Stealing His Thunder (Masters of Adrenaline 1)

***

“So he seriously wants us to bring all of these in on the same night?” Luke looked over the order sheet, brows raised. The letter they’d been given at Fitte had been a slip of paper with an email address. When Atlas had responded to the email, they’d received a coded order sheet, but it was a code they knew. There’d also been a short, cryptic message about Smith wanting to change sources. Marcel had either screwed up or pissed him off. “How the hell are we going to do all this?”

Atlas stretched out on his couch, his muscular bulk taking up the entire piece of furniture. “We almost have to start now and hide some of them here until we get to the delivery date. Three would have been doable, even though it meant none of us would have a driver or backup. But six? Not in one night.”

Fox frowned. It was a crazy job, but if things worked out with Smith, they’d get a foothold into his market, if they wanted it. They had a few weeks to figure things out. Marcel had been filling orders for Smith for months. They’d have to listen to some gossip to see if they could figure out what had happened.

“I wish we could bring Addison in on this one.” Luke sighed and sat down on his own couch. “At least to take some of the pressure off so we don’t fuck this up. It could make or break us in the area.”

“Absolutely not.” Fox grumbled. Said unexpectedly, her name was like a slap in the face. “We’ve been doing just fine here until now. We don’t need Smith’s business, but if we accept, we damn well better make it work or we’ll get a rep for not filling orders. As for Addison, I don’t want to bring her in on a job that’s going to piss off Marcel. The run-in that you had with Lurch two days ago would have been very different if it had been Addison instead of you, Luke.”

Luke nodded, his gaze unfocused, probably recalling the confrontation he’d had with Marcel’s heavy. Lurch had threatened Luke and told him to leave town, but in typical Luke fashion, he’d ended up chatting with the guy and buying him a beer at a nearby dive bar.

“True, but I really think they wouldn’t be paying any attention to us if it wasn’t for Marcel,” Luke said. “Even when Lurch stopped me, it was all ‘the boss this’, and ‘the boss that.’ I think we seriously insulted him when we declined his invitation to join his group, but the other guys don’t seem to care. There’s plenty of business for all of us here, but if we do this job it’s seriously going to piss him off.”

“It’ll make him shit or get off the pot, I guess.” Fox shrugged. “I’m tired of tiptoeing around him.” He’d be damned if they were going to give in to the guy’s bullying tactics. If anything, Marcel going after their friends had made Fox less willing to play nice. Marcel needed to man up and come after him personally at some point so Fox could have the satisfaction of beating the crap out of him. The only problem was that he knew Marcel and his men were all packing, which made them far more dangerous than the typical bully. A fistfight wasn’t a problem, but guns were a different story.

“What about stealing them ahead of time and stashing them here?” Atlas prompted again.

“First of all, I’d rather not have stolen cars in the garage before the VIN number

s have been dealt with.” Fox said, rubbing his forehead. This whole job was giving him a headache. “It’s a bad idea. I also think the whole point is to make this almost impossible so they can see whether or not we’re any good. He wants good and fast, not sneaky.”

Luke laughed. “Not sneaky? He does realize we’re car thieves, right?”

“It’s like a test,” Fox said, more sure of that the more he thought about it. He paced the room. “Smith is giving us something hard for three guys to do in one night to see if we’re capable and motivated. I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of working for a guy who likes playing games like this, but I’d rather do this job and prove ourselves then turn down the next job from him if we don’t like him, rather than concede defeat now. If we say we’re not interested, he’ll assume we’re declining because we can’t fill the order.”

“Well, we can’t let him think that.” Atlas said simply.

“No,” Fox replied. “No, we can’t.”

Chapter 15

“Shit.” Addison fumbled with the signal disrupter she’d just built. Fox had tested her only a few weeks ago with a garage-door device, but this new one should work for any car with automatic locks.

With a frustrated sigh, she keyed in the program code for a second time. This one was being exceedingly stubborn.

“Come on,” she gritted through her teeth. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Though it was past midnight, it was sweltering shoved between a row of cars and a Dumpster in a casino employee parking lot.

This was a testing ground. She wasn’t actually stealing anything tonight. She still had no contacts, no connections. Fox had taught her some, yes, but he’d left her with nothing useful in terms of making money.

And after dodging him for the last week, she sure as hell wasn’t counting on him to continue helping her grandma. He might even demand she pay him back right away.

She’d visited her grandparents today and couldn’t remember a time when they’d both looked so happy. Not since she was a young child. Her grandpa had more moments of clarity now that Grandma was living there with him. And her grandma hadn’t stopped grinning and thanking her “angels” who’d donated to the online fund she still thought existed. There was no way she could take all of their happiness away from them now. It would kill her.

So she had to find a way to get the money herself. No more relying on Fox. No more getting swept up in his exciting world and his . . . fucking hot as hell body . . .

Ugh.

Her finger slipped off the button and she let out a loud grunt. Now she’d have to start over.

A voice close by said, “Did you hear that?”

She ducked down behind the front of a Subaru.

“Hear what?” someone asked.

“I don’t know. I thought I heard a voice.”