14. Nick
NICK
Time: Sunday morning
I leave Marla's cottage with my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ache.
The drive back to the city should clear my head, but it doesn't. All I can think about is how spectacularly everything spiraled out of control last night.
I came to her cottage to confront a potential threat to the merger, and instead I ended up in her bed with Russ and Alex like some kind of fucking shared arrangement.
What the hell was I thinking?
I wasn't thinking.
That's the problem.
The moment she looked at me with those blue eyes, all wide and nervous and defiant at the same time, rational thought went out the window.
And now I'm driving away from her cottage feeling like I've crossed a line I can't uncross.
My hands grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white.
I've spent fifteen years building my organization through discipline and control, and last night I threw both of those things away for a woman I barely know.
Worse, I did it alongside Russ and Alex like we'd planned it, like we were all on the same page about sharing her.
The anger at myself is suffocating.
I'm supposed to be the leader, the one who keeps his head when everything else falls apart.
Instead, I let her get under my skin so completely that I forgot about the merger, about security, and about everything except the feel of her body and the sounds she made.
And now there's a captain in critical condition and a warehouse full of stolen merchandise.
My phone buzzes with the address.
The warehouse near the docks. I press harder on the accelerator, my jaw working as I force myself to compartmentalize. Marla will have to wait.
Right now, I need to find out who the hell betrayed me.
Behind me, I can see Russ's black SUV in my rearview mirror, and Alex's sedan behind his.
Neither of them said a word when we left Marla's place, but I could feel the tension radiating off both of them. We're all rattled, and that's dangerous when we're about to walk into a crime scene.
The warehouse district comes into view twenty minutes later. Gray buildings line the waterfront, their metal siding streaked with rust and salt. My warehouse sits at the end of the row, larger than the others, with loading docks facing the water.
Even from a distance, I can see something's wrong. The main door hangs open, and there are too many vehicles in the lot. Police lights flash blue and red against the gray morning sky, and I curse under my breath.
The last thing I need is cops crawling all over my operation.
I pull into the lot and park near the entrance. Russ and Alex pull in beside me, and we all get out at the same time. One of my men approaches immediately, his face pale and his shirt stained with blood.
"Boss," he says, his voice shaking. "It's bad."
"Show me."
He leads us inside, and the smell hits me first. Blood and diesel fuel, mixed with the salt air coming through the open loading dock. The warehouse floor is chaos.
Overturned crates, scattered merchandise, and broken glass everywhere.
Two of my guards sit against the wall with medics tending to their injuries.
One has a gash across his forehead that's still bleeding. The other holds his arm at an odd angle.
But it's the figure on the stretcher that makes my blood boil with fury.
My captain, a man who's been with me for eight years, lies unconscious with his face so swollen I barely recognize him.
His breathing is shallow and labored, and there's an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. The paramedics work quickly, checking vitals and preparing to move him.
"How bad?" I ask one of them.
"Critical," the paramedic says without looking up. "Skull fracture, internal bleeding, and broken ribs. He's lucky to be alive."
Lucky. Right.
I turn to the guard who brought us in. "What happened?"
"They came in fast," he says, his voice still shaking. "Four men, maybe five, wearing masks and gloves. They knew exactly where to go and what to take. One truck, the one with the electronics shipment. Thousands in merchandise, gone."
"And the cameras?"
His face goes even paler. "Disabled. All of them."
Fuck.
Russ steps forward, his light eyes hard and dangerous. "Disabled how?"
"Cut the feeds before they came in," the guard says. "Whoever did this knew our security setup."
Alex moves past us toward the office area at the back of the warehouse.
I follow him, with Russ close behind.
The office door is open, and inside the safe sits with its door hanging loose. Papers are scattered across the desk, and file drawers hang open.
"They searched the records," Alex says quietly, crouching near the safe. "Financial documents, shipping manifests, and client lists."
"What did they take?" I ask.
"That's the problem." Alex stands and looks at me. "Nothing obvious. They looked through everything, but I don't see anything missing."
Even though this is my business, Alex and Russ have intimate knowledge of it since we're merging our families together.
But with nothing stolen... that troubles me even more.
If they'd stolen money or documents, I'd know what they were after. But searching without taking anything? That means they were looking for specific information.
"Inside job," Russ says from the doorway. His voice is flat and cold. "Had to be."
"We don't know that," I say, though I'm already thinking the same thing.
"The hell we don't." Russ's hands curl into fists. "They knew the security rotations, the camera positions, and what was in which truck. That's not outside intel. That's someone on the inside."
Alex nods slowly. "He's right. This wasn't opportunistic. It was planned."
I turn back to the warehouse floor, my mind racing through possibilities. Who would betray me? Who had access to this level of information? The list is short, and every name on it is someone I trusted.
One of my guards approaches, the same one from before. "Boss, the cops want to talk to you."
"Tell them I'll be there in a minute."
He hesitates. "They're asking a lot of questions about what we keep here."
"I said I'll be there in a minute."
He backs away quickly, and I turn to Russ and Alex. "We need to figure out who talked. Fast."
"Let me handle the interrogations," Russ says. There's violence in his tone that makes my jaw tighten.
"No."
"Nick—"
"I said no." I step closer to him. "You're too emotional right now. You'll kill someone before we get answers."
"Maybe that's what we need," Russ snaps. "Send a message that this shit doesn't fly."
"Or maybe we need to think before we act," Alex says calmly. "Killing people won't tell us who's behind this."
Russ rounds on him. "You think I don't know that? But sitting around talking about it won't either."
"Then what do you suggest?" Alex's voice stays level, but there's steel underneath. "We start beating confessions out of everyone who works here?"
"If that's what it takes."
"That's enough," I say, my voice cutting through their argument. "Both of you."
They fall silent, but the tension doesn't ease. Russ looks like he's ready to put his fist through a wall.
I turn back to the guard who's been hovering nearby. "Bring me everyone who was on duty last night."
He nods and hurries off. Within minutes, five men stand in front of me, all of them looking nervous and exhausted. I study each face carefully, looking for signs of guilt or fear beyond what's normal after an attack like this.
"Tell me what happened," I say. "From the beginning."
They take turns explaining. The shift change at midnight. The routine patrol of the perimeter. The moment the lights went out and the masked men came through the loading dock. It all sounds plausible, but something nags at me.
"The cameras," I say. "When did they go down?"
"Right before the attack," one of them says. "Maybe two minutes before."
"And none of you noticed?"
They exchange glances. "We thought it was a glitch. It's happened before."
"Not like this," I say quietly. "Not all at once."
Russ steps forward before I can stop him. He grabs the nearest guard by the front of his shirt and slams him against the wall hard enough to rattle the metal siding.
"Who did you tell?" Russ demands, his face inches from the guard's. "Who the fuck did you tell about the security setup?"
"I didn't tell anyone!" the guard gasps, his eyes wide with terror. "I swear, I didn't—"
"Bullshit!" Russ pulls him forward and slams him back again. "Someone talked, and it was one of you!"
"Russ," I say sharply. "Let him go."
"Not until he tells me the truth."
"I said let him go."
Russ's grip tightens for a moment, and I see the guard's face start to turn red. Then Russ releases him with a shove that sends the man stumbling. The other guards back away, their faces pale.
"This is getting us nowhere," Alex says from behind me. "We need to think strategically, not emotionally."
"Fuck strategy," Russ snaps.
"It wasn't external," Alex says calmly. "I'll give you that. But beating answers out of people won't tell us who's pulling the strings."
"Then what will?"
"Logic." Alex moves to stand beside me, his dark eyes scanning the warehouse. "Think about the timing. This attack happened last night. Saturday night. The same night all three of us were distracted."
The words hang in the air, and I feel something cold settle in my chest.
"We were at Marla's cottage," Alex continues, his voice quiet but clear. "All three of us. At the exact same time someone was hitting Nick's warehouse."
Russ goes still. "You think that's a coincidence?"
"I don't believe in coincidences."
Neither do I. And as the pieces start falling into place, I realize what Alex is suggesting.
Marla appeared at the Ivory Wolf three weeks ago. She slept with Russ first, then Alex, then me. She claimed it was research for a book, but what if that was a lie? What if someone sent her to distract us? To keep us occupied while they made their move?
The seduction, the timing, the way she managed to get all three of us to her cottage on the same night—
It wasn't an accident.