And my breath hitches in my throat. A bolt of pain lancing my sternum. Not due to the threat, but most definitely a result of the precarious situation I find myself in.
Confusion. Terror. Helplessness. It all whizzes through me as mutterings and orders filter through the comm. But instead of answering or firing, I adjust the camera on my back to be certain it doesn’t pick anything up on a wide angle.
The fluidity of movement. The acrobatics used to vault from one roof to the next. The thatch of blue hair sticking out of a ski mask.
The one who’s sheltered my secrets, held my pain, and willingly unraveled with me.
Jax.
What the hell was he doing in there?
“Goddammit. Talk to us, Moonshine,” Liam demands,beckoning my attention at the same time I catch sight of Ty emerging over the peaked roof, aglow in the moonlight and bright white bulbs emanating from the interior.
“You scared the fuck out of me, baby,” he snipes in a low rumble that is barely more than a whisper drifting into the dry, stagnant air. “What the hell happened?”
I glance around, verifying that Jax is gone. There’s no sign of him, and suddenly, I’m wondering if I fabricated his presence.
Was that him?Fuck, I can’t be sure. It doesn’t make sense. He was at La Lune Noire yesterday when I talked to him—or so I thought. And I was lost in the memory of my mother while we were waiting. Maybe I imagined it. Not the man, but the resemblance.
Choking back the lump lodged at the base of my throat and dismissing my rocketing pulse, I set my gaze on my seriously unhinged husband. “Sorry,” I breathe. “I … he was here, and then he vanished.”
His eyes narrow, tiny creases at the corner peeking through the holes of his mask that exclaim he suspects something more lies beneath my facile report. “You’re okay?”
I nod, grateful he can’t see all the color drained from my face. “Let’s do this.”
After a beat of hesitation, he casually tilts his head, as if we aren’t in the middle of some twisted plight to obliterate an unknown business, and asks, “Theme song?”
A tentative smile crests my lips as I spill without a second thought, “ ‘On The Run’ by Ashes & Arrows.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know that one.”
“Don’t need to. Take it at face value.” That’s as close as it’s going to get to me telling him I saw something I shouldn’t have or didn’t want to. Or I don’t even fucking know. Something that has me wondering if we should bolt from whatever the hell this is.
He bobs his head, his eyes floating over me, both of us ignoring the incessant commands issued by Liam and Gage to get our asses in gear.
“I’ve got you. True north,” he says before returning to hispost, and I know that statement is woven with impossible promises. We’re all bound and gagged and grasping at flimsy threads of hope. Freedom has never been a greater illusion.
“Am I good to drop, boys?” I ask into the comm.
“All clear,” Gage responds. “Let’s get this done. In and out.”
With his go-ahead, I strap my gun back on, pull up the cam and pin it back onto my chest, slink through the open skylight, and shimmy down the I-beam into the warehouse full of workers. Since the skylight hovers over a storage area, I have plenty of crates and skids of boxes to stow away behind while I get my bearings.
“Okay, Moonshine,” Liam begins. “It’s wide open to your first mark. Quick and quiet.”
Moving my backpack onto my chest so it rests below the body cam, I unzip it and skulk through the shadows to the first designated I-beam. It’s swift work, adhering the charge and securing it with the ratchet strap.
After that, I find my rhythm, modulate my breathing, and wipe the vision of blue hair from my mind to procure a serene cadence.
Adhere. Strap. Ratchet. Move.
Two down. Again.
Adhere. Strap. Ratchet. Move.
Three down. Again.
Adhere. Strap. Ratchet. Move.
