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I reach for him, running my fingers along the end of his stump, which is flexing with his tension, and he lets out a breath like he’s been holding it this entire time.
“You with me, love?”
I tap on his soft skin. ‘I’m here.’
He nods, swallows thickly, then glances over. In the haze, I have a flashing memory of him holding me by the waist under the cool water from our camping shower. It was a slow drizzle, and there was yellow soap that didn’t sting my eyes because he knew I wouldn’t have the strength to close them while he was cleaning me up.
The drop is hard for me every time I have to work someone over that hard, and it’s worse that I don’t have my lovers to fuck me to sleep and let me rest.
I suddenly want to kiss him. My throat burns that he can still find humanity inside him to care for a psychopath like me who likely would stop missing him if he was ever taken away.
I feel inadequate suddenly, but I can’t let myself linger in the feeling because we have a job to do. I drop my hand from James’ arm and turn my gaze to the GPS. We’re less than an hour away, so I stretch my legs in front of me, then dig around in our supply bag for the thermos of water and the instant coffee. It’s not ideal, and if it were Kane with me, he’d rather starve than eat road food, but James won’t turn his nose up at it.
I pull out little tin cups, fitting them into the cup holder, then pour the water and dish out the little dehydrated granules. They dissolve into black liquid and orange foam, and I dump a little vanilla creamer pod in for James before taking a sip of my own.
I see him watching out of the corner of my eye, and he lifts his chin as I bring his cup to his lips while he takes a long gulp. It’s just slightly hotter than tepid, and it makes me crave the real thing, but it’s enough.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
I blow out a soft huff to let him know it’s fine before dragging out a little bag of gas station muffins that taste like chemical ass, and I break one in half, feeding it to him. He grimaces as he chews, and I help him swallow it down with another sip of coffee.
“Need to learn to drive with my knees,” he mutters.
I snort and touch his arm. ‘I like feeding you.’
He grins a little as he pushes harder on the gas, and I know he feels the way time is ticking down. It’s gratifying to watch the time adjust on the screen as he picks up speed. The scenery whips by the window, and I distract myself by trying to count trees as we refuel as best we can for the moment we reach the storage unit.
“Ten minutes,” James says as we hit a small town. I have no idea where the fuck we even are, but I’m glad Romano decided to take him somewhere with a low population. If he had been thinking ahead, he would have taken Kane to Chicago or New York or some shit. Somewhere that we couldn’t get away with any kind of hustle.
It’s a sleepy little town too, and there isn’t a single car on the road as we make our way down the side street.
“Phoenix said to prepare for half a dozen armed. I doubt Romano would waste any of his decent guys on this, so I don’t think we’ll have a lot of trouble.”
I’m not surprised at all. Romano’s built his reputation on luck and the cleverness of others, which he was more than willing to take credit for. When I was young and my father was brought into his inner circle, my father tried to keep me away from him as much as possible.
But I was in his presence more than once. Romano would eye me and talk about how good-looking I would be when I grew up. And he’d always—always—remark on how precious I was to my father. His words always sent shivers up my spine, and when Vanessa came into his life, I knew it was going to come crashing down.
She was the one who orchestrated my father’s fall from grace. She was the one who slashed the knife across my throat after suggesting to Romano that it would ruin my father before he took his last breath. And she was the one who put a bullet in the back of my father’s head.
And Guido stood over my bleeding body with a little triumphant grin like he’d managed the entire thing.
If it hadn’t been for my father and his reckless love for that bitch, Romano would have never known that his dear friend and his lover were making him look like a fool.
I snap out of old memories as James pulls the Jeep to a stop a few feet away from a storage facility. There’s a gate at the front with a keypad, and it looks unmanned, which will make things a little easier and prevent any civilian deaths.
James puts the car in park, then taps on the Jeep’s screen, and a second later, Phoenix’s voice fills the cab.
“Give me two seconds. I’m going to shut the system down so the gate will stay open, but their IT will probably notice after a few minutes and send someone down.”
I sigh, and James passes a hand down his face. “And no CCTV?”
“No, but I was able to tap into their phones. There’s seven phones in total, but three of them are burners, so I think we’re looking at five of these fuckers at the most. If you head to the right side of the building, that’s where they have the refrigerated units. They’re all locked digitally, so I’m going to open all six.”
Six. That isn’t an impossible number, though it means we’ll have to work quickly and pray to any god that feels like taking pity on us that we’ll get it in one or two so they won’t have time to prepare.
Reaching behind me, I yank our smaller bag into my lap and pull out the guns. They’re already loaded and silenced, so I pass James his, then take both of mine and toss the bag to the floor.
‘Is the plane ready?’
