Deklan

“Not unless it’s a second coming,” Sean says with a laugh. He slaps his hand on his thigh. “Get it? Jesus”—he pronounces the hard J—“second coming?”

He laughs long and loud. Teagan raises an eyebrow at Deklan, who shakes his head slightly and says nothing.

“Can you read it?” Teagan asks as she turns toward me.

“Maybe,” I say. “I think so. My Spanish is better, but I know a little.”

Sean stands up, wiping tears from his eyes, and gestures toward the screen.

I look up at Deklan, and he nods at me. I approach the laptop and peer at the email.

“Do you want me to just read it?”

“No, write a fucking dissertation on it.” Sean’s no longer laughing.

“Just read what you can,” Deklan says softly as he places his hand on the small of my back.

“Okay.” I take a deep breath and move a little closer. The email isn’t written in sentences, just short phrases and numbers. “It says ‘the ice cream man is coming,’ then there’s a bunch of numbers spelled out. Three-slash-two and four hundred. The next line says ‘friend’ and ‘green,’ but I don’t know the verb. I could google it.”

“I’ve got it,” Teagan says. “It means collect or collection.”

“Then it’s just that line of numbers at the end,” I say.

“Three-two?” Sean turns to Brian and glares. If that’s a date, that’s a fucking month away!”

“I think it’s February third,” Teagan says. “Three days.”

“They’re delivering the snow February third, four in the morning,” Deklan says. “The numbers at the end have to be the coordinates.”

Snow. He means cocaine. I glance at Deklan, but he doesn’t meet my eyes.

“And a friend is going to collect it.” I try to smile at Deklan, but he just narrows his eyes.

“Well, aren’t you full of surprises?” Sean says as he grins at me. “Maybe we should just send you out to pick it up, huh?”

I look at the floor as I take a slight step closer to Deklan.

“She on the payroll now?” Brian asks.

“She is not.” Deklan takes my arm and pulls me back away from the computer. He glares at Brian, who looks at the floor and doesn’t make any further remarks.

“Brian, make sure the cargo in the shipping containers is unloaded by tomorrow,” Sean says. “Gotta be ready for the new supplier.”

“I’m digging into these guys a bit more,” Teagan says. “I know they’ve been vetted by Lucas, but something isn’t right here. They can’t really be this stupid.”

“Check it out,” Sean says. “If you find something hinky, we’ll let Dek deal with it.”

“Kera,” Dek says softly, “go wait in the hallway. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Okay.” I back away from him slowly, and I don’t miss the smirk on Sean’s face as he watches me leave the room.

I’m perfectly happy to be out of Sean Foley’s presence. I walk halfway down the hall to put a little more distance between us. The walls are lined with expensive-looking paintings of people, but I have no idea who they are.

I don’t wait long before the office door opens, and Sean and Teagan walk out.

“Give me two hours,” Teagan says. “I should have something by then.”

“It’s a plan, baby sister.”