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I smacked his arm. “That’s a lot of confidence.”
“It’s called self-assurance,” he said, wagging a finger at me.
“I still have your knife on me. Be careful what you say.”
“A little blood never hurt anybody. Besides, you know I like it kinky.” Wylder’s grin only grew.
I laughed. It was good to know that no matter what happened, Wylder was never going soft on me. And I did like it that way. “Well, for the record, the position of favorite is still up for grabs. But I will make you work for it.”
An eager glint came into Wylder’s eyes as if he was going to start on that “work” right now, but before he could do more than stroke his hand up my thigh, his phone buzzed in his pocket. With a grumble, he drew back and pulled it out, hitting the speaker phone button when he saw the caller ID. “Hey, Gideon, what’s up?”
Gideon’s voice crackled through the line. “There’s a problem.”
Wylder frowned. “What are you talking about? We didn’t have any operations planned tonight.”
“We didn’t,” Gideon said. “But your dad had that deal going on tonight—the shipment coming in.”
I glanced at Wylder. “I didn’t know about this.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “It didn’t really have anything to do with you. Just typical business—some of our people bringing in stolen merch. There’s a small cargo plane that’s supposed to land at the private airstrip just outside of the Bend right around now.”
“Yeah, that,” Gideon said. “The cops seem to have found out about it.”
“What?” Wylder said, sounding incredulous. “How the hell would they know anything?”
“I don’t know, but they’re closing in on the place. They’ll be there and have it surrounded in five minutes or less.”
Wylder swore and started tapping texts into his phone. “I’ll warn the guys. What the fuck could have gone wrong? Axel was handling this one personally. He’s a prick, but he knows how to keep his mouth shut about Dad’s business.”
“This is a particularly important shipment too, isn’t it?” Gideon said.
“Yeah,” Wylder muttered, still tapping away furiously. “It’s one of the main reasons Dad was out of town so long last month. Fuck. If the first deal with his new associate goes sideways, the entire deal could fall apart.” He stared at the messages he was getting back and banged his hand against the car door. “I’m not getting any responses. It’s too far for us to get there in time to warn them in person. Who all would be out there with Axel?”
Gideon hummed thoughtfully. “All the usuals, I’d guess. Let me see…” His end of the conversation went abruptly quiet. Then he muttered, “Shit.”
My pulse stuttered. “What?”
“I’ve been paying a little extra attention to that guy of Axel’s we’ve seen hanging out with the Storm’s people,” Gideon said. “Put a tracker on his car a couple days ago. Right now it’s out in that part of the warehouse district where we’ve heard the Storm’s people probably have their headquarters.”
“Why would he be out there when his boss has a major deal going on?” I turned to Wylder, a chill washing over me. “Unless he tipped the Storm’s people off, and they sicced the cops on us this time.”
“Fucking hell.” Wylder sent off one last text message and glared at the screen. “I’m just going to call. Gideon, I’ll have to get off the line.”
“I’ll keep monitoring the situation on my end.”
Wylder hung up and clicked to dial Axel’s number. He left the phone on speaker mode, the ringing carrying through the car. It took three before Axel picked up with an annoyed, “What the fuck are you harassing me about, kid? I’m dealing with enough problems already.”
Yells and screeching tires carried through the phone line. Axel swore a few times as the sounds started to fade. The cops had already arrived, I realized, and he was heading away from the scene. He must have had lookouts who’d spotted them in time for at least some of them to flee.
“Cops are there, right?” Wylder said quickly. “Did you manage to get the goods?”
“No. Had to get the fuck out of there before— They managed to nab a few people even as it was… How the hell do you know what’s going on here?”
“Gideon spotted it,” Wylder said. “I tried to contact you and your men earlier. Of course, it looks like one of those men is the one who sold us out, so…”
Axel had started barking orders to whoever was driving, his voice muffled, probably with his palm over the speaker. At those last words, he came back on the line. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That guy of yours you said was investigating the Storm,” Wylder said, his jaw clenching. “Was he supposed to be there at the airstrip tonight? Did he know about the deal?”
