Page 88 of Hard Bargain

Aren’t you the same?

He reached over and turned off the kitchen light.

The couch would do.

Chapter 23

Dominic

Three days passed before he saw Knox again. This time he hadn’t been keeping his distance on purpose; he’d simply been too busy. Mercer had made sure of that.

He stood in front of the long window of his office, phone pressed to his ear. “Run it again,” he said.

“We already checked that warehouse twice,” one of his men replied.

“Then check it a third time.”

Dominic ended the call before the protest could continue and set the phone down on his desk.

For the last three days, every spare moment had been spent learning everything there was to know about Victor Mercer. His men were watching every warehouse Mercer touched and every trucking company he leaned on. Phone numbers were being traced, shipments followed, and middlemen questioned in places where questions tended to produce honest answers.

Mercer had spent months studying Dominic’s territory. Dominic was returning the courtesy.

Across the room, Cassian lounged in one of the leather chairs, flipping a knife through his fingers while he watched Dominic. “You’ve got half the city digging through Mercer’s trash right now,” he said.

Dominic didn’t look up from the papers spread across his desk. “That’s the idea.”

Cassian watched him for another moment, then flicked the knife closed and tossed it aside. “Mercer’s going to feel this soon.”

“Also the idea.”

He shifted his weight and reached across the desk for a folder. The movement pulled along the wound on his arm. It wasn’t much, just a brief ache where the stitches dragged against healing skin.

The information had been coming together faster over the last twenty-four hours. Mercer’s operation wasn’t particularly elegant. It relied on small pieces spread thin across the city, but patterns always emerged eventually. It was just a matter of patience and pressure in the right places.

“You’re mapping the whole thing?” Cassian asked.

Dominic didn’t look up. “Yes.”

“That’s a lot of work just to kill one man.”

Dominic slid another folder aside. “I’m not just going to kill him.” He moved to the next page. “I’m taking everything he thinks belongs to him. By the time Mercer finally decides to step out of hiding, there won’t be anything left for him to run to.”

Cassian’s grin slowly appeared. “And then?”

Dominic grabbed his keys from the desk and headed for the door.

“Then I kill him.”

* * *

The warehouse was very much alive when Dominic arrived. He stepped inside and let the noise settle into its familiar rhythm around him. His eyes moved across the space: a truck was backing slowly toward one of the loading docks, two of the crew were arguing over a pallet near the wall.

And near the center of the floor, standing beside one of the long tables covered in paperwork and manifests—Knox.

Dominic slowed without meaning to.

Why was it so difficult to keep his distance from this boy? Two weeks earlier he had managed it—barely, and with considerably more effort than it should have required. Knox had a way of slipping into his thoughts at inconvenient moments, surfacing without invitation and refusing to leave. Annoying. Which was precisely why he’d stayed away. Distance solved most problems, time usually did the rest.