colleagues. Fish and Axel were dressed in stolen port authority uniforms. All of the gang were armed with semiautomatics, Rafe included.
Cruz held a pair of compact binoculars in front of his face as he peered out at the warehouse. “There’s the midnight shift reporting for duty. You all know what to do. As soon as the other guards are gone, we’re going in.”
They had reviewed the plan earlier tonight at Ocho’s. According to Cruz, LaSalle had assured him the job was expected to be a simple one. Gain access to the warehouse. Grab the crates of newly arrived merchandise from overseas. Deliver them to the drop location. Collect the fat payout.
Rafe had run enough cleanup patrols with his Order teammates to know that greedy criminals like these tended to get sloppy when someone waved enough dollar signs in front of them. He didn’t expect the job tonight to be as simple as Cruz claimed. And although Devony was still angry to be excluded, he was glad he didn’t have to dread anything happening to her during this sketchy undertaking.
They had agreed to keep their distance after their restroom rendezvous at Asylum last night. Rafe went home to his place in Southie and stayed there until meeting up with the gang. She had agreed to stay put at her Darkhaven and await word from him once the job was over.
As promised, he’d sent her what details he knew, including the warehouse location and the drop site. If things went as he planned, he hoped to get close enough to Judah LaSalle to trance the bastard and squeeze him for everything he might know about Opus Nostrum.
The sooner he had that intel, the sooner he could get on with the task of wiping the organization off the map.
Then he would have time to consider what Devony Winters was coming to mean to him, and whether those feelings stood any chance of being reciprocated.
“Okay,” Cruz announced. “New guards are inside . . . and there go the old ones around the corner. Time to move. Hit it, Ocho.”
The truck lurched into gear. Ocho drove it in front of the warehouse, and Rafe hopped out behind Fish and Axel. As they had done at the MFA, the two men provided a momentary distraction while Rafe leapt to action putting the lights out on the guards.
Cruz and Ocho moved in behind them, crowbars in hand. They located the sealed crates they were after and made quick work cracking them open. One by one, the men began unloading smaller crates onto a wheeled dolly.
Rafe hadn’t been tasked with handling the merchandise, not that he cared. Tonight, he’d been relegated to lookout and problem-solver. He stood watch as the men alternated between loading the dolly and moving it out to the waiting truck.
“Faster,” Cruz ordered the others, patrolling around like a general. “Come on, let’s go! Look alive.”
Rafe caught up with Fish on the side. “Hey, talk to me. Whose shit are we stealing tonight?”
“I don’t know, man,” Fish answered in a low whisper. “Some kinda arms dealer, according to Ocho. LaSalle’s got friends who’re willing to pay about anything to get their hands on whatever’s in those crates.”
Cruz eyed Rafe cautiously, a strangely smug look in his eyes as Fish and Axel came back for another load. Rafe didn’t like the look the gang leader had on his face. He didn’t like the feeling that he was somehow the brunt of an unspoken joke.
“Something funny, Cruz?”
He shrugged. “I’m not laughing, man.”
“Neither am I,” Rafe said. “What the fuck’s going on? What are we hauling out of he—”
The sound of a vehicle approaching outside the warehouse snagged his attention. A car door opened. A pair of boots slapped against concrete.
The guards who’d left a few minutes ago had circled back unexpectedly. One of them double-timed it inside the warehouse. “Yo, Jansen. It’s just me. Forgot that damn birthday card for my wife.”
He walked in farther. “Hey, you know there’s a rental truck sitting outside? Meeks and I just texted the boss to see if he might’a sent someone over for that new shipment. . . . Jansen?”
Rafe stood in front of him now, moving through the warehouse in the blink of an eye. Palming the man’s balding forehead before he had a chance to voice his surprise, Rafe dropped the guard into an immediate trance.
But he wasn’t the last of their problems.
The guard’s partner had circled around to the back of the warehouse for a sneak attack.