Page 98 of The Boss

“No,” she starts shaking her head violently.

I force myself to push on, “Look at it, Luna. See the truth. Slavery. Minors. Killing innocent witnesses. The list is long. Women and children.”

“No! Fuck you! You’re lying!” She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a couple steps back from me.

“Luna,” I say, putting all the strength I have left into the command, “Look at me.” She does, all fire and pain and unbearable beauty. “Look…look at what really happened to your mother.”

At that, she turns her head, curses, and vomits. Though I’m fighting it, trying to stay awake, I can feel myself slipping. I pray with every cell in my being that she’s still here when I wake up.

Then, with a known spy in the middle of my secret safe space—with almost every weapon in my arsenal and piece of my intel at her disposal—I pass out.

CHAPTER 43

Quinn

“Luna?” I croak. I pry my eyes open and reach for the water I set on the side table. There’s only a sip left in it but it’s enough to revive me. I sit up. I don’t hear anything. Tink stirs near my feet. No Marlon.

Uh oh.

I pull out my phone and dial Robbie’s number. I wait the annoyingly long time it takes for the encrypted signal to ping around.

“You are so cooked,” my younger brother says when I answer.

“She left?”

“She did,” O answers. I sit up straighter in my chair.

“Fuck!”

“Indeed,” his calm tone is comforting and terrifying at the same time.

“Alright, well, where did she go? To who?”

“Your wife might be smarter than all of you,” Allie’s smooth voice comes on the line. We don’t hear from her often on calls like this. She’s O’s wife and the only true motherly figure any of us have had. She’s also a trained spy and fighter in her own right. But she’s not involved directly in the missions. Usually.

“I could’ve told you that, Al. Good to hear you,” I reply.

“And you, Van. Your little mafiosa sat at your desk and studied our satellite patterns.”

I sit back in the chair, “She what?”

“Didn’t figure her as that patient,” Mark says, cold and prickly as ever.

“Or methodical.” That was Zander.

“Quiet,” O commands. “Go on, love.”

“Once she’d timed the pattern, during the small window where we were not watching your shack, she took off.”

“No,” I whisper.

“Yes,” O says.

“Okay, so where is she now?”

“That’s the truly amazing part,” Allie is smiling, I can hear it in her voice. It’s like she’s oddly proud of Luna. Like a daughter, even though in actuality my wife would probably throat punch my adopted mother if given the chance. I understand when she finishes her thought and admits the impossible, “We don’t know.”

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