Chapter 43 Mac, Eleanor, Nicole and Dimitri
Mac, Eleanor, Nicole and Dimitri
Mac
It’s kind of funny how circular life can be sometimes.
Because I’ve been to this storage facility before. I’ve even been at this facility with these same guns before. Last time we were intercepting their movement and stealing the shipment, and this time I’m loading up what remains of it, but it’s still the same guns at the same facility.
When the last box is on the truck, I shoot Felix a text that he instantly reads. Guy must have his phone in his hand.
The drop point is only a few miles away, and I pull into the abandoned lot right next to the sedan. Felix is leaning against the door, arms crossed as he waits, and he straightens as I hop down from the cab.
A year ago, I’d have gone in for a shake. Maybe even a quick bro-hug. Too much has changed, but the impulse is still there.
“Hey, man.” He nods.
I snort at the strange, stiff greeting. “Felix. You look good. Last time I saw you, you were like a buck eighty-five? You’ve put on some muscle.”
His gold tooth flashes in the light from a street lamp at the edge of the parking lot. “Shit, you wanna fuck me, mano?”
And just like that, the tension is broken. I roll my eyes and clap him on the shoulder. “C’mon.”
We head around to the back of the truck and I shove the rolling shutter door up, revealing five plywood crates. Felix gracefully climbs up into the truck bed and lifts the top off one.
“It’s a fire sale,” I tell him proudly.
He cuts me a look. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”
“Yeah,” I chuckle. “Get it? ‘Cause they’re firearms?”
“Oh, I got it; you’re just nowhere near as funny as you think you are,” he says distractedly, examining the goods in the box. He whistles, lifting an AK-47 out. “Where’d you get all this heat?”
“Been holding it for a while,” I shrug. “It’s… time to let it go.”
In actuality, there were six crates left from the job we did that brought us to Ulysses.
The Feds seized most of it, and used it as evidence to close the case on the illegal weapons trading the mayor was doing, and we kept six crates full of explosives and military-grade weapons in a storage facility right under everyone’s noses.
Felix gets five because… well, just because I’m getting out of the hitman business, that doesn’t mean I’m going to just give up all my toys.
He grins again, slamming the heel of his hand on the top of the crate to seal it back down. “Well, I’m happy to take it off your hands.”
“That ought to cover our debts, yeah?”
Felix’s laugh rings out. “Yeah. This oughtta do it.”
Dimitri hated this idea, but he didn’t want the guns either. None of us wanted the hassle of trying to fence them, or the potential legal nightmare of trying to turn them in. Obviously he’s worried about Felix using them against us, but not me. This is the dawn of a new era.
Plus… if he does, thanks to Madison, we have everything we need to nail his ass to the wall. But I don’t think he will. Not while we’ve got his family on our team.
Thank God for Mads.
Felix drops down from the truck bed and tugs the door back into place. I offer him the key, pulling back when he swipes for it. “Don’t even think about veering from the plan. I’ll be watching.”
He takes my key, then my hand, slamming it into a shake with his own. “Oh, I know. You always are.”
Not for much longer. “No hard feelings between us, yeah?”
Felix lifts a brow and flashes that grating smile—the one that’s at once knowing, judging, superior and private.
The one that makes you feel like he’s 10 steps ahead of you and he knows something you don’t and thinks it’s hilarious.
“Nah. Holding grudges is bad for business—I cater to other people’s, no time to hold my own.
Besides, seems to me you three make better allies than enemies. ”
He tosses the key to the sedan at me, and I climb into the old, beat-up car. As Felix drives off, I reopen the comms channel. “Operation ‘we can trust this guy, right?’ is a go,” I say, grinning when I hear someone—not even sure who, with so many possible voices in my ears now—snort.
It’s Mads. Good ol’ Mads. The girl who can always be relied on to get the joke. “A bit wordy for an operation codename, don’t you think?”
“Too late to change it now,” I sing. I squeeze the steering wheel in my grip, itching to tap my other earbud and open the line back up with Eleanor. My leg jiggles nervously.
She’s got this. She wanted to help. She’s not in any real danger. She told you to stop checking in because it was making her more nervous.
Still, I can’t help myself.
“How you doin’ with your part, darlin’?”
“I’m ready.”
Eleanor
I swear I’m going to pee myself. Or hurl. Hopefully not at the same time.
My heart is racing so hard that I know my face is probably beet red. I keep checking in the reflective surfaces of the trays I stack and windows I pass. And while there’s a definite pink flush, it’s really no more than you’d expect after running around.
Stay calm, Eleanor.
I like to think I’ve come a long way since I walked in on a sniper in my apartment.
I’m so far from that sad, scared, self-critical girl who was afraid to go after things she wanted.
I’ve learned so much since meeting Mac—about myself and the world—and one of the most transformative realizations was that I can do hard things.
Taking on a challenge that scares me is an opportunity to prove to myself that I’m strong and resourceful…
But that doesn’t mean it’s not still scary in the moment. And it definitely doesn’t mean I’m any better with this secret agent/spy shit.
With trembling fingers, I adjust the neckline of the black chef’s coat, feeling like I’m wearing a nostalgic kind of costume. Only, my chef’s coats never had a camera wired through, peeking out and pretending to be a button.
“Can you still see?” I mutter, trying to look like I’m talking to myself and not the group of people listening in and watching my every move.
“Yeah, Eleanor, we can still see,” Madison replies with exaggerated patience.
To calm myself, I repeat the plan. Dump the carefully measured vial of sedative into a champagne flute. Put it on the tray with the other cocktails. With her help, find Madison’s boss in the crowd. Offer him the cocktail with the sedative. Get the fuck out.
It’s one of the rare times I’ve been alone in the room where the catering stuff is set up, so I grab the sedative vial from my pocket, snap off the top and dump it all into one of the elegant thin glasses.
The drink fizzes at the addition, but doesn’t bubble over.
When it dies down, the flute is a fraction fuller than the others, but with no noticeable change to the appearance.
It’s the same pale yellow as the others from the lemon juice.
Just as I’m stashing the empty vial in my pocket, Sarah comes barreling through the double doors, slamming down her tray and rubbing her eyes.
It didn’t take long to figure out who was in charge of catering at this event—it’s a surprisingly small, collaborative circle of mostly women—and Sarah from Great Eatz was thrilled for an extra set of hands when two of her staff called in sick.
That was sheer luck; I was just banking on the fact that it always feels like there are never enough hands.
“I swear to God, they never listen when they’re ordering—I always tell them to double however many crab puffs they think they want, and even then it won’t be enough. Eleanor, can you check on the crab puffs we have left for me? I’ve got to go talk to someone with allergies.”
I have to bite back the amenable response that instantly springs to my lips. Chef Eleanor has no problem checking on the crab puffs, but I’m not Chef Eleanor tonight. I’m Undercover Eleanor. “I was just about to take out this tray of cocktails.”
“You don’t need to be on cocktail duty—you should be plating. Give it to Tilly,” Sarah suggests, catching the girl by the arm as she tries to scoot by.
Fuck. One minor hiccup and I’m sitting here like a dead fish, mouth agape, trying to come up with some reason to object that makes sense other than well, I would, but one of these champagne flutes is full of the perfect dose of etorphine and I have to make sure it gets to the right corporate asshole with network access to a murder-for-hire software program that we’re going to dismantle before it goes live.
I’m not quite sure how the truth came to be so unbelievable.
“I, uh…”
Sarah reaches out to grab the edge of the tray.
“I need to do it. I, uh… I need to talk to one of the guests.”
Her frown deepens. “What? You can’t use this event as an excuse to talk to someone. That’s so unprofessional.”
Fuck. She’s right.
“Tell her you’re pregnant,” Madison suggests. “People back down for personal stuff like that.”
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out, latching on to the offered excuse when I can’t seem to think of one myself.
Sarah goes still, and Tilly stops mid-step towards the double doors.
“I won’t cause a scene,” I rush to add, nearly wincing when I realize I’ve created a whole new problem for myself. I just needed an excuse; instead, I opened a can of worms. “I… I just need to talk to him.”
“That’s… uh…” Sarah glances around, makes a face of warning at Tilly, and takes my arm, pulling me aside. “Is everything okay? I don’t want to pry, but I thought…” her eyes flick down to the giant diamond on my finger.
I’m going to kill Madison.
My cheeks feel so hot that I know I’m blushing at least four shades of red to pink right now. At least embarrassment fits the story. “I just need to talk to him. Really quickly.”
“Yeah, okay. You’ll be discreet?”
I nod and duck my head. Picking the tray back up, I head back into the party. “The reason did not have to be that dramatic,” I grumble under my breath, knowing the incredible little devices will still pick up the sound.
Madison chuckles in my ear. “Yeah, but it’s way more fun for me that it was.”