Chapter 18
Noah
Brent’s calls don’t let up. Even as I pull up to the abandoned warehouse where we typically meet.
I glance at the phone, and his contact name flashes on the screen along with a photo of us taken at a game of pickup basketball.
He’s grinning wide, while I make a cross-eyed expression I’m not so sure I could replicate again.
When his truck comes into view, and I pull up behind him, the call stops. I sigh. This is the last place I want to be, and it’s the furthest thing from my mind right now.
Her hug. Lily’s hug.
I was not expecting that, especially after the past few weeks.
It hasn’t been tense, but more … average.
Like the momentum we had before the heated conversation and almost crash halted.
She’s worked three days a week for the past three weeks and I’ve picked her up and taken her home after each one of them.
The conversations revolved around Max, my mom, Mitch attempting to cut even more of her hours.
When I drop her off at work, I usually hang around town, take Max for a run, or handle some paperwork from my truck.
I order food from the diner too, and even though I’m down the street in my truck, I have the order delivered.
I don’t want her to know I’m hanging around waiting for her shift to end.
Most of my vacation time has been used up already, and I’m worried once I take these four days off for Thanksgiving, I’ll have little time left for Christmas. It might be my mother’s last, so I need that time.
It’s been worth it, though.
Tommy has mentioned her part should be here any day now and installation will take half a day, so her car will be ready soon and she’ll go back to driving herself to work, much to my dismay.
Were it not for this summoning by Brent, I’d be halfway to grab Max by now, and even closer to spending the next four days with Lily.
Getting to know her has been like pulling teeth, but I’ve picked up on a few things here and there.
She chews her fingernails when she’s nervous.
Her ability to answer Jeopardy! questions is unparalleled, and I’m pretty sure she’s paying my mother to eat and take her medicine.
There definitely isn’t enough in her paycheck to cover bribing my mother, so whenever I get the chance, I plant some cash—fives, tens, twenties—in the passenger seat.
When she hops out to head to work, I pretend they’ve fallen out of her pocket.
She’s so disorganized, she doesn’t keep a wallet, so having random cash float out of her pockets doesn’t raise her suspicion.
I chuckle, biting my lip.
The muffled sound of a door slamming brings me back to the present, and Brent shuffles along the side of this truck toward mine.
He looks around, his attention flicking from me to the passenger side of his vehicle.
He has that jittery look, his eyes glassy, as they dart from the window and back from where he came.
He’s wearing his signature cap, pulled low, but I don’t miss the way his jaw works back and forth or the ever-present beads of sweat collecting on his upper lip despite the fall air.
His dark wash jeans are covered in white splotches, like he’s spilled bleach, and his fingers fidget with his jacket zipper as if he can’t decide whether to draw it up or rip it off all together.
My hand hovers over the center console where my weapon lies loaded, waiting, and the envelope of cash I stopped at the bank for on the way here sits. Calmly, I roll down my window, wishing Max was here. He’s like my amiss detector. Able to sniff out uneasy situations a mile away.
“I’ve been calling,” Brent snaps when he reaches me. He rubs his hands together like they’ve been dipped in snow, but it’s not that cold out.
“I’ve been busy.”
He shifts from foot to foot. “Yeah, chasing a chick. Or should I say chauffeuring one around.”
I growl and his gaze snags on my curled lip. He smirks and offers me a light punch to my biceps. “Relax, man. Everyone’s seen you dropping her off and picking her up for work. Morgan, Paul, me, and …” He trails off, his body shifting toward his truck again.
It’s then I notice movement in the passenger side of the truck. The glass is tinted, so dark it almost blends in with the black trim, but there was movement—a flash of something behind it.
I squint, leaning slightly to the side to catch it again. My pulse ticks faster, and the unsettling feeling in my chest feels like Max’s nose nudging me over and over again.
“What’s going on?” I ask Brent.
He swallows and reaches up to adjust his hat. “I told you my boss was coming to town.”
I focus on the truck, my heart rate spiking. “Yeah?”
“He and a few of his men have come. They’ve brought a load of Jackpot, and he’s got some other agenda here, too. He wants—”
There’s a roar in my ears. I can’t hear this. This goes against everything that I’ve taken an oath to uphold. I shake my head. “No. No. This has gone on long enough, Brent. You need help. I can’t be a part of this anymore.”
“Oh, you’re part of this.” Brent’s sly smirk is chilling, and he nods toward his truck.
I cringe. How different would this be, would our friendship be, if I’d been the one to take the fall? If I hadn’t kept to the shadows when we were caught and let Brent shoulder the weight we both deserved. What kind of man would I be now, if I’d spent those years locked up instead?
The notion we could’ve gone back to the friendship we had is broken.
While I finished college and entered the life of law enforcement, he was released from prison with a bitterness even he couldn’t ignore.
It adds another layer to the already circling guilt I have that he ran off to Alabama and got involved with the wrong people, with this man.
The drugs leveraged the storm that’s always raged in him, to the point where now he looks to me like I owe him penance for a decision he made, and I pay him off in quiet compliance.
But I never held a gun to his head all those years ago. I didn’t steal his voice. I was just the coward who let him answer for the crime we both committed—and that might be worse.
The passenger door opens and a striking figure steps out.
He’s tall, and his blue-black hair is spiked up, gleaming under the sunlight, making him appear even taller.
The man reminds me of a chiseled statue.
High cheekbones and porcelain-pale skin, like it hasn’t seen the sun in years, stretches around his smile while straight teeth shine through the piercing on his lip.
There’s also a ring through his brow, a stud catching the light in the corner of his nose, and several hoops lining his ears.
“Noah Sullivan, a pleasure to meet you,” he says, rounding the front of my truck to stand next to Brent.
I eye my gun, then move to exit the truck. I’m not about to cower in front of this man like Brent is. It looks like he crawled up his boss’s ass. His exaggerated smile is more servile than genuine, like he’s silently willing his approval.
Is this the addiction? He’s so consumed with Jackpot that he’s sold himself to this otherworldly man?
And … a pleasure to meet me? Why does he sound like he’s from the eighteenth century?
He shuffles back as I slide out and shut the door. His oversized suit seems like an afterthought, like it may not be what he’s truly comfortable in.
“Is it?” I ask, in response to his greeting.
“Is what?”
“Is it a pleasure to meet me?”
He raises his chin, then tilts his head, considering. “You honestly have no idea how much, but that’s beside the point. Brent here has told me a bit about your past and what he’s done for you.”
Brent winces at his side.
“I have a proposition for you,” he says.
The unbuttoned collar of his shirt blows open—he’s not wearing a tie. The informality of it all entertains an edgy confidence that makes the hair on my nape stand up. Though, as he adjusts his collar, a tattoo peeks through—what looks like a flower of some sort?
“I see you work for the National Park Service.” He gestures with a single hand toward my truck.
“Observant,” I deadpan.
He titters. “I could use someone in your position. I’ve recently been handed a larger operation.
What used to be a humble network in Alabama has since grown, extending into northern Mississippi.
My rival, Darrin Reynolds, is now in prison, taken down from the inside by one of his own.
The cartel has handed me what’s left with the expectation to enhance the network, if you will.
“Your knowledge of this remote area. The terrain and trails in Yosemite are ideal for hiding such operations, especially with the cartel’s network extending into California.
You have access to restricted zones off-limits to the public, making it easier to smuggle on routes without raising suspicion.
I need someone who can avoid detection, help my men operate and transport through the area. ”
I scoff, nearly laughing. I’d never. Could never. “This must be your idea of a joke, Brent. You know I’d never get involved in illegal activity.”
Brent averts his gaze down to his side-stepping feet.
The man next to him smiles. “From what I hear you already are. What would your co-workers, or better yet, your supervisor say if they knew you were helping an addict acquire fentanyl?”
The sinking pit in my stomach from the moment he walked out of the car comes plowing into me as a gut punch.
I shake my head, words evading me.
“I’ll let you think on it. Right now, I’m about to meet your sheriff at the diner in town. I hear it’s delicious.” He licks his lips and winks at me in a sickening way.
It’s not the words that are threatening, it’s the tone.
“We’ll be in touch.” He slaps me on the shoulder once, the corner of his mouth curling downward.