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Lou glanced at both of us from beneath the hood of her jacket. “You two don’t have to go in with us, you know. I’dratheryou stayed farther back, someplace safe.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, gathering the resolve that’d brought me this far. “Nowhere’s really safe until we deal with this asshole. And we’re not letting you deal with him alone. Anyway, this was my idea. I should be there.”
Niko nodded. “We said we’d stand by you through whatever danger you faced, and we’re not going back on that promise.”
Lou sighed but didn’t argue. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she watched for Rafael’s return, no sign of pain in her movements.
She’d gotten the cortisone shot she’d talked about a couple of days ago and today had been skating like she’d never taken a single hit. But I’d seen the thugs who’d come at her the other day. I’d seen how brutally they’d attacked her.
They’d wanted to hurt her way worse than we’d let them get away with. Maybe they’d even have killed her if they’d had the chance.
The idea of losing Lou—at all, but especially in such a vicious, painful way—made my gut clench up. How could I have ever thoughtIhad it hard while she’d been dealing with shit like this every day since she was a little kid?
Rafael appeared across the street. He motioned us over to him and led us silently down an alley between the backs of the stores on either side of the block. I set my feet as carefully as I could, understanding that stealth was important.
Niko walked beside me, picking his way nimbly around the bits of trash that scattered the cracked pavement. He caught me looking at him and aimed a quiet smile my way, like a little stream of sunlight through the night.
This had to be done. If the four of us were ever going to live in peace together, we couldn’t let Sheeran go any farther in his campaign against Lou.
Rafael held up his hand to stop us again. He moved forward, melding into the shadows with a skill I couldn’t help admiring.
There was a muffled grunt and a rustle of clothes. Then a soft thump.
Rafael reappeared and beckoned us. “Come on, before they notice anything’s wrong!”
We hustled past the slumped unconscious bodies of two men I assumed were guards Sheeran had posted, who obviously hadn’t expected to encounter anyone like Rafael tonight. My skin tightened at the evidence of his violence, but I marched toward the shop’s back door without hesitation.
Sheeran had made the rules here. If he’d left Lou alone, it wouldn’t have come to this.
Rafael had taken out a gun that set my nerves even more on edge, though I knew it was for all of our protection. He took just a second to position himself and then threw himself at the door, bursting into the back room.
We barged into the thin artificial lighting to find the guy with the stark white hair I now knew was Sheeran and a few of his underlings standing around a metal table, which held a couple of baggies of a powder I assumed was some kind of drug and a pile of bundled bills set right in front of Sheeran.
He had one bundle in his hand as if counting it, but in the moment we hurtled inside, his other hand was dug deep into the pocket of his wool coat.
He jerked it out as he spun around at our intrusion, but I’d seen enough in the gesture and the angle he’d held his arm at.
I hadn’t imagined anything the other evening. All my sewing work over the years had given me a strong sense of seams and clothing construction, and something was up with his pockets. And given everything else we’d discovered about him, I had a pretty clear idea what.
The three guys with him whipped out guns of their own and brandished them at us with threatening shouts. Rafael bared his teeth, positioning himself at the front of our group while Lou flanked him, her knife tight in her hand and her eyes fierce.
“What the fuck is this about?” Sheeran demanded, his jaw clenching as he took us in. He didn’t look all that concerned, maybe because his side’s guns outnumbered ours, but he definitely wasn’t happy about the unexpected visit.
I cleared my throat. “We just wanted to check up on your operation. I was wondering how much money and product you’ve been skimming off your boss’s profits and merchandise. Are your men on board with your disloyalty, or do they have no clue they’re helping a backstabber?”
The three gunmen gaped at me, though their weapons hadn’t wavered—yet. So, it was door number two, then.
Sheeran’s face had hardened into a mask of horrified defiance, panic sparking in his gaze. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re—”
“Oh, it’ll be pretty easy to prove it,” I interrupted, stepping forward as if those guns didn’t have my heart thumping double time. “Should we give these guys a show so they know who they’re actually working under? Maybe it’d be a nice step up for them in the ranks, huh, if they could tip off the man at the top of the ladder about what his trusted lieutenant has been getting up to behind his back.”
“They’re making shit up,” Sheeran snapped. “Shoot them already!”
Rafael fixed our enemies with a cool stare. “They know that’s not a good idea. I can take down at least two of them before they could manage to stop me. Pretty poor odds, and for what? To support a traitor?”
“And we can prove we’re not making anything up.” I tipped my head toward his coat. “Your pockets will tell the whole story, won’t they?”
The thugs glanced from us to Sheeran, looking increasingly uncertain. The fact that Sheeran had paled at my words couldn’t have helped their confidence in their boss.
