Page 64 of Love At Close Range

I frowned as I changed lanes. “What happened?”

“Not over the phone,” he replied. “Just get here.”

The line disconnected before I could ask anything else.

I stared at the screen for half a second before turning toward the direction of the warehouse. Mello didn’t call me like that unless something was wrong.

By the time I pulled into the warehouse lot, Mello’s truck was already parked near the side entrance. I got out and headed inside, where I found Mello waiting near the office in the back.

“What the fuck happened?” I asked as I walked in and closed the door behind me.

“Cyrus is putting shit together,” Mello said.

“What shit?” I frowned.

“Too much shit,” he replied as he pushed away from the desk. “One of the boys heard his people asking around about two of the properties we used last month. They’re tracing where the money moved and who had access to the shit,” he revealed.

My jaw tightened. “How close are they?”

“Close enough for me to call you,” Mello said as he reached for the folder sitting on the desk. “They don’t have everything, but if they keep pulling, they’re going to find more.”

I took the folder from him and flipped through the pages before I tossed the folder back onto the desk. “We need to make sure he can’t find shit out,” I stated. I didn’t need this shit right now.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Mello said. “We need to clear out the smaller location first, move everything from there, then switch how the money is moving. If he gets to that property before we do, we’re going to have a bigger problem.”

I rubbed my hand over my jaw while I thought through it. “How long we’re looking at to get this shit done?”

“If we start tonight, we can have the inventory gone before morning. The books are going to take longer.”

“Then start with that frst,” I told him. “Move the product, move the equipment, and strip anything out of there that doesn’t belong. I’ll handle the rest.”

Mello nodded. “Where you want it?”

“Not here,” I said immediately. “If he’s connecting properties, I’m not stacking everything in one place. Split it between the Grove location and the old spot off Briar Glen until I figure out the next move.”

“That’s more people involved.”

“I know,” I replied as I picked up my phone. “Use the ones we already trust. Nobody new.”

We spent the next hour going through every property connected closely enough to us to become a problem. Some could stay exactly how they were. Others needed to be cleaned out before anybody had time to start digging around. None of it was impossible, but it was enough to let me know we had gotten too comfortable.

That shit was on me, though. I had built too much around the assumption that nobody would ever have enough information to connect every piece. Cyrus had been around long enough and had enough money behind him to make shit happen.

“I’ll call you when everything starts moving,” Mello announced as he got ready to leave.

“Make sure nothing goes through the same route twice,” I told him as I stood. “And anybody asking questions can wait until I talk to them.”

“Aight,” he said before looking toward the door. “What you about to do?”

“Handle the rest of my day.”

Mello nodded and headed out with me following a few minutes later. By the time I got to my truck, my head was split between two problems I didn’t have room to lose control of. Cyrus was getting too close to the shit I thought I had under control, and Reiana was acting like what we had never existed because of her baby daddy.

Neither one sat right with me.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could force her to want me, but I also wasn’t about to stand back while Lennox came into Arbor Point and took over everything because he happened to share a child with her. Whatever was happening between them could be dealt with once I got her to stop shutting me out long enough to listen.

Cyrus was different. That situation had a clock on it whether I could see it or not.