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Looking around, I realize these men are just as scared as I am. Even Logan, who can dish out violence with his bare hands in the octagon like it’s nothing, is relieved too.
Still, while the guns lower, nobody moves.
Dominick sighs like a disappointed parent and turns back to Chambers, who’s gotten himself together enough to be sitting on the ground.
“What’s in the truck?” Dominick asks.
Before Chambers can answer, a loud rumble fills the quiet night and everyone turns to look at the approaching headlights.
“Who the hell is that?” Pete growls, confused.
Dominick smiles. It’s full of teeth, but instead of looking happy, he looks feral. But also, he looks a little pleased?
What could make him that cocky in the midst of all this? The sound gets closer, and I see a big motorcycle and a muscle car approach. Half the guys turn their eyes away, but I forget and am immediately plunged back into night blindness as the engines turn off.
In those few moments of silence, Dom speaks.
“You may go now, Pete.”
It’s an order couched in pleasantness.
“I will be watching for any further signs of trouble.”
Everyone hears the implication. Pete steps back, waving ‘his’ guys back with him, and they all retreat slowly, none of them stupid or courageous enough to give Dom their backs.
Instead, as bootheels crunch on the blacktop and two newcomers approach, their eyes flick back and forth worriedly. As I look at them, I understand. It feels like everything just got worse. I had no doubt that Dom could handle whatever sniveling shit Pete was up to.
But these two new guys look rough.
They’re tall, hulking men, one with a beard and long blond hair making him look like a Viking, the other an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and eyes that even in the darkness burn with a hellish fire that says he’s seen some shit and come out the other side.
Nobody says anything until Pete and his men get into their cars and pull out of the lot. In the deep silence that follows, there are three groups, the rough biker-looking men, TJ and Chambers in the middle, and Dom, Logan, and myself on the other side. It’s like some weird sandwich, and I wonder if I’m the mayo or the pickle. No, not the pickle for sure, considering the swinging dicks around me right now as the men all take each other’s measure.
Finally, the Viking looks at Chambers and TJ, then up at Dom. “Well, ain’t this some shit we got here, Angeline?”
My eyebrows raise at his lazy tone, not disrespectful but just zero fear. Either he knows something I don’t, which is probably likely, or he’s fucking clueless about Dom.
Chapter 25
Dominick
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Logan subtly move in front of Allie, not cutting her off but making sure that if something kicks off, she’s covered. Good man.
On the ground, Chambers starts to get up. “Fucking hell, Robbie. Where’ve you been, man?”
He’s suddenly laughing and jovial, like he thinks Robert Zallow is here to save him, but one look at Robbie’s eyes and I know that’s not the case at all.
“Get on the ground, Chambers,” I growl as he gets to a knee, but he knows who he answers to. Instead of following my order, he looks at Robbie and gets to his feet, but I don’t give him another warning, sweeping his feet out from underneath him and sending him crashing back to the cracked asphalt.
“As I was saying, what’s in the truck?”
Chambers looks to Robbie again, but I plant my foot on his chest, pressing down on his ribs. I don’t lean my full weight into him, showing a glimmer of mercy mostly because Allie is here, but when I withdraw my shoe, his full attention is on me.
“Fuck . . . fine. Open and see for yourself, asshole.”
Chambers is digging his hole deeper and deeper, and I suspect he’ll need a literal one before the night is through.
I nod to Zallow, who nods to Victor. I’ve never met him before, but I know all the players in Silas’s crew because you never know when the insight might come in handy.
Like tonight.
Victor is Silas’s Sergeant at Arms, a former Marine Scout Sniper and a weapons expert, and it makes me wonder if Silas suspects the unauthorized shipment contains guns.
Victor goes over to the truck, unlocking the door and pushing it up, the rollaway door rattling on its frame.
Suddenly, Victor steps back as a chorus of cries fills the night air, and Zallow flashes a flashlight over the interior of the truck box, spitting out a harsh echo of my own thoughts.
“Fucking hell.”
Not guns, not drugs. Instead, a small group of perhaps a dozen or so women and children huddle against the back wall of the moving van, fear and confusion written boldly on their faces.
