Page 105 of Hard Rain

“So, who’s actually the troublemaker?”

Six fingers pointed toward Axel.

Including Whip’s.

Axel looked around the table.

“Traitors.”

“No,” Boone said, finally coming up for air from his conversation with Davis about the Cutter operation. “Witnesses.”

Another round of laughter rolled through the restaurant.

Axel shook his head, trying not to smile.

Didn’t work.

He caught Whip watching him.

This time the smile wasn’t teasing.

Just…happy.

Axel held his gaze for half a second before closing his free hand around Whip’s thigh beneath the table and squeezing it.

Then he took another bite of pizza.

Boone pushed back from his chair, and Davis followed, lifting his suit jacket from the back of his chair.

“Zero nine hundred,” Boone told them.

A chorus of, “Yes, sir,” floated around the table.

Seattle had always felt like a good place to work.

His gut told him the easy part was over.

CLOSER

They stopped at a 7-Eleven convenience store along the way to the hotel.

Whip rounded the endcap with a bottle of water in one hand.

Every convenience store seemed laid out by the same invisible architect. Drinks against the back wall. Chips and candy down the center aisles. Coffee near the registers. Condoms tucked into a corner like nobody was supposed to notice them unless they came looking.

He’d walked into hundreds of them over the years. Small towns. Big cities. Truck stops somewhere in the middle of nowhere. They all blurred together until something—or someone—made one stand out.

Axel stood in front of the condoms section.

Studying it.

Seriously studying it.

Good grief.

Whip walked over.

“…What’re you doing?”