Page 99 of The Boss

“My bicycle. Two cars, a tank and a motorcycle, and she took the mountain bike?!”

“Probably figured out we’d have tracers on everything,” Robbie responds.

“Do you have a tracer on your bike?” O asks.

“Of course not, it’s a fucking bicycle!”

“I think I’m in love with your wife,” Allie sighs.

“This is getting weird now,” Zander says.

Mark ignores anything off-mission, as usual, and says, “If she’s on a bike she couldn’t be far.”

“Right, which is why it’s strange we haven’t found her,” Allie agrees. “She must’ve seen her window and flew out of there like a bat out of hell, but then she’d be on a road somewhere, right?”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think to put a tracking chip on the mountain bike,” Robbie mutters.

“Again, it’s a bicycle!”

“Gang’s all here now!” Gailo chimes in as he joins comms, loud and obnoxious as always. “What’d I miss?”

“Van’s wife broke him and now he won’t stop repeating the word bicycle,” Robbie says.

“Stop, all of you. Van, look and see what else she took with her. Maybe some other gear we can locate.”

“Roger,” I grunt as I get up from the chair.

“How’s the wound?” Allie asks.

“How’s my whole damn house? Who was that?” I grouse back.

“Yeah, was that us?” Mark asks.

“Focus!” O whisper shouts. “One mission at a time. A woman who wasnotread in, who happens to know classified locations, read a shit-ton of classified files, knows Van’s true natureandMark’s true identity is currentlymissing!”

“She did rummage through your closets and take a backpack but I can’t see what’s inside it. She clocked where most of the cameras are in there,” Robbie says.

“Of course she did,” I mutter.

“Honestly, if you don’t bring her in so I can have her running missions yesterday,” Allie cuts in, “I’m going to be thoroughly disappointed in all of you.”

“Running missions?” I freeze. “I thought the plan was just for me to cozy up to Mancini Senior. I haven’t even had a chance to do that!”

“The plan changed when you fell for each other,” O states plainly.

Zander almost laughs, “Not sureshefell since she is currently AWOL with all his secrets and half his shit.”

Fuck. That hurts.

I knew it might not be enough. I know she has feelings for me but I knew we,Imight not be enough. I am a big ugly fucker with a horrific past and an even worse present, according to a loyal mafia princes.

Which she might still be. She might not love me more than her goals, her plans. She was raised in this. She wants power and control. She’s fucking great at it, too, clearly.

I study my storage lockers. I give Robbie a report of what’s missing, “Two knives, two Glock 43s, go bag with protein bars and water, and wait, a grenade? The fuck? A first aid kit, and huh,” I stop, seeing an empty space. “I can’t remember what was here, something I must never use. Robbie do we have a paper trail on what was in here?”

“Looking…looking…”

We all wait. It’s like I can feel O staring at each of us with that air of disappointment he used to get when we messed up as boys. Feels the exact same right now.