Before, I had nothing to lose. Now, I have everything.
There’s no question in my mind that if I wanted to keep living this life, Temperance could handle it. But I don’t want her to. I carry no guilt for the things I’ve done, but I don’t need to keep doing them. I have more money than we’ll be able to spend in a lifetime. Our children, if we have them, will be set for life too.
A vision of Temperance pregnant with a little girl who’ll look just like her forms in my mind as I drive toward an old warehouse by the river that’s bank owned and the perfect place to transfer a load of human cargo. The closer I get, the more real the vision becomes—so real that I have to block it out because it’s too pure for where I’m going and what I’m going to do.
Before I pull off the side of the road about a quarter mile beyond the warehouse and park behind an abandoned building, another picture blooms in my brain—my mom holding her granddaughter.
I wish I could give her that.
I pop the trunk and exit the car silently before collecting my sniper rifle from the hidden compartment.
This isn’t my first rodeo, but it’s going to be my last.
I keep to the shadows as I move quietly in the direction of the location Mount gave me, but the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
Something doesn’t feel right.
Stopping, I listen for movement, hoping like hell I’m not about to get ambushed or that this isn’t a double cross.
Mount hasn’t fucked me over yet, but if he’s determined for some reason that I’m at the end of my useful life, he wouldn’t hesitate to take me out.
But I can’t see him sending me into the dark to make it happen. He’d put a bullet between my eyes like a real man.
The sound of a truck rumbles up ahead, the old diesel motor vibrating the rusted mailbox near the gate entrance. I duck into the bushes as headlights cut through the falling dusk.
You’d think human trafficking would take place at night, in the pitch black, and some of it does. But plenty of it happens during broad daylight, in plain sight. This handoff, if that’s really what I’m walking into, is something in between. Early evening but still out of the way, where they think no one will see them. But I will, once I figure out where the fuck this is going down and what the right spot is.
This is one more reason I don’t take short-notice contracts. I never want to be surprised when I set up to do a job. I want to know the location of every entrance, exit, traffic pattern, security guard, security camera, fence line, and crack in the pavement.
There’s a reason I’m the best at what I do, and why I command a high price.
And now I’m walking up on human traffickers with no recon.
Fucking stupid.
Part of me wants to turn around and tell Mount to fuck off, but when I see the small bus turn into the open gate with a yellowWest Park Care Centeron the side, I know I can’t.
I’d do this job for free.
46
Temperance
Iguide the Audi down the same road Magnolia traveled, and with each passing mile, I wonder what the hell I’m doing. I’ve done dumber things, but not for a very long time. Although, maybe this takes the cake. My nausea has passed and so have any other pregnancy symptoms. So ... it was probably a false alarm.
I put that out of my mind because there’s nothing I can do either way. Instead, I focus on the situation at hand, which is the smartest choice.
I’ve been trying to piece all of this together, but it’s like trying to work on a puzzle without a box. Frustrating and time consuming.
The dot on the app keeps moving, but instead of going further, now it’s driving around in what seems to be circles.
“Please, God, tell me she’s not freaking lost.”
I know I can’t possibly get lucky enough that Magnolia is changing her mind about where she’s going, maybe due to a guilty conscience, but I can still hope.
Or she already picked up the people and is moving them.
My skin crawls at the thought of Magnolia trafficking people.