Shift

by Sidney Bristol

  “He did, didn’t he? You still owe me details about that.” Roni nudged her aside and dropped her coffee in the machine.

  “You two done with the sister act? Or should I go?” Madison stared at them, and with good reason. It wouldn’t be the first time Roni and Tori duked it out to blow off some steam. Sometimes they were as bad as the guys.

  “Nah, we’re good.” Roni grinned. “I think he fucked some spunk into you.”

  Tori’s jaw dropped.

  “Uh, that could be taken two different ways,” Madison said.

  “Shit. The good way!” Roni slapped her forehead and Tori laughed.

  Madison tossed her head back, and that was it. All three were lost in a fit of giggles; Tori’s side ached she laughed so hard. They leaned on each other, and even Madison was overcome to the point of tears. Gabriel stuck his head in, frowning at them.

  “You girls high or something?” he asked.

  “No, nothing, go away.” Madison waved him off.

  “I cannot believe you said that.” Tori wiped her tears away and grabbed the coffee.

  “Hold on. What exactly are you wearing?” Roni asked, holding her at arm’s length.

  “I’m not sure. They’re jeans. It’s a tank top. They cover me.” Tori wasn’t about to mention the cheap quality of her panties and where that had gone.

  “Before we go anywhere, you need a change of clothes, because that is so not acceptable.” Roni’s nose wrinkled. Only one of them could have fashion sense, and it wasn’t Tori.

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, what are sisters for?”

  Tori grinned at her sister. They always had each other’s back.

  Madison grabbed a napkin and swiped at her cheeks, reminding Tori there were other things in the works.

  “Madison, when you have a second, Emery has some questions for you about Mr. White.” Tori picked up the coffee, one in each hand.

  “Oh. Right. Aiden told him.” Madison blew out a breath.

  “I missed something, didn’t I?” Roni glanced between them.

  “I recognized the old guy from the surveillance footage. I’ve met him. It’s all so crazy.” Madison poured a cup of coffee. “Just tell Emery to text me when he wants to ask me the questions. I don’t know a lot.”

  “It’s more than we knew earlier.”

  Tori left the bunk room, feeling lighter. She didn’t like butting heads with her sister, but she didn’t mind standing up for herself either. Roni didn’t have to understand why Tori was falling for Emery, she just wanted her sister to support her. Maybe now she would. Emery deserved better than her, but she wasn’t about to let him go. The man had made the choice when he’d left IHOP with her instead of just letting her bolt.

  Emery was still intently staring at the screens when she returned. She placed the coffee and sugar in easy reach before taking up a spot near the door. He patted the sugar packets, finding them by touch and selected two of them. He prepared the cup without ever looking at it.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d watched him work. Usually it was in small doses amidst the heat of a crazy operation. This was different. She was a fly on the wall, soaking up exactly what it must be like to be him every day. It was amazing what one person could do with the right tools. How many things did Emery take care of in the background while they went on about their lives? What threats did he head off before they ever knew about them? He really was more than the amazing Walking Brain.

  “There’s only one approach,” he said into the silence. He tapped at the screen, as if she could see what he was talking about. She didn’t dare move for fear of breaking his concentration or train of thought. “It was built for semis to drive into the plant. It’s the most vulnerable access point to the whole facility. The docks go all the way to the side of the building. We could ram the gates if they’re closed, drive through the lot, up the ramp, and into the building. We’d want to get into the main chamber before getting out of the cars. Then it’s a thirty-yard dash to these rooms where they’ve got—whatever it is they’re holding in there.”

  “When?” she asked.

  “Let’s see what’s going on there. It’s only”—he glanced at the clock on the wall—“four in the morning.”

  She rose, creeping around behind Emery to see what he saw.

  He flipped through several camera feeds, but the Greenworks building was quiet. Most of the lights were off.

  “You think they packed up shop?” she asked.

  “No—there.” Emery stopped on a screen. It was the docks. Canales and six of his crew were gathered together while he talked. Or more likely yelled, talking smack, if she had to guess from his liberal use of gestures. “They must be staying at the plant.”

  “Where’s the hit team?”

  “No idea. I haven’t been able to track them anywhere.”

  “They could be gone, right?”

  “Maybe. Best to assume they’re still out there.”

  “We could go now. Grab the Eleventh. Smith would love to arrest them.”

  “CJ wants blood. He’ll push for going later.”

  “Well, it’s Sunday. The place probably doesn’t run at full capacity if at all. They said they weren’t producing anything yet, right? Wasn’t that what you said?”

  “Yeah, it was more like they were getting ready to do something.”

  “So not a lot of workers there today.” And how were they supposed to get the hit team to go where they wanted them to?

  “Let’s call Smith. Get him up to speed.” Emery grabbed a cell phone sitting on the desk and jabbed in a string of numbers.

  “Do you remember everything?” she asked.

  “No, but his number seemed important at the time.” Emery tilted his head to the side.

  She could hear the call ringing in the quiet office.

  A groggy masculine voice answered. “Who is this?”

  “Detective Smith, it’s Emery Martin.”

  “What happened this time?”

  Emery glanced at her, brows pulling down. She shrugged, only a little guilty at her not-so-subtle attempt to eavesdrop. He shook his head and jabbed the speaker key.

  “Emery? You there?” Matt asked.

  “Yeah, sorry, you’re on speaker with me and Tori. You know Kathy died. Our crew is back from Orlando. Things are looking pretty dicey here. I was hoping you would like to make a few arrests today.”

  “Who?”

  “Raibel Canales.”

  “When? Where?”

  “The Greenworks plant. I’ll send you the address. It’s in Fort Lauderdale. Think you can find a reason to be around? Not sure of the when yet.”

  “What do you guys have planned?”

  “Not much right now, but things are getting kinda hairy.”

  “What exactly is going on? I was able to put people off yesterday by saying it was a federal case, but that’s not going to last long, especially with two departments involved.”

  “Take down this number. Ready?” Emery rattled off a string of digits. “You need anything to cover your ass, call that number. It’s the director in charge of this operation. The hit team was better than I expected. Last night they shot Kathy, grabbed us, and we had to shoot our way out of where they were holding us. The hours since then have been tense. We’re okay, but either they find us or we find them. Things aren’t running exactly to code right now, which is why I want you there to make any arrests so it can’t be argued in court that we were rogue. If you do it, there’s no question. And if you have to arrest us at the same time, do it.”

  The line was silent for a moment. Emery glanced at her and she had to wonder what else was going on with Detective Matt Smith.

  “You’re asking a lot of me.” Matt’s voice was gruff, a little beat down.

  “I know that,” Emery replied.

  “My ass is already on the line over Evers.”

  “Well, if someone should report gunfire at the Greenworks building and you should just happen to be
nearby when the call comes in, who could fault you for showing up? Like I said, arrest us if you have to.”

  “And put you in jail with the people you’ve put there? No, thanks. I’d like to keep the inmate death rate at zero if possible.”

  “Your call.”

  “Don’t be anywhere that I’d need to arrest you and we’ll be good.”

  “We appreciate the backup, man. You ever need anything, give me a call.”

  “I could get used to this. The Feds owing me favors.”

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get used to it.”

  The two bantered a moment longer before Emery hung up the phone. He leaned his head back in the chair and closed his eyes. She sat in his lap and laid her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her close. Being with him felt right. As if it was where she was meant to be.

  “Do we have a plan now?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but I don’t like it.”

  “Think about all that’s changed in the last six months. Did you ever think we’d get here?” Their operation had excelled at blending in. They’d gathered data, evidence, and had had a constant rotation of surveillance on Evers for close to three years. It had become more sophisticated over time, but they’d never stepped out of the shadows. It was a completely different game now.

  “It was bound to happen eventually, but I think we all expected it to go down in one bust and be over. None of us expected—this.”

  “Is it going to end?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It has to at some point, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose.”

  But would any of them be alive to see that ending?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tori held her hands up, finally giving in and letting Emery go over the straps on her Kevlar vest himself. The thing was uncomfortable, not intended for a woman even with small breasts, but it would protect her from most center-mass shots. Of course, if the asshats shooting at her had body-armor-piercing rounds, she was toast anyway.

  “It’s good, Emery,” she said, keeping her voice low.

  His lips curled, as if he was holding back his real thoughts, and instead gripped her by the shoulders, his fingers curling under the vest.

  “Be careful. Keep your head down. Get out of there if anything goes wrong. I don’t like this.” His gaze bored into her skull. He seemed to vibrate with intensity, but under that there was feeling, an emotion she could see, and if she stared deeply enough she could feel it, taste it, even smell it.

  “I’ll be okay. Promise.”

  She lifted up on tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his.

  Truth was she might not survive the hour. Fifteen minutes after six, the same mysterious older gentleman had arrived at the Greenworks building at the same time as the remaining three Russian hit men. There was clearly something up, maybe something really bad. They also couldn’t ask for a better opening. All the fish were in a single barrel. They just had to show up, hit them while they didn’t expect anyone, and hope the cops showed up before they had multiple homicides on their hands.

  Emery hadn’t been able to tell what was being said between the three parties on the video feed. Hell, Tori could barely see their lips much less read them. The tension between the old guy, the Russians, and the Eleventh already at the building had telegraphed clearly, though. Something was happening at Greenworks and if their crew wanted a piece of the action they needed to get their wheels spinning.

  Of course, they didn’t know why the hit team after Tori and Roni were suddenly in bed with the Greenworks operation. It smelled fishy to Tori, but that didn’t seem to matter to CJ. What were they doing? Were the remaining three assassins going rogue?

  “I’ll be watching you. Headsets won’t be live until you exit the highway, but if you need me, buzz me.” Emery backed away. There was a discordant vibration in the air that made her skin itch. They were separating. Emery wasn’t going to be by her side, and that felt wrong.

  “Ready?” Roni asked from the other side of the Lancer.

  Tori glanced at her sister. The only other person to never fail her. Emery had to stay here and serve as their support. Without him they were blind. Gabriel’s busted ribs and injuries were too much of a liability if they got into a jam. And Madison was only just learning how to hit what she aimed at. It sucked to leave them behind, but the purpose of this hit was to be quick.

  “Yeah.” The weight of extra ammunition hung on her hips. Two holsters were strapped to her legs. This kind of tactical gear was foreign to her, but the need was real.

  She settled into the passenger side of Roni’s Lancer and blew out a breath. John and Aiden were in another car, with CJ and Julian in a third. The other two cars were tactical vehicles. Reinforced cars that ran a little heavy, but could be used for ramming things like gates and doors without taking too much of a beating or deploying airbags. They hadn’t used them more than once or twice before for small, unrelated gigs the FBI had assigned them in the beginning.

  “I put in an ad earlier, by the way,” Roni said.

  “Already?”

  “The wonders of the Internet. He’s going to know about all of this.”

  “Think he’ll reply?”

  “Nah. He’ll be too pissed. I’d reckon we’ve got six to eight months before he makes contact.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “What?”

  “Knowing that he’s aware we’re in trouble and he won’t help? I mean, I don’t know what he’d do, but he’s our dad.”

  “And he was a coldhearted bastard who taught us how to fend for ourselves.” Roni sighed. “But yeah, it does suck. I guess that’s why Mom had us, so we’d be there for each other when they couldn’t.”

  Julian’s car whipped out of the warehouse and Roni gunned the engine to keep up. The force of the acceleration pressed Tori back into the seat as they peeled out and into the fenced-in lot, leaving any and all concern for their father behind.

  The plan was to travel in a convoy, with Roni and Tori in the middle, right up until they went through the Greenworks gates. At that point, Aiden and Julian would take the lead to ram through anything in their way and clear a path straight to the heart of the building. They could drive up almost to the doors behind which the mysterious man and his entourage of criminals had disappeared.

  “I’m going to have to scrap this car when this is over,” Roni said mournfully.

  “We can get you a new one,” Tori replied.

  “Yeah, but it won’t be the same.”

  The streets of Miami passed in a blur. They broke more laws than they followed. Lights, stop signs, even pedestrian rights-of-way didn’t register as they sped toward their target.

  “What do you think happens after this?” Roni asked, raising her voice over the roaring engine.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We could leave. Right now.” Roni glanced at her. She wasn’t joking.

  Tori shook her head. Friday, if Roni had asked her that she’d have yelled at her sister for not already being on the road out of town. Today things were different.

  “If we leave it doesn’t end, for them or for us. Besides, it wasn’t us they wanted. It was Dad.”

  “Did you call him?”

  “I left a message, told him to stay away.”

  “Good. We won’t give these assholes what they want.” Roni switched the radio off. They were both too tightly wound to listen to music.

  “Emery knows, by the way. I had to tell him,” Tori said in a rush, before Roni could cut her off.

  “Why?”

  “Because if I didn’t make it off that ship, he had to be ready to make the call to you, and he wouldn’t unless I told him why.”

  “Will he tell?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We should leave now. Get on the road while everyone is distracted.”

  “Then what? Where would we be?”

  “We don’t need the FBI,” R
oni said.

  “You sure about that?” Tori glanced at her sister. The day they’d accepted the government contract that dumped them in Miami was the day several of their problems just went away. She wasn’t stupid, and neither was Roni. For all the FBI’s shortcomings, their protection went a long way in making their lives comfortable. The bad guys out in the world had to really want to mess with the twins if they were also going to tangle with the Feds. Sure, they could survive on their own, but would that be a life?

  “Fine.” Roni smacked the steering wheel with her palm. For a moment, neither spoke. “I just don’t see this ending. This mission or the shit with Dad.”

  “I don’t either.”

  The exit loomed ahead. Tori pulled one of the twin Glocks out of the holsters and checked the chamber to give herself something to do.

  If tonight taught Tori anything, it was that they’d been living in a daydream where they got to keep their daddy’s secret and pretend to be the good guys.

  “Gabriel said you did Emery in the Bel Air.” Roni grinned.

  Tori stared at her sister, heat crawling up her neck.

  “You did!” Roni thrust her finger at Tori.

  “You said Gabriel already told you.”

  “I lied. But you did it! In the Bel Air? Nice.”

  “Shut up. I am not talking about that to you.”

  “If you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to? And what if you die? What if I die?”

  “Don’t say that.” Tori didn’t like the flippant way Roni spoke, or even putting those ideas out there.

  “I’m just saying if you’re going to talk to anyone about it, it might as well be me.” Roni glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “Well? Did the shocks hold out at least?”

  “Yes. Oh my God, yes!” Tori buried her face in her hands, the gun cradled between her thighs. Of course her sister would want to talk about sex right before they went in, guns blazing.

  “You really like him.” Roni’s nose scrunched up as they took the exit.

  “I do.”

  “Okay, I won’t knock it. He hurts you, though, I’m breaking his kneecaps.”