Chapter Three
Gavino
My spare room was set up as a study.
Or, perhaps more accurately, a library.
Bookcases lined every wall, floor to ceiling.
I’d gotten sick of having to build a new one each time I ran out of space, so I knuckled down and filled the whole room.
I was able to stack my books a little more stylistically for the time being, but had plenty of space to add new ones when the time came.
The library was usually just a space for relaxing, for sitting on the brown and green tartan wingback chair to read a book, listen to a record, or do a crossword. It was rare that I used the space for its other purpose—work.
For the most part, my line of work didn’t require a hell of a lot of paperwork. That was a surefire way to make sure the law figured us out. It was almost as bad as leaving digital footprints.
But this work was pretty banal. A file folder full of profiles of possible truck drivers.
Zeno was still running names, but he’d handed Leo a basic write-up about all of the potential choices.
Then Leo had popped by to critique the fact that I’d missed family dinner again while he handed me the file.
I was going to need to hit one of those up in the near future. Whether I wanted to or not. Show my face, make my rounds, eat some good food.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my family; I did.
But family dinners were crowded affairs.
Cloying perfume, spicy cologne, and food smells all tangled together.
Conversation, laughter, and kids squealing mingled to create a cacophony that made it hard to think straight.
Someone was always squeezing by, clamping you on the shoulder, tugging on your pant leg, or coming in for a hug.
Conversations didn’t seem to have a beginning or end, just meandered around from one subject to the next, leaving me hopelessly lost and without a map.
It was complete and utter sensory overload.
I usually felt like I needed to crash for a week afterward, like some well inside me had gone dry.
It’d always been that way for me, though. My more outgoing siblings seemed to get a charge from being around each other or other people, while it felt like it drained my battery.
When I was younger, I got slapped with the title of shy. As I became a teenager, it was ‘antisocial.’ Now, I’d seemed to settle into the role of a recluse. Or a shut-in. A grump. An asshole.
The only person with whom I felt bit of a kinship with when it came to my loner ways was Zeno.
But I guess he got away with it more than I did because when someone did drag him away from his computers and out of his apartment, he could easily fall into the role of the life of the party for a few hours before he went back to his computers.
I, on the other hand, hadn’t inherited that charm. So I generally endured the overwhelm while trying to have a few words with everyone so no one worried about me. Then, as soon as the meal was done and everyone was distracted, I just… slid out the door.
Mentally, I penciled in a family dinner, then got back to the files. I immediately set aside the ones for anyone under thirty. Maybe it was ageist of me, but I found younger associates to be a lot more reckless and demanding.
Give me a middle-aged guy who’d been driving rigs for fifteen or twenty years, who knew their tractors better than their homes, who was looking down the barrel of their kids going off to college and wasn’t sure how the fuck they were going to swing paying for it.
Give me a man with a mortgage, some credit card or medical debt, and the bone-deep desire to get out from under the relentless pressure of bills.
That was someone who would be careful, because they had so much to lose. And it was someone who would be loyal to the person ensuring that they got the relief they were looking for.
Meaning me. And Leo. But this was my scheme. I’d planned it, pounded out the details, found contacts along the way. I’d brought Leo in to handle the front-facing aspects of it. For a cut of the profits.
He’d been glad not to have to figure out his next job, just handle the soldiers and associates so I didn’t have to. For a nearly equal amount of money I was making.
It was a good deal for him.
And I got to not talk to anyone but him.
So far, it had been incredibly profitable. No one had ever gotten caught. We’d had one guy retire. We had one die from natural causes. But we’d never had someone leave without permission or try to fuck us over. And we certainly never had anyone just… disappear.
I probably should have been looking into the situation myself.
Checking the police reports. Seeing if they actually investigated shit.
Did they search the woods on the side of the road?
I mean, it wasn’t a rare occasion for a trucker to have to pull over to take a piss.
Maybe he’d wandered into the trees, had a heart attack or stroke, and croaked.
Trucking life was, by nature, sedentary.
And a lot of the guys ate shitty fast food because it was quick, cheap, and easy.
It wouldn’t be odd if we lost more truckers to heart disease.
Had he just… had it?
Walked away from his rig with a bottle of pills, a knife, or a rope?
Those seemed like the most likely explanations for the dude disappearing. And if he didn’t have any of my product in the truck before it happened, it wasn’t my business. Aside from the inconvenience of replacing him.
So far, Leo didn’t have any answers from his soldiers either.
Maybe we never would.
And in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t personally invested in this guy. What did I care what happened to him?
What mattered was replacing him as soon as possible before we felt the financial strain of being down one driver.
I reached for my phone, calling up Zeno to tell him to prioritize the five truckers I liked best. Then I called Leo to tell him my picks before shredding all the files that were absolute “no” for me.
The rest of the files were put in a drawer in my desk in case Zeno’s background search meant I needed to go back to the profiles.
With that, I wandered through the house, ordering food, tidying up, then sitting at the dining table with my book, waiting for the food to arrive.
“The fuck?” I grumbled, checking my phone for the fourth time.
It was nearly half an hour after the delivery window. For an order from a restaurant just a few blocks away. And it was late as fuck, so it wasn’t like I got lost in the dinner rush.
I was about to call the damn restaurant—my idea of a fucking nightmare—when I heard the buzzer.
I hit the button for the door then grabbed a drink, plate, and cutlery to bring to the table.
There I sat, waiting for the delivery confirmation.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Fifteen.
What the hell was going on?
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
I sighed, shaking my head.
I’d been clear about this being a no-contact delivery. I’d tipped with the order. There was no reason someone was knocking on my damn door.
I waited, watching the door, trying to decide if I heard the steps retreat or not.
But just as I was sure I would be able to retrieve my (likely cold) food the way I wanted, the knocking started up again.
With a grumble, I made my way toward the door, pausing to look out the peephole.
The delivery person was turned, looking over his shoulder, his head covered in a blue ball cap.
Normally, the hairs on the back of my neck would raise. You didn’t open the door to unknown people when you were in my line of work. But I saw the brown bag sitting inside a plastic bag in their hand.
My food.
And my stomach was fucking churning.
Maybe this was some new delivery guy who had no idea how to work his app and didn’t see that it was no-contact and that there was a tip.
I slid the locks and pulled open the door.
My focus had been on the delivery person’s face as it whipped forward.
That was how I missed it.
Until the gun was pointed at my face.
And the voice that came out of the person holding it was undeniably feminine.
“Get inside,” she demanded.
Gun aside, I almost wanted to laugh at her sweet, honeyed voice. Because what criminal sounded like that?
Her delicate finger slid to the trigger.
And with the way she was shaking like a goddamn leaf, it was very possible that she could accidentally squeeze it without meaning to.
I took a step back.
She moved forward.
“The chair. Sit down on the chair.”
Hm.
Yeah.
Well, she was definitely no pro.
The shaking aside, no actual criminal would want me to move closer to the table where I had a steak knife sitting near my plate.
I moved backward through my apartment as she moved inside, kicking the door closed behind her.
My apartment quickly filled with the scent of steak, mashed potatoes, and broccoli.
She actually had my food delivery. It wasn’t some kind of decoy bag.
So, what? She was waiting outside, saw the delivery guy, and took it? Was that why it took so long? Because she was trying to talk herself into coming up here and holding me up.
“There’s a couple grand in the kitchen cabinet,” I told her. That was playing it down. There was a solid ten grand up there, dropped off by an associate the day before that I hadn’t gotten around to splitting up to add to my stash and the kick-up I owed.
“Sit down,” she demanded, voice starting to tremble as hard as her body.
Huh.
So she didn’t want money.
I had a gun in a holster taped under my dining table if I needed it. But I didn’t try to reach for it. I went ahead and dropped my ass into the seat instead.
The woman dropped the food on the table then reached to pull one of the straps off her shoulders. Then fumbled with the gun to pass it to her other hand so she could remove the other strap.
Then I watched the backpack hit the table near my dinner.
She fumbled to undo the zipper and hold the gun, making a little grumble of frustration escape her.
Until, finally, she reached into the backpack and came back with a set of handcuffs.
She stepped closer, her movements jerky.
I could overtake her at any second, but I found myself sitting there as she moved behind me, slapping one cuff around my wrist and attaching it to the chair.
I had to press my lips together to keep from smiling as the bracelet nearly fell off of my hand, making me need to spread my thumb out to make sure it didn’t slip right off.
The second cuff wasn’t as loose, but with a little effort, I could squeeze my hand out.
But she was oblivious to this as she moved around me, exhaled hard, and whipped off her hat.
A tumble of blonde hair fell down around her oval face, with her pink lips, her high cheekbones, and her dark green eyes.
Gorgeous.
She was gorgeous.
Oblivious to my thoughts, she set the gun on the table, swallowed hard, and pinned me with those stormy eyes.
Huh.
Well.
Spreading my fingers wider so the cuffs stayed in place, I leaned back in my chair, curious to see where this was going.
This was the most interesting thing to happen to me in years.