AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good,” he said. “Give me all the details you know.”
“I don’t know what the shipment is,” she said. “But there’s a lot of money involved. Thomas has all his lions on high alert.”
“So when’s this going down?” asked Sonny, his greedy eyes gleaming.
“Sunday. The shipment is coming in at dusk. They want to have the lot stashed before dawn, you see.” Lorena was warming to her role. “All I know is that it’s a big truck.” In truth, the truck would be full of Thomas’s men, some of them armed and ready and others in lion form.
“I want to know what’s in that shipment,” said Sonny, grabbing her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he had a grip of iron.
“You’re hurting me,” she said, feeling suddenly desperate and trapped.
“Get me details, Lorena,” he said, throwing her wrist back at her.
She sat back, nursing it and making a mental note to stay out of his reach in the future. “I’ll do my best,” she said sullenly. “It’s not easy creeping around spying. If I get caught, you don’t get Thomas or his pride.”
Sonny made a growling noise in his throat. “Then don’t get caught,” he said gruffly, then he stood and left.
Lorena sat there for a minute, breathing deeply and trying to stop shaking. She had never been able to abide bullies, and Sonny was the worst.
“I think he fell for it,” she told Thomas as soon as they were reunited. “But he’s pressuring me to find out what the cargo is. Do you think I should tell him?”
“No, I think leaving it vague is a good idea. I’ve got my best guys guarding the hospital. Plus, who doesn’t like surprises? It’ll be like Christmas for him, all anticipation.” Thomas laughed.
Lorena couldn’t get past the lump in her throat to let the laughter out. For her, the stakes were too high.
The two days of waiting until the day of the ambush were agony. There was so much to do setting everything up and making sure everyone knew their roles. She didn’t seem to get a moment alone with Thomas. He always had someone with him whenever she saw him.
By Saturday, she was ready to pull out of the whole thing. The more she got to know the members of Thomas’s pride, the more she got to like them. She hated the idea that they were putting their lives on the line for her. Thomas explained that it was also for his safety and the pride’s, but the guilt still grew exponentially within her.
The one thing that brightened the day was that the hospital called and said Alfredo was improving. She spent as much time with him as she could, but he was still unconscious most of the time and whacked out on painkillers when he was awake.
Sunday was a day of action. Thomas was the epitome of what an alpha should be. He was strong and firm. Demanding exactly what he wanted from the people around him to make the whole arrangement go as smoothly as possible.
Unfortunately, this didn’t leave a lot of room for Lorena. Her anxiety rose throughout the day. She had a role to play, she was to be one of the transport drivers, but she still found she had too much time on her hands.
Late in the afternoon, she managed to snatch five minutes on her own with Thomas. “How are you holding up?” he asked her.
“I’m okay,” she lied. There was no point in telling him she’d changed her mind. She wanted out, but she couldn’t get out. Besides, she felt a lot more courageous when she was with him.
He gave her a hug, which almost had her in tears. Then one of his lions turned up, and he was back to being all business.
“Okay, let’s head out,” called Thomas. “You all know your roles. Let’s go kick some ass!”
There were howls and calls of excitement as the pride headed to their posts. Thomas went with a band of lions in a pickup. Lorena wouldn’t see him again until it was over. She drove three others out to the back of the quarry. They were the snipers, which meant she would get a good view of the action.
They had barely arrived at the spot where the snipers were to set up when the first gunshots rang out.
“Fuck, they got here early,” one of the guys whispered.
She ran toward the edge of the quarry to see what was happening, but one of the snipers grabbed her arm and pulled her down. Just in time, luckily, as a shot ricocheted from a rock exactly where she had been.
“Oh, my God, thank you,” she said. The guy had saved her life.
“You would have been silhouetted against the horizon,” he said. “They are bound to have snipers too.”
They crawled on their bellies to the edge and peered out from behind rocks. It sounded like a war zone down there. Lorena prayed that Thomas was keeping safe.
The truck with their men was nowhere in sight. Of course, they were expecting a drop-off at dusk. Thomas and his men had been caught out in the open, off guard and short-handed.
