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Standing on the other side of the corner, Ace watched as the man knocked on a side door and entered a warehouse.
Where were they?
“Look there,” Boxby whispered. “There’s a window.”
His eyes scanned the side of the building where Boxby pointed. “It’s ten feet up at least,” Ace answered with a frown.
“Who’s standing on whose shoulders?”
He looked over at Boxby, not a small man but a little smaller than Ace. His gaze swept the alley. “Fortunately, neither. Are those some crates over there?”
As quickly as they dared, they picked one up and set it silently down under the window, climbing up on top of the box and standing on the balls of their feet. Ace could just see inside. And what he saw left him cold.
There had to be a hundred men. And above them all was one standing with his arms crossed. Slight, he had the hard stare of a man in charge. “The commander,” Ace whispered, awe filling his throat. Bloody hell.
“What?” Boxby asked giving his shoulder a slight push. “Or who is that?”
He looked at Boxby trying to concisely explain. “The Den of Sins, and many other clubs, have been plagued by thieves for months. But a month ago, we caught the commander’s brother and sent him to the Tower.”
“Shit.”
While several of the men inside the warehouse moved crates, at least ten of them sat counting piles of coin. Clearly their thieving had proved lucrative. And with the Den of Sins’ owners closing in on the thieves, the thieves had decided to retaliate.
“What just happened at the club was retribution.”
“How do you know?” Boxby asked.
“An educated guess.” He scrubbed at his jaw. “As a man came straight from there to here, he’d been directed to set that fire.” Ace was looking at the possible center of their operation. They’d been chasing this man for months.
And Ace had been the one to find him—and only because of that fire.
“I’d say that’s a pretty safe guess. But how are you going to fight so many men?”
They weren’t. Not alone.
“Remember the address. We need help.”
Boxby nodded. “Done.”
Climbing down from the crate, they carefully returned it to its former spot and then started back toward the Den of Sins. What happened next was East’s decision not Ace’s. But he’d tell his brother everything.
Emily tried to wait up for Ken, but hours passed with no sign of him. Where had he gone with Ace that he was out so late?
Sitting in the front parlor, her head propped under her arms on the windowsill, she stared out into the night.
She finally slipped into sleep only to wake suddenly at the sound of carriage wheels breaking the silence.
Jolting up, she watched her brother climb from Ace’s carriage, Ace stepping out too. His face was cast in shadow but everything about his body seemed coiled, tense. Was everything all right? She wished she could hold him close, ask what was wrong.
Her brother gave Ace a pat on the back before he turned and started inside. Ace climbed back in his carriage, the vehicle rolling away. What had happened?
She jumped from her seat, racing out the door and down the stairs to meet her brother at the door.
The moment he saw her, he stopped. “What are you doing up?”
Her mouth opened and then closed. How did she explain? She’d been curious. Worried. “How did it go?”
Ken let out a deep sigh. “I agreed to be his partner and then almost instantly regretted it when the club he brought me to, the one he’s basing his business upon, was lit on fire by vengeful thieves.”
