Chapter 2
Silence stretched over the line. Heavy. Absolute.
Mave stopped crying. Her breath caught in her throat. The man wasn’t joking. There was no irony in his tone, no morbid humor. He offered a life for a life with the casual detachment of a man offering a cup of coffee.
Terrified, Mave jammed her finger onto the screen, ending the call.
She dropped the phone into the passenger footwell as if it had caught fire. She sat in the darkness, the only sound the frantic thudding of her own heart against her ribs.
*Give me his last name, and he won’t be breathing tomorrow.*
The words echoed in the cramped space of her sedan. She tried to rationalize it. A prank. A sick, twisted joke from a bored stranger working a night shift somewhere. But she couldn’t shake the chill that had settled deep in her marrow.
People didn’t sound like that when they were joking.
She wiped her face furiously with the sleeves of her oversized sweater. Panic wouldn’t pay the rent. Panic wouldn’t keep Chloe in the clinic. She glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. 10:45 PM. Her shift at Red’s Diner started in fifteen minutes.
She turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered, coughed, and finally roared to a rough idle. She pulled out into the rain-slicked streets, forcing her mind away from the stolen money, away from Ben, and away from the voice on the phone.
She had to survive the next eight hours. That was all she could afford to think about.
Miles away, Gideon lowered the burner phone from his ear. The dial tone hummed steadily before it cut off. He set the device down on the desk with deliberate slowness.
His second-in-command, Wyatt, a lean man with a mind for logistics and a total lack of empathy, watched him closely.
“Problem, boss?”
“Someone misdialed,” Gideon said, his voice revealing nothing.
Wyatt frowned, sitting up straighter. “On the secure line? That’s impossible. Only you, me, and Frank had that number. And Frank is currently taking a permanent nap in the foundation of the new overpass.”
“I am aware of Frank’s location,” Gideon replied dryly. “But the fact remains — a woman just called this number. She was looking for a man named Ben.”
Wyatt stood up, pulling a slim laptop from his leather messenger bag. The casual atmosphere in the room had vanished, replaced by a cold, clinical paranoia. In their line of work, coincidences were usually just well-planned assassinations waiting to happen.
“Could be a wire. Could be the feds probing to see if the line is active. I’ll run a trace.”
“Do it.”
Gideon stood up, walking over to the frosted glass window overlooking the warehouse floor. Below, forklifts moved pallets of legitimate frozen beef, hiding the contraband locked in the center crates. It was a flawless system. He had spent six years building his empire out of the ashes of his father’s sloppy syndicate.
He was meticulous. He was careful.
So why did the sound of that woman’s weeping bother him?
It was the lack of deception, he decided. Everyone Gideon spoke to wanted something from him or they were terrified of him. Every conversation was a chess match. But the woman on the phone hadn’t known who he was. She had just been a human being entirely broken, bleeding out into the ether.
It was a bizarre anomaly.
“Got it,” Wyatt said after five minutes of rapid typing. “It’s a burner prepaid cell pinging off a tower in the south end. Triangulation puts it stationary at a commercial address. Eighth and Elm.”
Gideon turned away from the window. “What’s the location?”
“A twenty-four-hour joint. Red’s Diner.” Wyatt read off the screen. “Looks like she made the call from a vehicle, then moved inside. Want me to send a couple of the boys to grab her? Shake her down. See who she’s working for?”
Gideon stared at the blinking red dot on Wyatt’s screen.
A fed wouldn’t cry like that. A rival wouldn’t use a girl weeping over eight grand as bait. It was too pathetic, too small-time. It was exactly what it sounded like — an accident.
Logically, he should drop the phone in a glass of water, buy a new burner, and forget it ever happened.
Instead, he reached for his dark wool overcoat draped over the back of his chair.
“No,” Gideon said, shrugging into the coat. “Stand down. Tell the dock crew to double the guard on the North Bay. I’m taking a drive.”
May you like
Wyatt looked alarmed. “Alone? Boss, it’s pouring out there. And if it is a trap — ”
“If it’s a trap, I’ll kill them.” Gideon said simply, checking the weight of the steel in his shoulder holster out of habit. “I just need a cup of coffee.”
