Neither of us moves. The wave pulls back out and the sand shifts under my feet and I should step away, I know I should, but something about the way he's staring at where I'm touching him makes me stay exactly where I am. Like moving would break something that hasn't finished happening yet.
"Tia." His voice comes out low. A warning.
"I know," I say.
I don't know what I'm agreeing to. But I mean it.
He finally looks up from my hand to my face. Whatever he finds there makes something in his expression go tight and complicated—not the blank wall he usually shows me, something underneath it, something that looks almost like it costs him. His free hand comes up slowly and closes over mine where it rests on his arm.
Not moving it. Not pulling it away.
Just covering it.
His palm is rough and warm and huge, and for three full seconds we stand there in the shallows with the water swirling around our ankles and his hand over mine and his eyes doing something I don't have a name for.
Then he steps back. Takes my hand with him and sets it gently at my side like he's returning something he borrowed.
"Come on," he says. He turns toward the path before I can see his face. "We're done out here."
I follow him up the sand. My hand still feels warm where his was. The ocean keeps coming in behind us like it didn't notice what just happened, but I noticed. And from the set of his shoulders ahead of me, the way he's walking like he's angry at the ground?—
He noticed too.
6
Kraken
The walk up the path stays quiet. She doesn't fill the silence with chatter the way she usually does, and somehow that's worse. I'm aware of every step she takes beside me. The wet fabric of her dress. The salt drying on her skin.
I get her settled in the side room off the operations center and post two prospects on the door. I don't look at her when I leave. I've already looked too much today.
The meeting runs long. Too many names, not enough proof. The room stays hot. I split my attention the way I always do when things are wrong. I keep one ear on the table, one on everything else. Mace runs down the logs. Ghost leans against the back wall with his arms crossed and his eyes moving over every face. Razor sharpens his blade with the slow scrape that means he's bored, which means he's dangerous. Diesel stares into his glass.
"Finn's got a cousin in Miami," Razor says. "Cartel adjacent."
"Could be nothing," Mace says.
"Could be everything," Ghost answers.
I slam my fist on the table. Bottles rattle. "I want names and I want proof. Pull every brother who touched that run. If it's inside it bleeds tonight." I scan the room. "Where's Finn?"
"Haven't heard from him since the night of the shipment."
"Then we start there." I look at Ghost. "Double the west perimeter. I want eyes that don't blink." He inclines his head. "Done."
Mace rubs his beard. "What about the girl?"
Every man in the room looks at me. I feel the weight of it. Whether she's an asset or a liability. Whether Gunny's debt means anything against the cost of keeping her here.
"She stays under my watch," I say. "She's connected to the threat. That means she stays close until we know how." I look around the table. "She's off limits. Anyone looks at her wrong answers to me."
The room rumbles agreement.
I slam the gavel down. The meeting ends. Brothers file out. Mace stays.
"You good, Prez? You seem?—"
"I'm fine. Get Finn's financials pulled by afternoon.”
