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“Thank you,” I said instead, directing the words at Girard.
“This is how we’re going to do it, though.” He took charge, and I was happy to let him. “You three travel in that SUV with two of my men, and I’ll follow you all in this one. When we get there, you do exactly as I say, or I’m calling it off and we’re headed back here.” He paused. “Without coffee.”
I chuckled. “Deal.”
The journey to the warehouses at the dock was a short one, and I shuddered as I got out. The Novelli smelled of swamp and oil around here, and the stench took me right back to when I’d recently taken the enforced bath in it. It had taken several washes to remove the stink from my hair and skin.
Sometimes I thought I could still detect it.
The SUVs were tucked as much out of sight as they could be, and Girard and one of the men followed Charmaine and me as we stood on our tiptoes to peer inside the broken panes of one of the windows.
The building seemed completely empty, and it was really so ramshackle that I could hardly believe Dad’s name had been behind it.
“I’ll take a look around the other side so we get this shit done quicker. Is that okay?”
I nodded absently at Wes as he voiced his plan. Gravel crunched lightly under his feet as he walked away, the last pack soldier who’d traveled with us falling into step behind him.
Patrick and Girard really did have all of this protection stuff down. There was no doubt these guys knew what they were doing, and it was another facet of pack life I’d never considered — that they almost operated small armies within them.
It brought me an unexpected feeling of security and safety in a situation that was really neither, and I relaxed as I rounded the next corner, stepping over a piece of rotten siding as I did so.
My phone vibrated in my backpack, and I set it on the ground as I dug through, finally finding it at the bottom.
Girard came to stand behind me. “Everything okay?”
I glanced at the screen. “It’s a video call from Wes.” I glanced back, but we’d wandered too far from each other to be within sight distance any longer. “Weird that he can’t just come and get me.”
“Hey,” I answered brightly, but Wes hissed quickly, and he didn’t have the camera on his face. Instead, I was looking out into a warehouse space.
“Don’t say anything,” Wes whispered, the sound urgent. “Record this call. I’m putting you on mute.”
Shit. My heart started racing, and I glanced at Charmaine. Her eyes were wide as she crowded closer to me, and she tugged at the ends of her hair.
I opened the control center on my phone and started the screen recording function, but my mouth was dry. Where was Wes, and what was he doing? This wasn’t exactly a time for heroics.
I stared more closely at the screen, trying to look for anything I recognized before standing up and creeping back around the corner, placing my feet as silently and carefully as I could as I retraced our steps.
Surely that had been stacks of boxes? Stacks of something, anyway, but they were shrouded in gloom. Had that been what Wes wanted to show me?
These was all supposed to be empty warehouses. None of us were supposed to have walked into any dangerous situations. What had I done? I just needed to find Wes and we all needed to get back into the SUVs. Then we could go home and make another plan.
Girard put his hand on my shoulder. “Wait,” he whispered. “We can’t just walk into a situation where we don’t even know what’s happening.” He gestured to the other soldier to come and stand by as he pulled a radio off his hip.
He pressed the button. “Ames, come in,” he said. The crackled of static met his command. “Ames,” he repeated. But all he got was more static.
Radio silence.
He met my gaze, and my chest tightened. Something was very wrong.
Charmaine inhaled sharply behind me, then gulped as if choking down a sob. Her hand found mine.
“Foster, get them back in the SUV,” Girard barked the quiet command at the soldier with us, and I dimly registered his name. Both names. All of these men with us had names, lives…possibly families, and was I responsible for dragging them all into a dangerous situation? Maybe I should have waited for Patrick.
Then Girard took off running, no longer careful about the amount of noise he was making. “Wes!” he called. “Wes, get out of there.”
“You have to come with me,” Foster said, but he was young and his face was pale, and his fingers danced on the handle of the gun he had at his waist.
“Where’s Wes?” Charmaine asked, a small tremor in her voice.
