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“He left a note mentioning you and Grey specifically. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
This woman. Even though I’d made it clear that we couldn’t be anything, she still cared about me. Fought for me. Worried for me. It was more than anyone had done in a long time, and I was shocked at how good it felt. “Thank you for checking on me.”
Mari smiled, and I couldn’t help my own following. “I should get upstairs and shower before Doc gets here.”
I didn’t want her to go, even though I knew it was the right thing. The less time we spent together, the better. I stood, making sure not to brush against her too hard. The glazed look in her eyes told me she was hurting more than she let on.
“Right. I’m sure Doc will tell you this, but make sure to baby those ribs for a while so they can heal. I know you’ve got an image to uphold outside this house, but get one of those idiots to help you out if you need something around here.”
She stared at me for a long time, and again, I got the idea that I confused her. “What if they’re gone?”
“Then you call me.” I’d help her with whatever she needed.
“You’re a good friend, Nate.”
Rather than watching her leave, I took the coward’s way out and focused on my shoes instead.
I’d initially pushed her away to keep us both safe, but the more I learned, the more I knew distance wouldn’t change my feelings. The slight obsession that had started the day her car broke down had only gotten worse. I wanted her even if it damned us both.
I was halfway to the door to track her down and tell her that when the burner phone Tennessee had given me rang in my pocket. I didn’t look at the display as I fished it out, already knowing who it would be. The only person with the number and the very reason I shouldn’t consider doing anything with Mari, even if every part of me ached to.
There were too many secrets keeping us apart, and most of them were mine.
“Hey, Ma.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mari
Rey once told me that nothing good happened in the witching hour. So, why was I huddled in my coat against the predawn chill off the water? Because a two-word text from Micah had sent me running for the docks.
Inventory’s done.
The dockmaster wove through the stacks of containers toward a stout building. It was where we kept the vaults that secured the most expensive shipments, and unease made the coffee I’d chugged on the way in slosh uncomfortably. It probably wasn’t a good idea on top of the meds Doc had given me, but I was tired and hurting. I wasn’t going to add cranky to the list too.
When we were all seated, Micah finally got to it. “We’re missing a shipment.”
Record scratch.
“How did an entire shipment go missing, and whose was it?” It didn’t even seem possible. We had systems on top of systems to keep things moving.
“Kincaid. His painting came two days earlier than usual. We were about to lock it up when the explosion hit.”
He didn’t have to explain more. Cash had obviously taken a calculated risk. He’d already been messing with my shipments, the extent of which we still hadn’t fully seen and wouldn’t until after the audit was finished. Moving from fucking with numbers to outright stealing was well within his wheelhouse, but taking Troy Kincaid’s painting was a mistake.
The man spent years looking for each painting then paid millions just for security on the pieces, let alone the actual sticker price. They were his babies, his most prized possessions. Losing one was damn near unforgivable, but stealing one? Cash would be lucky if his great-grandkids weren’t still paying for the offense when he was nothing but bones in the ground.
“How do you want to handle this, boss?” Dominic asked from his place on the other side of the room. The distance between us was growing with every second, and unlike with Greyson, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to bridge it. Love healed a lot, but not this.
Tapping my fingers on the armrest, I tried to think of a way out of the mess Cash had gotten us into. “Was the painting scanned into the system?”
Grey had set up an inventory system separate from what the official manifests noted. It sent notifications to clients when their shipments arrived at the docks and gave them an option to negotiate pickup. If Troy knew his painting had arrived, we were fucked. He had the pickup planned down to the minute.
Micah shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “We didn’t have time.”
Thank god. That gave us a small window to find it before Troy found out. “If we steal it back, maybe we can avoid a Kincaid meltdown. Whether Cash deserves it or not, it looks bad on us to lose a shipment. We can’t afford bad press right now.”
Grey and Dominic nodded absently, both stuck in their own heads. “So, we figure out where it is and get it back.”
