A sound at the back of the shop makes us pause. The door opens with a jingle—the back door. I look at Adele with wide eyes.
“Wait here,” she mouths and races into the back. “Bing?” Her frosty tone carries to the front of the shop. “We need to talk.” She sounds calm and professional, but I run to the front door and lock it anyway, flipping the sign to Out for lunch.
Then I run back to make sure Adele doesn't murder her partner.
Adele is already there, facing off with a middle-aged white guy. Bing the business partner has long hair tied back in a ponytail, and a faded Grateful Dead shirt that reeks of pot. Typically trustafarian.
“Christopher Eugene Ford,” Adele says, and the man’s gaze drops to his Birkenstocks. She blows out a breath and turns to me to explain, “His real name is Chris. But when he moved to Taos, he re-christened himself Bing.”
I roll my eyes. Only in Taos. We’ve got lots of ‘Jim’ and ‘Brenda’s who’ve renamed themselves ‘Zen’ and ‘Moonjuice’.
“Hey, Adele.” The business partner formerly known as Christopher shuffles his feet. He looks like a kid caught with his hand in the chocolate jar.
“Do you have something for me?” Adele folds her arms over her chest. “Like the money for the last three months’ rent?”
“Aww, yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I can get it to you. I just need—there’s an investment I got caught up in and…” He trails off at the sharp tapping of Adele’s booted toe.
I hold my breath, ready for her to tear into him.
But her shoulders slump. “This can’t go on, Chris,” she says, sounding exhausted. “If you keep taking big draws, we’ll lose the business.”
I step back into the front of the shop before I can hear Bing/Chris’ mumbled reply. Now that I’m sure Adele won’t kill him, I don’t want to intrude on a private conversation. Besides, it feels wrong, seeing Adele so defeated.
I bite my lip, wondering if I should tell Sadie and Tabitha. I don't want Adele to go through this alone, but it’s her business.
I wish there was someone neutral I could confide in. Someone who’d offer a strong shoulder to lean on, who’s likely to care.
It’s curious how the first person who comes to mind is Lance.
Chapter 7
Santiago, Chile
Lance
“Lance, can you hear me? I need you to say something.” The tautness in Rafe’s voice makes me open my eyes. Not because of the Alpha Command he used, but because I hear fear. A sound I can’t stand hearing from our alpha.
From my brother.
I’ve only heard that tone one other time, and it was the worst day of both our lives.
“I hear you,” I manage to wheeze.
This mission in Chile went sideways fast. It wasn’t like the one in Switzerland last month, where we were on recon and were suddenly made. We still don’t know how that happened—where the mole was. That was just a case of bad luck. Sometimes things go awry.
For this mission, we were sent in by the CIA to rob arms dealer Vincent Sarcero of his enormous stores of cash. Basically, our government hoped to cut him off at the knees and stop a huge deal before it could happen, by taking his capital. Why we couldn’t just kill him wasn’t divulged, but they wanted him alive, just rendered impotent.
We spent ten days scoping the place out and making our plan. Ten long days I was away from Charlie. My sweet female. The one I haven’t claimed yet. Who barely agreed to one date with me.
We went in like it was a heist and we were high-end thieves. We mapped the place out, knew their security, and had a well-laid plan.
We got in without a hitch. The only problem was that we thought the safe would hold cash. Our plan was to set off a bomb inside, and burn it all to ashes.
But we were misinformed about the contents of the safe. It didn’t hold cash. It housed gold bars. So we had to revise the plan on the fly, and pack that shit out of there. I suggested we abort and regroup—come back the next night with means to carry and transport the gold. Rafe made the call for us to continue. So our intended thirty minute operation turned into an all-night affair of repeated trips hauling gold bars out of the mansion. Fortunately, we’re strong and fast. We’d done our homework on security. The guard dogs were tranqued; the security cameras were intercepted and shown a false feed.
But at five this morning, when the guards changed over, someone spotted our vehicle parked near the wall for loading.
The place went from dead quiet to war zone in a matter of sixty seconds. I was in the safe room, caught with my pants down.