Chapter 22
twenty-two
COLE
The lot hummed with tension as we watched three SUVs pull in and park in a neat little row.
Their headlights were blinding, but I refused to put my hand up to block the glare.
Gage, Maddox, John, and Burke stepped in line behind me, quiet and waiting.
The SUVs sat idling, black and heavy as the night surrounding us, as their drivers waited for the word to move.
I kept my stance loose, but I was ready, my weight balanced, and my Glock resting against my hip. My eyes didn’t stop moving, scanning the shadows and the roofline of the warehouse.
The sound hit me before the lights broke through the darkness of the side road. A single bike engine was tearing straight for us. My jaw clenched, and I tasted blood as I ground my teeth together.
Finn.
I should have known he would pull something like this on the one night I needed to keep a clear head.
He slid into the lot like he owned the place, turning so sharply his tires spat gravel.
His jacket was half zipped, and his hair was windswept.
He killed the engine and hopped off his bike with a swagger he had no right to.
“Made it,” he announced with a shit-eating grin.
I was on him before he could take another step.
“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” I ground out through clenched teeth. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
He blinked, confusion sweeping across his face.
“You were not invited. I didn’t give you any orders to be here,” I snapped. “You don’t walk into a handoff of this size without my say-so. You hear me?”
“The kid’s going to get us all killed,” Gage muttered under his breath.
Maddox stood as still as stone, arms crossed in front of him. He had a glint of anger in his eyes that didn’t find its way there often.
“You told me I could come!” Finn said.
“Like hell I did,” I growled at him.
Finn looked so confused. “You left me a note at The Clutch. I got it after you’d left… you said to hang back, watch for tails… I did what you wanted.”
I stared at him a long moment. I’d left him a note? Nope, didn’t happen. Something else was going on. Someone wanted Finn here to throw me off, and it was fucking working.
Finn straightened his shoulders. “Anyway, I can handle it. I can show you—”
“You can handle shit when I say you can,” I shot back at him, injecting coldness into my voice. “Not a moment before then. You’re lucky that I don’t put your ass back on your bike and ship you back home.” It was too late to send him away, but I needed him to get that this wasn’t a fun outing.
“So I get to stay?” Finn asked with a flicker of hope.
“Only because if I send you back now, they’re going to find it suspicious,” I said, subtly nodding toward the three SUVs. “You keep your mouth shut tonight. Not a single damn word. You stand behind Gage and Maddox, and you don’t breathe unless I tell you to. You got that?”
Finn worked his jaw before nodding once.
“Say it,” I said with a sharp glare.
“I’m not a kid,” Finn muttered. “This is humiliating.”
“You are a kid!” I spat back at him. “Now fucking say it like you mean it.”
“Yes,” he said, loud and defiant.
“Good,” I barked at him. “Now park your ass over there and don’t move.”
Finn stalked off to the back of the group. I nodded at Gage and Maddox, who stepped together to block Finn off from the SUVs. I could hear Finn mumbling under his breath, which I chose not to listen to. At least he’d gone where I’d told him.
The lights in one of the SUVs’ cabins blinked to life as one of the doors opened.
The designated man in charge, Axel, stepped out of the back, followed by three men who all looked as though they’d been born with a knife in their hands.
Axel was sporting a suit that was cut too sharp for this part of town.
His smile was acidic, thin and practiced.
He wasn’t the money, but he was the front man, and needed to be treated carefully.
“Cole,” he said smoothly, letting his voice carry through the empty space. “It is always a pleasure.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” I said.
He took two steps closer, his wing tip leather shoes crunching over the gravel.
“Everything is set. We’re ready to move. I just have to give the go-ahead.”
“Where is the cargo?” I asked, my eyes flicking to the SUVs. There was no way the amount of product we were moving tonight would be able to fit in just three.
“On its way,” he said way too easily. “The truck is running late.”
My gut twisted. I didn’t like it. Every instinct I had was telling me not to trust this man, and especially not to trust this delay.
“Late?” I questioned.
“Traffic,” he said with a shrug, the smile never leaving his mouth. “You know how it is.”
“Traffic at this hour?” I said with a raised eyebrow. “This isn’t a pizza delivery.”
That earned a low chuckle from him. “You wound me, Cole. Relax. It will be here just as we agreed.”
Behind me, Gage shifted and Maddox muttered under his breath, “Doesn’t smell right.”
I lifted a hand, stopping them. Axel watched me with beady eyes, looking for a crack. I would give him nothing.
“Fine,” I said. “Then we wait.”
The minutes stretched long before us, tension flooding my veins.
Axel’s smile never shifted, not even when I didn’t return it. The man was a creep.
“This is the biggest order you have ever placed with us, Mr. Bailey. Business must be good for you. We like to see you as a returning customer. It means we’re getting comfortable with each other.”
“Comfort is for the bedroom, not matters of business,” I said.
Gage snorted behind me, and I could hear Finn shifting uncomfortably behind them. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Damn it, I wished Finn had just stayed at the bar where he belonged.
Axel tilted his head, studying me, the smile finally leaving his face.
“Very well, Cole. That's fair enough. Still, you and your… crew are climbing. There aren’t many men who’d have the balls to take this much product all in one swoop. I hope you have a place for it all to go.”
“The only thing I care about is the steel showing up where it's supposed to when it’s supposed to,” I responded, not willing to go into a dick-measuring contest with him.
“The steel will be here. Don’t you worry,” he said.
“Then you and I won’t have a problem,” I said. “But nothing is more irritating than being told to relax. It’s like telling someone to stop bleeding after being shot. Doesn’t work like that.”
He plastered on his fake smile again. “Always so direct.”
I didn’t respond, using my silence as a weapon.
Gage leaned forward. “Heard a different crew got burned last month. Wrong hands and a wrong shipment. That ain’t gonna happen here, now is it?”
The man’s eyes flicked back to Gage as though he’d just noticed him standing directly behind me.
“Not unless you boys fuck things up.”
Maddox grunted. “Big words coming from a man with a late truck.”
“Enough,” I said, shooting Gage and Maddox a look before turning back to the man in front of me. “My people are clean. If anything goes wrong, it’s not on this end.”
“Of course, of course. We wouldn’t keep meeting with you if we didn’t believe in you, Cole.”
“Believe in me all you want,” I said. “I don’t trust anything until I have those guns in my hands.”
I heard Finn shifting from boot to boot again. The damn kid couldn’t keep still to save his life. I shot a look back at him. His hands were jammed in his pockets, and his jaw was working the way it did when he was trying to hold back a smart-ass remark.
My teeth clenched. One wrong word out of him and this whole deal could blow up in our faces.
I turned back to the man and realized he had noticed where my attention had gone. His eyes flicked past me and studied Finn.
“New face? You’re starting them on the bike young, aren’t you, Cole?”
“Not your concern,” I said.
Axel smirked at me, and it took everything I had not to punch it off his face.
“You keep a tight leash,” he continued.
“Tight leashes keep your dogs alive,” I said.
“Well, tight leash or not, we both want the same thing. A clean handoff and money in our pockets,” he responded.
“And yet,” I said, gesturing to the empty parking lot, “we’re still waiting, and there's still no truck.”
I let the silence hang in the air; the longer it stretched, the more he shifted. He tried not to show it, but the crease between his eyebrows became tighter and tighter as the seconds ticked by.
Then the low growl of a diesel engine broke the silence. The headlights parted the darkness and swept across the lot. The air brakes hissed like an exhausted exhale as the truck stopped in front of us.
Relief lessened the pressure building in my chest, but I didn’t let it show.
“And there is your proof,” he said, gesturing to the truck like it was a gift.