CHAPTER 7
JAGGER
The docks always smelled the same—salt, diesel, and secrets nobody wanted traced back to them. I stood near the edge of the concrete with my hands in my pockets, suit jacket open, and my tie long gone. The wind off the water tugged at my shirt like it thought it had a say in my life.
A container ship eased into place, slow and heavy, metal groaning against metal. From the outside, it looked harmless and industrial. Boring.
But inside?
It was stacked with enough product to shift markets and enough cash to make senators forget their morals and CEOs forget their wives.
Definitely not harmless or boring.
The cranes hovered overhead, skeletal and patient, waiting for permission to descend. I liked this part. The quiet before the movement. The moment where everything could still go wrong.
People always assumed money looked like champagne and rooftop views. It didn’t. Sometimes it looked like standing on wet concrete at four in the morning, making sure nobody decided to shave a few million off the top because they thought you wouldn’t notice.
They always realized their mistake the moment I did.
My phone buzzed, and I glanced at it, unable to help the grin that tugged at my mouth because, of course, it was Jace.
My little brother was the star wide receiver at the University of Tennessee, a campus legend, and a future NFL problem child if he didn’t learn when to shut up.
He had no idea what I actually did for a living, and he liked it that way because it allowed him to invent wildly inaccurate theories and give me hell about them every chance he got.
Only one of us got recognized in public, and I considered that a win.
Jace: So are you getting laid or just aggressively ignoring me?
I exhaled through my nose and glanced at the ship.
Me: Good morning to you, too. Also, why are you texting me at 4 a.m.?
Jace: That wasn’t an answer. You can’t answer a question with another question. It’s against the rules. Silence usually means yes you are ignoring me, or that you passed out mid-thrust again.
A crane screeched overhead, and I stepped aside without looking.
Me: That happened once, and I regret telling you.
Jace: Once that you admitted to. There’s a difference.
Also, it’s not 4 a.m. for me, genius. It’s almost seven here.
I’ve already been up for two hours because Coach thinks sleep is a privilege.
We ran drills until my legs forgot how to function.
So again. Are you horizontal or brooding on a balcony somewhere pretending you’re in a cologne commercial?
A smirk tugged at my mouth.
Me: I don’t brood. And I know it’s seven there, asshole . . . but it’s only 4 a.m. here. I could’ve been asleep. Deep asleep. Preserving my youth. And now look at me—robbed of my beauty sleep because you can’t regulate your emotions before sunrise.
Jace: First of all, you absolutely do brood, and Riley agrees with me. It’s your whole personality. That and “mysterious European crime lord but make it business casual.” And second of all, you don’t sleep. You hover ominously in dark rooms and wait for opportunities to do wildly illegal things.
Me: Why again do you always assume I do things that are illegal? That’s actually a ridiculous assumption.
Jace: Remember when you asked me to say I was storing my blow-up doll at your place? That’s why I’m assuming you do illegal things, Jagger. The question is…what?
I smirked. That had been a close call. Our parents had shown up unannounced, armed with banana bread and hugs .
. . right around the time there had, in fact, been a dead body in my living room.
I hadn’t technically been responsible for it, but it had still been there.
As far as I knew, our parents no longer suspected I was hiding a corpse.
But I also couldn’t be sure.
Jace: Are you:
Jace: A) stealing cars
Jace: B) stealing people
Jace: C) doing something involving sharks
Jade: D) all of the above
I rolled my eyes, watching another crane begin its slow descent toward the containers.
Me: You forgot E) conducting legitimate business operations like a responsible adult. Also, why sharks?
I glanced up, and one of my guys gave me a nod. Everything was on schedule.
Jace: I feel like sharks would be something the mafia would be involved in.
I groaned.
Me: How many times do I have to tell you not to say that?
Jace: Say what?
Me: You know what. You’re not going to trick me into saying it this time.
Jace: I honestly don’t have any clue what you’re talking about.
Me: Don’t say mafia, you asshole.
Jace: If someone owns a million suits that each cost as much as my car and they never can explain where their money comes from . . . I’m going to say mafia.
Jace: Also you once said “I’ll handle it” and there was a headline about a dead guy the next day.
Me: Coincidence.
Jace: Sure. Just like the time I asked what you do, and you said “consulting” and changed the subject.
Me: I do consult people . . .on their life choices.
Jace: Do they live afterward?
I actually laughed at that one, and one of my guys shot me a confused look. Whoops.
Me: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Jace: See. That’s another non answer.
A forklift rumbled past, and I waited until it cleared before typing again.
Me: What do you actually want me to say?
Jace: The truth, obviously. Also Mom asked if you’re seeing anyone.
I paused, and for some reason I immediately thought of Eden . . . even though we weren’t exactly seeing each other.
Me: No.
Jace: That was the slowest no I’ve ever read. You met someone didn’t you? Someone who doesn’t make you want to answer calls during sex.
Me: You should actually feel flattered that I answered your call. It means I care.
Jace: It meant you were bored, actually, but we can go with you caring if it means something to you.
Me: Go catch a football.
Jace: Wow. Defensive. So is she hot?
Me: Goodbye, Jace.
Jace: Love you too, sketchy crime prince.
My phone buzzed again, but I didn’t have time to check his text. If Jace had decided he wanted to keep talking about sharks, he could wait.
One of my men peeled away from the edge of the dock and headed straight for me, his face arranged into the careful blankness men wear when they’re about to deliver news they very much hope won’t be blamed on them.
I hoped I didn’t have to blame it on him, either. I actually liked the guy.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said under his breath.
I slid my phone into my pocket and exhaled slowly, trying not to show how irritated I was. “Naturally.”
Maddox stepped in at my side, his suit still crisp despite the damp air rolling in off the water. He didn’t ask what the problem was. He could feel the shift in the air just as easily as I could. He matched my stride as we walked toward the container that had finished unloading a few minutes ago.
The docks were loud with the illusion of normalcy. Cranes groaned. Water slapped against pylons. Men shouted measurements and jokes like nothing in the world was wrong.
But the container doors were unlocked . . . That was the first issue. The second revealed itself the moment I looked inside.
I stopped short, staring into the hollow steel shell, the overhead lights throwing harsh reflections along bare metal walls that should have been stacked floor to ceiling. I dragged a hand down my face. “I really don’t have time for this.”
Maddox pulled out his tablet and swiped through the manifest, cross-checking container numbers and time stamps before he groaned. “Well,” he said evenly, tilting the screen toward me. “That’s a problem.”
I glanced down at the manifest, scanning the container ID, the route verification, the customs clearance stamps, all of it lining up exactly as it should.
But the listed contents . . . Weapons . .
. and not recreational ones. Oh good, this particular container had been storing our military-grade inventory . . .
“Yes,” I said stiffly. “It is.”
I glanced back toward the water, then to the men waiting for direction. “Lock the docks down,” I said evenly. “No one leaves until I know exactly how this happened.”
Maddox cracked his neck once, already reaching for his phone. “Want me to start digging?”
I looked back at the container, nodding in annoyance. “Yes,” I said. “Start with cameras. Then manifests. Then everyone who thought today was a good time to test my patience.”
Lawson arrived the way he always did when something had gone catastrophically wrong—unbothered, caffeinated, and faintly entertained by the chaos he’d been summoned into.
He had a laptop tucked under one arm and a cold brew in the other, like this was a tech start-up and not a weapons shipment that had just evaporated.
Objectively, I believed that Lawson had the easiest job in the organization. And unobjectively . . . I was not wrong about that.
Lawson didn’t stand on docks at four in the morning.
He didn’t negotiate face-to-face with men who treated eye contact like a declaration of war.
He also didn’t clean up blood. Lawson sat in climate-controlled rooms with excellent Wi-Fi and better espresso, moving numbers around until reality bent itself in his favor.
Easy.
I would never say that to him, obviously. The last time someone had implied his job was “just computer stuff,” Lawson had smiled nicely . . . and then ruined the man’s life.
It had started with something almost forgettable, a delayed wire transfer that held up payroll just long enough to cause discomfort.
But then there had been a flagged transaction that triggered internal compliance questions, and after that, purely by coincidence, of course, an inconvenient audit initiated by a quiet, anonymous tip to the IRS.
Within forty-eight hours, the man’s accounts were frozen “pending review.” Within seventy-two, photos from a private vacation he absolutely had not taken alone began circulating on three separate anonymous message boards, each one curated with time stamps, geotags, and just enough context to be devastating.