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“Keep your eyes open,” Max murmurs. “Could be an ambush around any corner.” He’s looking much less tired than he did this afternoon by the time we made it back home where, true to his word, he had a nap.
In his own room.
I lay down for a while in mine, but I couldn’t sleep.
“Relax,” I say now. “I didn’t get this far by being careless.”
Still, my sensesareon high alert. This is PacSyn territory, and if they catch us snooping around, it won’t end well. And then, as we walk into an open area, a group of men emerge from between two warehouses, blocking our path. My hand inches toward my gun, pulse racing, but Max puts his hand on my wrist, telling me to keep steady.
“Well, well,” one of them says with a sneer. “What do we have here?”
“Just passing through,” Max says easily. If Max is worried, he’s hiding it damn well. “No need for trouble.”
“On our turf,” the man says, “there’s always need for trouble.” A chorus of menacing chuckles follows his statement, and they close in tighter. I brace myself, fingers closing around my gun. But Max’s hand clamps onto my arm now, stilling me.
“Take it easy,” Max murmurs, barely moving his lips. He steps forward, hands raised, but I know there’s a gun tucked into the holder at the back of his jeans. “We just wanted a word,” he says to them.
The thugs laugh again, a harsh bark of sound. Their leader spits at Max’s feet. “Just one? Then I’ll cut it into your body and send you back to that fucker Castellani as a message.”
He pulls a knife from his belt, the blade glinting dully in the dim lights.
“Wrong answer,” Max says.
The guy charges. I pull out my gun, but there’s no need. Max sidesteps neatly, grabbing the man’s wrist and twisting until he drops the knife with a yelp of pain. The others jerk forward, then stop as I train my gun on them.
“Back off or this gets ugly.”
For a moment they all hesitate, sizing us up.
“What are you waiting for?” their leader snarls. “Fucking kill these assholes!”
But one by one, his backup fades into the shadows between the warehouses until only he is left with us, clutching his injured wrist. Max grabs him by the front of his filthy shirt, slamming him against the wall.
“You’re going to tell us everything we want to know,” I say, “or Max here will breakbothyour wrists. Got it?”
“Fuck you.”
Max tightens his grip on the man’s shirt, and I lean close so he can see the promise of violence in my eyes. “First National. Talk.”
He talks. Babbles, really, spilling words in a desperate bid to save himself. But none of it is useful. No names, no locations, nothing we can actually use. Just useless drivel, the kind of information he would have heard on the street, but nothing about the actual setup.
After a few minutes I shove him away in disgust. “Get the fuck out of here.”
He scrambles away without a second glance, disappearing around the corner of the nearest warehouse. I turn to Max, unable to keep the frustration from my voice. “Well, that was a waste of time.”
“We knew this wouldn’t be easy,” Max says. He holsters his gun, glancing around. “Whoever embedded a mole in your crew is going to be high up. Chuckles Moran himself, I assume. He’s not gonna spill his plans to the rank and file. It was worth a shot, but…” He shakes his head. “Anyway, we should make like trees and leave before they find their courage—and their guns.”
“Make like trees and…” I cringe. “Uh, did you just make a dad joke?”
Max gives a small smile. “Let’s get moving.”
“So what next?” I ask on the way back to the car. We came all this way for nothing, put ourselves in danger for no reason.
Max’s eyes glint as he glances my way. “We dig deeper. Time to start leaning harder on the crew, Bricker, much as it pains me to say it.” As we settle back into the car, Max gives a wince and rolls his head on his neck, stretching. “I’m too old for this,” he sighs again.
“Bullshit,” I tell him. “That guy just about shit himself when you grabbed him.” He chuckles, and so do I. “Seriously, though,” I go on, as I drive back out to the main road, “We make a good team, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” Max says, “we do.”
