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I shook my head, unable to tell him it was because he was in front of me. Alive. Breathing. Cash was feeding off my paranoia, and it was working. Fucking asshole.
But even if he didn’t have Greyson, Nate was still in danger.
“We need to get home.”
Grey rubbed my back. “Okay. We’ll call the cleaners when we’re on the road.”
One look at Dominic had him hustling over to our car and pulling open the driver’s side door. I noticed our guys had replaced the blown-out tires. Apparently, he was replacing Geneva. I didn’t care as long as we got home.
Cash waited until the entire caravan was at the end of the block before he blew the warehouse to pieces.
I peered out the back window, unsurprised to see it in flames, but since everyone we’d brought was gone, I wasn’t worried about it. The explosion was barely big enough to rock the car.
“What the hell is that?”
I leaned forward, trying to see out the windshield like Dominic, and I immediately wished I hadn’t. A plume of smoke in the distance told me it wasn’t just one explosion, but two. Craning my neck, I tried to figure out where the explosion was, but there was no way to tell from where we were. Before I could redirect Dominic, my phone lit up with a video call from Micah. A call from the dockmaster was unusual, but a video chat was unheard of. A pit formed in my stomach as I answered.
“Bad news, Mari.” Micah flipped to the back camera, and even expecting it, the sight hit me in the gut.
Son of a bitch. We’d found the second bomb.
Bits of metal and wood were everywhere, flames eating them and anything else they could find. The sight of a single uniformed leg hidden beneath the rubble ignited my body with rage. Cash hadn’t just destroyed one of my shipments; he’d blown it to bits and torched the two next to it, taking a life in the destruction.
Fuck the concussion, fuck the broken ribs, and fuck the Aces. Unlike Cash, I took every loss personally, and I wasn’t going to stop until he was strapped down to a table while I chopped him into fish food.
“Get the fire department down there, and sort out the fire. As soon as it’s cleared, inventory everything. We need to know what we’ve got to replace.” I paused, taking a breath that hurt every one of my ribs. “Get me the information on your guard, too. I’ll call the family myself.”
“I will.” Micah cleared his throat, the sound painful on the line. “Johnson was a good guy. He didn’t deserve that.”
“No, he didn’t. I promise to make him pay.”
“I know you will, boss. I have no doubt.”
That made one of us.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nate
There was no greater hell than watching Mari walk out the door and knowing she might not come back.
Go back to your room, I told myself. You can’t stand here all day like a lost puppy.
I turned to do just that and found Amara smiling at me. Though I mostly kept to myself, we’d struck up a casual friendship when she’d caught me skulking around the kitchen one midnight. After I’d gotten out of the Army, baking and cooking had become my stress-reliever. The mindless task was an easy way to shut down some of the memories that fought to hog my attention. Amara often let me work on my own food under her supervision. No one else’s, though.
It was her kitchen, so I didn’t mind the nosiness, especially when she didn’t try to fill up the silence with small talk. It was peaceful, and I’d had too little of that in my life to turn my nose up at it.
Amara slowly closed the distance and rubbed my arm softly. “She’ll be okay. Mari’s always been the best of us.”
That didn’t surprise me. Mari was incredible; it had just taken me a minute to figure that out.
Giving me another smile, Amara nodded toward the kitchen. “Lunch will be ready soon.”
I wasn’t hungry, but one look at her face told me I’d eat it anyway. Amara was as worried as I was. She was just using her job to occupy her mind. I envied her.
“Thanks. I’m going to hit the gym for a while first.” I needed an outlet for all the restless energy.
With a quiet nod, Amara left me to my thoughts.
