Squall Line (The Inland Seas Series Book 1)

by Gwyn McNamee

  If she does understand and can sympathize, then maybe her plan isn’t just a ruse to escape. Maybe it’s a genuine desire to see us safe.

  I can’t assume anything, though.

  I need to make sure she grasps what’s at stake here…

  I push my foot to the floor, accelerating down the county highway toward the interstate that will take us to Milwaukee. Cutter and Rion will be shoving off on The Destiny to make their way to the port any minute now, while Preacher mans his control room and stays in contact with E for updates.

  Things are in motion that can’t be stopped now. She has to be warned.

  “I don’t know what Cutter said to you. But I need you to understand that whatever he said, he meant it.”

  She freezes next to me and turns her head slightly to look at me. I glance at her before returning my attention to the road.

  “If you’ve ever been afraid of me at all during this, understand, he’s ten times as ruthless, ten times as unshakable, ten times as dangerous as I could ever be. Anything he promised, he will deliver tenfold. So, don’t get any ideas.”

  She cringes and shrivels back into the seat, making herself as small as possible. “So, he’s like the Kraken?”

  I jerk my head toward her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The way you talk about Cutter…like he’s some ruthless, killing machine beast to unleash…like the Kraken.”

  Jesus. She has no idea how serious this is, does she?

  That’s exactly what it’s like. He’s unstoppable once he sets his sights on a target, and right now, his sights are set on her…waiting for her to prove she’s not trustworthy so he can give her what she deserves.

  And her reaction to my warning doesn’t bode well.

  Where’s her outrage? Where’s her insistence that she would never betray us? That she intends to follow through with helping us get what we need?

  She hasn’t said anything like that. That makes my gut twist and my hands tighten on the steering wheel.

  “What did Cutter say to you?”

  I have an idea, but hearing her say it, knowing she comprehends every syllable, is essential to getting a grasp on her state of mind and what we’re walking into with her.

  She flinches, squeezes her eyes shut, and presses her lips in a tight line. Her hands clench into fists on her lap, and she releases a sigh and looks out the window, away from me. “He said if I betrayed you guys…he’d kill me.”

  Accurate.

  If there’s one thing I can always count on with Cutter, it’s his ability to put aside personal feelings to get the fucking job done. God knows I’ve let this woman work her way too far under my skin to act if I needed to now.

  A fact I’m finally willing to admit, though reluctantly.

  Which leads to the ultimate question…

  “Are you planning to betray us?”

  She hesitates for a moment and pulls her bottom lip between her teeth.

  Christ, why is it so hot?

  Those lips under mine in the rain. Her wet body pressed against me. Having her in my arms…

  All of it was just…too good. Too much of something I can never have. A few seconds of bliss in an otherwise fucked-up situation of our own making.

  Mine for agreeing to do the job in the first place. Hers for turning on that damn beacon, though she couldn’t have known what would come of it. None of us could.

  I glance over at her.

  She releases the lip and clears her throat. “No.”

  The answer is strong. Unwavering.

  But there’s something there under the surface.

  Fear. Regret.

  She’s lying.

  It’s an act. She has every intention of using this opportunity to get away from me, to make sure we end up exactly where she thinks we belong—prison somewhere, rotting away in a cell for all our sins—or at least, the ones she knows about.

  Although, at this point, maybe that’s the lesser of two evils. Maybe we should just turn ourselves in rather than face the fury of the Marconis if we can’t succeed in getting them the rest of the drugs.

  They have people inside who would, no doubt, take us out, but at least we would stand a chance with protective custody there. We certainly don’t stand one on the outside if we fail. There wouldn’t be anywhere we could hide from them. They’re too connected. Too powerful. Too unwilling to forgive such a transgression.

  We’d never be free. We’d live our lives looking over our shoulders, no matter where we ended up or how much time has passed. That’s no way to live either.

  There’s just no good option here.

  We can’t fail and run, but putting the drugs in their hands doesn’t sit well with me. The anger I felt last night reached Biblical proportions, the kind of wrath that destroys entire worlds. I have to overlook that to do this, to make the delivery.

  I’m sacrificing my morals—the very few I have left—to save our asses. The men know what that means for me, and now…so does Grace.

  Maybe I have been naïve to assume they were transporting guns or something else, but one thing I always counted on working for them was that they are predictable.

  The Marconis have been in the business for a long time, and they have their game down pat. That game never included drugs. Never.

  Why the sudden shift to something they wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole five years ago?

  Maybe it’s Arturo’s influence.

  We all know he’s been slowly weaseling his way into more of a management role in the family. He has his eyes set on Il Padrone’s seat, and it’s only a matter of time before the old man croaks and Arturo takes over. The old man has already been taking care of fewer and fewer things personally. The writing is on the wall.

  So, a concrete cell and some iron bars may be a better future.

  No.

  We are not turning ourselves in.

  We will finish the job. Even if it means having to release these drugs on the street, which is the last thing I want to do.

  And finishing this job requires Grace’s help. If she rats us out, we are fucked.

  “Let me give you a piece of advice, Grace. Although, I don’t know why I’m wasting my time when you haven’t taken any of it before.” I let out a sigh and stare straight again at the open highway. “Once again, we are not the people you want to double-cross. I told you I’d release you, and I mean it. When we get the drugs safely to Chicago, I will let you go as long as you’re going to keep your mouth shut and make sure your crew does too. This is a mutually beneficial endeavor.”

  She snort-laughs and turns her head to look at me. Those damn eyes shimmer at me and flare with that sassy attitude she’s been throwing at me since the moment I stepped onto her bridge and she pulled that damn shotgun on me. “How is this beneficial to me again?”

  I would think that would be obvious.

  I grit my teeth and shake my head. “You don’t die. Your crew doesn’t die.”

  Simple words. True words.

  As much as I hate repeating them, that shuts her up.

  She sinks back into the seat, and I finally merge onto the interstate to Milwaukee.

  We’ve got more than an hour before we hit town—plenty of time for her to consider what she’s going to do when we get there. Plenty of time to reconsider any stupid plan she may have come up with this morning before her little heart-to-heart with Cutter. Plenty of time to change her mind.

  Between his threats and my promises, I hope she makes the right decision.

  12

  Grace

  I’m dead. I am well and truly fucked. So is my opportunity to get away unscathed.

  The plan had been to walk around the dock and talk to security and be safely tucked away in the arms of someone with a weapon. Someone who could protect me from these guys. Someone who could ensure the crew wasn’t in any danger from that E guy who’s watching them before the authorities closed in on Warwick and his guys.

  It
meant sending them to their potential deaths at the hands of the Marconis if they got away, or sending them to prison if they got caught, but I can’t think about what’s best for them.

  I have to think about what’s best for me. Just like Warwick’s mom said in the note from Lord of the Flies…

  The only one looking out for you is you…

  Yet Cutter’s threat and the chilling words Warwick just said put everything in a whole new light, and the words scrawled in those books by a woman who loved her conflicted and troubled son more than anything in this world ring even more true.

  There is no “good” choice…

  Choose the lesser of two evils…

  What is the lesser of the two evils here? What is the choice I can live with even if no choice is good?

  I actually believe Warwick when he says he’ll release me once they’re safe, and his life, and the lives of his crew, are in very real danger if they don’t get what we’re after.

  The problem is, I’m not so confident they’ll get the drugs, let alone deliver them to Chicago. Doing so without raising too much attention—unwanted attention—will be damn near impossible.

  Even if the crew is still gone and at the hotel, port security will be there. All my identification is still on board. If I can get near the ship, they’ll think it’s suspicious to be unloading everything onto The Destiny instead of onto the semis or trucks that should’ve been coming to pick it up later today according to our original schedule—if that hasn’t already happened.

  I don’t even remember where it was supposed to go or who is supposed to come get it. Dad made all the arrangements for this shipment before he died. I should have paid more attention to the details.

  There are a lot of things I should have paid more attention to. He hid a lot from me. Despite me doing all the accounting, he racked up all sorts of debts in the name of the business that only came to light when he passed away. Debts we can’t possibly hope to repay now. Had I made the delivery, had I been paid for this job…maybe. It would have been a start in the right direction.

  But now?

  Fucked. Just fucked.

  Either I betray them and send them to their deaths or prison, or I help them get drugs to some very bad people who will distribute them.

  No good choice.

  How the hell did we ever get to this point? How the fuck did I end up with drugs on my ship?

  Warwick’s words from last night weigh on me. “What about your father? Is it possible he knew what was going on? What he was transporting? People do a lot of things when they’re desperate that they might not consider otherwise, Grace.”

  Is it possible Dad knew?

  The quiet, soft-spoken man whose lap I sat on during church on Sundays as a child. The one who always taught me right from wrong. The one who taught me it’s never right to hurt someone else intentionally. That’s the man I don’t think could ever do something like this. But I can’t forget the man he was in the months leading up to his death either. Haggard. Stressed. So riddled with anxiety he wasn’t sleeping. It was all too much for his heart. And maybe it was too much for his resolve as well.

  Could you have really done it, Dad? Could you really have taken money to transport this knowing what was in the crates?

  I don’t want to believe it.

  If he did, where’s the money?

  It isn’t in the business accounts or his joint account with Mom. Which means, if he did know, he probably didn’t get paid up front, or at least, didn’t get much of it. All we had in the account was the normal amount of payment for a shipment like this. So, if he was somehow involved, he was likely getting paid upon delivery. And if these are really the Marconis’ drugs, then why wouldn’t he be delivering them straight to Chicago? Why would they need Warwick and his guys to hijack the ship at all?

  Shit.

  There could be a whole other set of problems. Ones I’m sure Warwick has already considered.

  “Do we know who shipped the drugs?”

  Warwick sighs and runs a hand back through his hair while keeping his attention on the road. “Sort of. Preacher was able to do some research on the holding company attached to the crates.”

  Preacher?

  That must be the tall guy.

  Does he even notice he’s been dropping their names left and right?

  “He wasn’t able to trace it to a true owner yet, but he knows it came through the Dominican Republic and originated somewhere either in Central or South America.”

  I nod and watch the Wisconsin landscape whizz past us on the sides of the highway. Every program I’ve ever watched about drug smuggling flows through my memory. “Makes sense. That’s where the majority of the drug cartels are, right?”

  His shoulder rises and falls. “I don’t know a lot about the drug trade. No reason to. All I know is that a lot of people end up dead because of it.”

  I cringe at his words, and my heart aches for him. He lost his mom at such a young, impressionable age and then had a father who couldn’t deal. Watching his dad descend into an addiction, even if he wasn’t there for the drug part, must have been agonizing. I can sympathize after seeing what happened to Dad recently.

  Maybe I shouldn’t discount the potential that he did do something stupid. Look how easily Warwick got pulled into this life. While he seems to embrace it, seems to accept it as part of who he is now, I still don’t believe this was a choice. Not really.

  This man clearly has an intelligence off the charts and the kind of mind that belongs anywhere but on a damn pirate ship in the middle of the Great Lakes. Had he stayed in school, had he been able to finish his degree, where might he be? What might he have been able to accomplish?

  Something more than this. That much is sure.

  But considering “what ifs” never does any good. The situation is what it is.

  “When we get to the docks, this is what’s going to happen…” Warwick’s low, harsh words leave no room for argument. “We’re going to park outside. You’ll find out where the boat is docked and come tell me so I can inform the guys. You’ll go in and make sure none of your crew is around. If they are, come back out right away and try not to be seen. If the coast is clear, I want you to go check to see if the cargo is still on board. Then you’re coming back to let me know.”

  I nod my understanding. “Sounds like an easy enough plan.”

  One that shouldn’t be hard to fuck up.

  Theoretically.

  Yet, there are so many ways this could go wrong.

  “What if I run into security? If my crew alerted anyone, the place is going to be crawling with cops.”

  His hands tighten on the wheel. “We leave. We regroup. Maybe we come back at night when there will be fewer security officers, maybe a single guard.”

  He doesn’t have to say the words. It’s implied what will happen to that single guard if they have to come back to get the drugs later. It won’t end well for him.

  His dark eyes flick over to me. “You think you can handle it?”

  I let out a breath and nod. I’m not sure I can form words right now. My throat is constricting, and it’s getting harder and harder to suck air into my lungs.

  “Good. Because we don’t get a second take on this. One chance to not fuck this up. One chance for you. Don’t forget Cutter’s warning.”

  Like I needed the reminder.

  I glance at the clock on the dashboard and clear my throat. “Even if we can get what you need from the boat right when we arrive at the port, we’re not going to make Arturo’s deadline or the one you set for my return.”

  There’s just no way. With the water as churned up as it is right now and storms still rolling in, it will take half a day to get to Chicago. Warwick has to know that.

  He nods. “I know. Once we get the lay of the land, I have to call that fucker and update him on what’s happening.”

  “What about my crew? If they’re not here, and if you’re not releasing me until you get the drugs safely
to Arturo, then how do we keep them from calling the cops once that forty-eight hours elapses?”

  A muscle tics in his jaw and his knuckles whiten on the wheel. “We’ll figure that out when the time comes. Right now, my only focus is finding out if we can get the Marconis’ shit. If we can’t, none of this will matter anyway.”

  No. It won’t.

  Because they’ll be facing a death sentence.

  And I’ll be facing…only God knows.

  “Can I call my mom?”

  He glances over at me. “Now?”

  I nod, and tears burn my eyes. I fight back a sob. “I just…want to let her know I love her and I’m okay. Plus, if the crew did say anything to anyone, she would probably know by now, right?”

  He considers my request in silence for a moment then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone. “Don’t tell her anything. Pretend everything’s normal.”

  “Really?”

  His fingers brush mine as I take the phone. “Don’t make me regret this.”

  I dial her number with shaking hands and hold the phone to my ear. Rain pelts the windshield and the highway in front of us.

  “Hello?”

  “Mom?”

  “Grace?”

  “Yeah, it’s me, Mom.” I clear my throat and try to put on my best happy voice. “I just wanted to call and let you know we got into Milwaukee okay.”

  A sigh of relief carries through the line, and I bite back a sob.

  “Oh, good. I saw the weather reports and was worried. See, you had nothing to be concerned about. You did great for your first time. Your father would have been so proud.”

  I doubt that.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  She doesn’t know anything, which means the crew probably didn’t report it. Either that, or the authorities didn’t alert her because they’re setting some sort of trap.

  “Are you okay, honey? You sound strange.”

  I’m sure I do.