His gaze shifting from one man to the next, Andy stood in silence as Brian watched him carefully—watched the way his shoulders hunched, the way his jaw clenched. Sixteen—a month away from seventeen. Christ. He was still a kid. A smart one, sure—but still a kid who should have been worrying about video games and when he could see his girlfriend next, not negotiating with a gang leader over his sister’s life.
“Now what?” Andy asked.
After setting the one-hour timer on his own phone, Brian met the kid’s gaze. “Now we go save Tess.”
A wicked grin spread across Sean’s face as he got to his feet. “Yee-haw! The Malone brothers ride again.” He glanced at Brian and Rafe, then shrugged. “Well, minus a SEAL, plus an adopted Statie. Two out of three ain’t bad.”
“Do not start belting out Meatloaf, little brother.” Brian winked at Andy, trying to keep the levity in the room for his sake. “He can’t sing to save his life.”
The corners of Andy’s mouth twitched, but a smile never appeared. Brian understood far too well that this wasn’t something humor could fix. He turned toward the door. As the text had said, the clock was ticking. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Pulling up to the curb in front of Malone’s Hardware, Brian put his truck in Park but didn’t kill the engine. The idle sent a low, steady vibration through the cab—something solid to anchor himself to when everything else felt like it was coming apart. Like most of the shops lining Main Street, the store was already closed for the night, the interior dim except for the low blue glow of the security lights.
Outside, the street was still very much awake. Cars rolled past at an easy pace, with their windows down, and music drifted faintly through open doors farther along the block. People strolled up and down the sidewalk. Restaurants filled, voices and laughter carrying on the warm, salt-heavy air. It was that in-between hour where the day hadn’t given up yet, but the night advanced behind it.
Rafe shifted in the front passenger seat, his fingers flying over his phone’s screen as he texted back and forth with the SBI’s SRT—Special Response Team. Calling in backup was a risk they couldn’t avoid, but it would stay off the radio. No chatter. No broadcast. No contacting the local police. The fewer people who knew what was happening, the better the odds that Diego and his crew wouldn’t realize law enforcement was already breathing down their throats.
A honk, honk sounded just as Sean drove past them, heading toward Kingsby to scope out the location. They would need to get as much info as possible before staging a rescue, and time wasn’t a luxury.
Above the hardware store, Uncle Dan’s apartment windows reflected the pale sky. Andy would be safe there, but Brian had a feeling the kid would fight him over it.
From the back seat came restless movement—knees bouncing, the upholstery creaking, anger crowding the air like heat.
“I’m not staying here. I’m going with you.” The words came sharp and loud in the confined space. Andy leaned forward between the seats, face flushed, eyes blazing, hands gripping the headrests like he might tear them loose.
They’d already had this argument back on the beach house’s porch. Brian closed his eyes for half a second, long enough to keep his temper leashed. And just long enough to remind himself this wasn’t defiance—it was fear looking for somewhere to land.
“Yes, you are.”
Andy scoffed. “You can’t just dump me here and go charging off like I don’t matter. This is my fault. Diego texted me. Tess is there because of?—”
“Stop.” The word cracked through the cab, final and absolute.
Andy froze, shock flashing across his face, his mouth still open. Rafe turned slightly in his seat, eyes flicking back, assessing, ready to step in if needed. Brian twisted in his seat enough to face Andy directly, one arm braced on the console. His expression conveyed no softness. No room to negotiate. “We’ve been over this! You don’t get to rewrite this into some heroic story where you tag along and get yourself killed.”
“I’m not a kid?—”
“You’re sixteen,” he snapped, the words coming out harder than he meant them to—but he didn’t take them back. “And unarmed. And untrained. You’ll only be a distraction and in the way. And if anything happens to you, I won’t be able to live with myself.” His voice cracked on those last few words, and he slammed his hand on the steering wheel, hard enough to hurt, but the pain didn’t register.
The raw words hung between them. Somewhere along the line, Andy had become more than Tess’s kid brother. The thought of losing him hit Brian the same way it would have if they were blood-related.
Andy swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his jaw worked, like he was grinding down words he didn’t trust himself to say. The fight drained out of his posture a notch, his shoulders dropping just enough to give him away.
A bone-deep weight of responsibility settled into Brian’s chest. The kind Uncle Dan had carried when three teenage boys had needed him to be unbreakable, no matter the cost.
He forced his voice down, steady and calm. “That’s not happening. I promise, I’ll do everything I can to get Tess back safely. I don’t want to lose her anymore than you, got it?”
Silence filled the cab, thick and uncomfortable. The engine hummed softly. Outside the vehicle, everyone else’s lives moved on while theirs narrowed to this moment.
From the back seat, Andy muttered, “So I just sit here doin’ nothin’ while your uncle babysits me.”
“No. You work.”
The kid’s head snapped up. “What?”
“You’re our only connection to Diego,” Brian said. “When he texts, you answer. If he calls, you answer. You don’t provoke him. You don’t threaten him. And you don’t try to be clever.” He paused, making sure Andy was locked in. “You keep him talking. Tell him you’re working on moving the crypto but hit a firewall or something—anything techie and boring enough that he believes it. If he understood how this all worked, he wouldn’t need you.”