CHAPTER ONE
Angel
THE DAY BEFORE Halloween I paced my office, trying to figure out how to make a better bomb. I needed to widen the radius of its electromagnetic pulse blast without increasing its pocket-sized dimensions. I palmed the device, once again working through the equation in my head. I had to be missing something.
A figure darkened my doorway. "Angel, we're gonna be late," Bones nagged.
My best friend, bodyguard, and schedule keeper stood just under six feet tall, inches shorter than me, but with a build that dissuaded muggers and a scowl that forced hardened criminals to drop their gaze and haul ass to the other side of the street. Smartly dressed in a suit that screamed "funeral director" or some other occupation paid to put people six feet under, his real name was Franco Leone, but I'd nicknamed him Bones in fourth grade when he shattered the wrist of an aspiring bully who'd shoved me against my locker. The nickname stuck, and so did our friendship. Nobody had my back like Bones.
"I know. I know. One more minute."
"The big man's gonna fuckin' ice us if we're late. You know how important this drop is."
"The drop's at three, right?"
He nodded.
I glanced at my watch. "Then don't worry about it. We got plenty of time." It was too early for rush hour, and little things like traffic weren't a big deal for my family. Our technical guru had the city wired and controlled the lights from the comfort of his hidden lair.
"Plenty of time? Aren't you forgetting something?" Bones gestured toward my body.
I followed his gaze and swore. T-shirt, jeans, sneakers; I needed to change and had forgotten to bring a suit. We'd have to stop by the condo, which would add another twenty minutes to our commute. Dropping the device on my desk, I ran for the exit.
"Angel." Bones's tone held laughter, causing me to stop and look at him. He grinned and whipped out a garment bag he'd been hiding behind his back. "Who the fuck's got your back?"
See? That's why he's the best. "You're the shit, Bones," I said, taking the suit. "Best goddamn butler I ever had."
Scowling at the backhanded compliment, he flipped me off.
I hurried back into my office and changed. Once I'd donned the family-approved wiseguy apparel, Bones and I rode the elevator up to the ground floor, emerging into the busy plastics manufacturing plant that served as a front for my father's technical (weapons and war gear) development business. None of the legit employees so much as glanced our way as we jogged toward the garage.
"Keys?" I asked.
He tossed them to me. "She's all gassed up."
I climbed behind the wheel of my black and silver Hummer H5 with tinted bullet-resistant glass and tires designed to resist deflation when punctured, glancing over my shoulder into the backseat. Blankets hid the machine guns we'd be delivering.
"Thanks for making the pickup. I'm close to figuring out a way to keep the--"
"You're close to making us fuckin' late, is what you're close to." Bones tapped the clock on the dashboard. "Twenty-three minutes. I'm calling Tech."
I nodded and slammed the Hummer into reverse. As we pulled away from the building, Bones spoke a code and the dashboard screen came to life. The screen blinked, requiring another password. Bones rattled off a series of numbers and then placed his thumb in the center of the box.
The face of a man I'd known for years, but had never met in person, appeared. "We're secure, Bones, how can I help you?" Tech asked. Nobody but my father knew the real name of the head of the technical department. To the rest of us, Tech was the autonomous human version of a digital personal assistant and knowledge navigator.
"We need a clear route from Plant A to Drop..." Bones pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and scanned it before adding, "Charlie-four-niner-alpha."
Everyone who worked for my father spoke in codes that changed frequently, and were issued on an as-needed basis. Bones--for all his strengths--had one weakness... he couldn't memorize the damn codes. He was one of the few people Father allowed to write them down, and Bones guarded his codes like they were a matter of life and death, which, essentially, they were.
"Got it," Tech replied. "I'm sending the navigation now. Everything's covered."
Confident Tech had control of the lights and eyes on the cops, I stomped on the gas and maneuvered through traffic. Lights turned green before we reached them and once we cleared the downtown congestion, the Hummer ate up the distance between us and the little blinking light marking our destination on the screen. We were less than a mile from the drop point when Tech's face reappeared on the screen.
"You have incoming. Blue. Next light," he said, before disappearing.
Startled, I took my foot off the gas and hit the brakes.
Too late. A siren blared to life, and I'd only slowed to eighty in the sixty-mile-per-hour zone.
