during shift change? C’mon, Luna, you know you can’t.”

I sigh, “It is unlikely. Not only because the shift overlap is a whole half hour, meaning there are never any weak spots at the exits and the crew is annoyingly reliable, but you’re right, I’d just be hunted down and then probably made an example of.”

“Exactly,” my best friend says.

“But,” I add, “It’s actually a weakness that there’s no cell service here, no wifi, no cameras. If I slip out they can’t immediately track me digitally.”

“Yes! Good thinking!” Mia’s excited again.

I chuckle, “It’d have to be on foot, though. I can’t get anywhere near the vehicles.”

“What have you learned about his trucks?” Ellie asks.

I raise my eyebrows as if she can see me, “How do you know I’ve studied his trucks?”

“Um, because your name is Luna Mancini?”

“Hell, yeah!” Mia adds.

I laugh again, “I guess you do know me well, huh? I have been studying. He has the same armored trucks as the rest of us, but they rarely come here, which makes sense. He should have drop zones and garages all over Boston and outward.”

“Could you stow away on one?” Mia asks.

Before I can answer, Ellie cuts in, “Again, you crazy girl, there is no running from Skulls Quinn. Or any clan. The second she shows her face anywhere, she’s done. They’ll be on her in thirty seconds.”

Mia mutters some bitter response I can’t hear. I understand the sentiment.Fucking mafia.

“The only reason I want to slip out is to get to the internet and then slip back in. But you’re right, El, there’s no sneaking around anywhere, even small towns have traffic cams these days. I need to go out on purpose, get online like Quinn said I could, pretend to check email and Instagram and do some research instead.”

“Research what?”

“So far my only lead is—” I stop and switch to a mixture of Italian and Spanish and Latin. Between Mia and Ellie they’ll puzzle it out. “There’s a name I saw, a small sticker on one of the trucks. If I can dig into that, maybe I can find some addresses. Somewhere he has to have more than one warehouse, plus an actual office, maybe a factory they use as a base camp for raids and coordinating drops, pick ups, inspections.”