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I shrugged off my suit jacket, rolling up my shirtsleeves, ignoring the biting cold air. Tugging at my collar, I wished I’d been wearing my usual jeans and hoodie. Don’t get me wrong; I liked a sharp suit, tailored to fit, but I was always more comfortable dressed down. Right now? This suit was a fucking inconvenience.
“Here,” Cass grunted, emerging from the boot and throwing me a bundle of fabric. I opened it to find a black hoodie, and I pulled it on over my shirt, tugging the hood over my head.
“Cheers, mate.”
He nodded and tipped his head towards the road leading to the docks, his brows raised in a question.
“Let’s go.”
We all filed into a line, working together as we’d always done, seamlessly, silently, reading each other’s minds. When we reached the entrance to the docks, I held up a hand behind my back, signalling for them to wait.
Peering around the corner, my eyes scanned the area, cataloguing every detail.
The white painted guard hut by the entrance barrier was empty, and the whole place seemed quiet. Too quiet.
I noted the cameras mounted on high stalks and on the side of the guard hut, and indicated to my boys so they were aware. Crossing the entrance, I flattened my body against the side of the hut, Z in position next to me, poised and ready.
“Nothing. Except…that full mug of coffee.”
I followed Zayde’s gaze, noting an Alstone Holdings branded ceramic mug, balanced on the table in front of the monitors, and a dog-eared open book next to it, face down. The spine was creased, the title and author name written in a language I couldn’t read.
“Stay alert. Someone must’ve been here. Recently,” I told the others in a low voice.
“The coffee looks cold to me,” Cassius commented, peering through the window. “There’s a film on the top.”
Fuck. Whoever had been on guard duty could be long gone.
Time to check out the rest of the docks.
We moved stealthily around the corner of a low building, avoiding the cameras. Where was Winter?
My gaze was drawn to a crumbling stone building by the water’s edge, set apart from the rest of the docks. Every single instinct in me screamed that this was where I needed to be.
Keeping to the shadows, I ran.
I burst through the doorway, the door itself wide open, hanging at an angle.
Fuck. I couldn’t see anything.
I heard the sounds of my boys falling in behind me, a solid presence at my back. I straightened up.
Whatever was going on here, we’d get to the bottom of it. No one fucked with what was ours and got away with it.
We’d bury them.
Lights flickered on overhead, and I spun around to see Cass looking over at me, his hand poised over a light switch to the left of the doorway.
Zayde, Cassius, and Weston came to stand next to me, and we took in the square space we were standing in, with a long corridor off to the left. Distinct footprints and marks were visible on the dusty wooden floorboards, a clear indication someone had been that way recently.
Zayde glanced down the corridor, then back to the door, then pulled out his phone, dialling a number.
“I need a favour… Yeah. Backup… Not sure what we’re dealing with. Sending the address now… Yeah.”
He stabbed the phone to end the call and slipped it into his pocket. “Cade, check this out with Cass. Be careful. Me and West will go to the gate to wait for the others, and West can check the security feeds in the guard hut.”
“Sure.” I barely heard him as he threw the words over his shoulder and disappeared with Weston.
“Follow me.” I took command of the situation, skulking down the dimly lit corridor, the floorboards creaking underfoot. The corridor seemed endless. As we moved along, hugging the wall, a door came into view, gunmetal grey, studs around the edge, solid and impenetrable.
