“Still certain you’re telling me the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Then no worries for you, right?” Sloan’s face was unreadable.
Aspen already had his phone out quietly telling someone on the other end to come pick us up and to bring clothes with them. He grabbed my elbow, and while I wondered what the hell the boss was going to do, Aspen was right—the last thing I needed right now was to piss Sloan off or embarrass him. I followed Aspen out of the restaurant, and less than five minutes later a red car slowed to a stop in front of us. Mickey McCorkell grinned as he threw the car in Park.
“Hey, lads,” he said cheerfully through his lowered window. “I was nearby, but we’ll have to stop for you to change. Wow, I heard you were there when it blew up. Tell me about it?” He didn’t stop talking as we got in the back.
“Be quiet and drive,” Aspen said.
Mickey shrank down and I felt bad for the guy.
“Buckle.”
“It hurts my chest right now,” I grumbled.
Aspen pursed his lips, and I wanted to glare at him, but it was weirdly nice he cared enough to mention basic safety—andhe’d called me love. I laid my hand near his, and he snatched it up. I smiled and glanced out the window as the car started moving, and even my stomach turning with the motion wasn’t enough to knock the happiness out of me. It didn’t take us long to get to a small apartment near the top of a rundown brownstone, where there was a stash of clothes.
“Why are we taking the time to do this?” I muttered, halfway through scrubbing the dirt off my face in a questionably clean bathroom sink.
“We can’t go back to the scene and poke around if we look like we were victims,” Aspen said. I caught sight of his strong chest in the mirror as he changed into a navy suit that looked like one of his because it fit perfectly. The scrape on his forehead had stopped bleeding and he’d put a Band-Aid over it. Mickey brought me a change that wasn’t quite as good a fit but would do—a tan suit that was baggy on me—and he handed me a brown leather bomber jacket that wasn’t my speed at all, but I took it without complaint.
About an hour and a half after we left the Bolshoi Room, we were back at the scene of the explosion, and Cillian had texted to say they were heading to Southampton and to meet them there when we were done. I was dying to know what the hell the boss was going to do with Sidorov. It seemed to me that maybe he hadn’t been part of the bombing, but I could see why everyone thought he did it. Hell, he might’ve done it.
With Aspen at my side, I walked toward orange traffic barricades that had been put up to block off the street outside of the blast radius. Clouds moved to blot out the sunshine overhead, and a bitter wind cut through my borrowed leather jacket. There was a flood of vehicles parked along the curb on both sides—ambulances, fire trucks, and utility trucks. As I studied the wreckage I noticed things I hadn’t earlier, like all the blown-out and cracked windows along the block. Nothing in the immediate vicinity had escaped unscathed, and even cars had been pushed over from the blast. I felt lucky to be alive the longer I stared at the mess and swallowed hard enough it hurt my throat. With all the rescue people and cops running around, it was like the entire city had tried to jam itself onto the streets surrounding the blast.
“There’s no way we’re getting closer than this,” I said, as we none-too-gently shoved past a couple of people with their cell phones out, so we could get to the front and stare down the street at the bombed-out hole. I gripped the edge of the cold barricade and it cut into my palm, hurting a little. I was surprised when Aspen reached over to take my hand, but I leaned against him and enjoyed his body heat. There were four black bags on the ground in front of the building, but that didn’t tell us much. I assumed by their shape and color there were bodies inside them.
“Hey—” I turned to ask the guy right behind me. “—who died?”
He was cute with rosy cheeks from the cold and a black beanie tugged down over his ears. He shrugged. “I just got here. Sorry, man. I live there.” He pointed at one of the buildings. “I wasn’t home earlier.”
“Two girls and a guy,” someone else nearby fired lazily at me as they scrolled through their phone.
I began flirting and talking with anyone who would meet my eye, and Aspen still held on to my hand. Eventually we found out there were actually three women and a man laid out in those bags. Aspen was staring at something overhead, though, not the crowd or the street, and he began to tug me away from the group of girls I’d been talking to.
“Bye!” I said, and they pouted at me as Aspen yanked harder. I laughed and waved, and they giggled.
“What’s up?” I asked.
Aspen didn’t say anything, just headed around the back of a nearby apartment building that wasn’t blocked off by the barricades. The concrete facade was a dingy gray with small, depressing windows, but it was taller than all the others around here and had an old wooden water tower on the roof. Shrugging to myself, I followed him. Down an alley he found a propped-open door with a plumber’s truck parked next to it, and we glanced around and peeked inside. The door led into a stairwell with unpainted gray cement walls, and we began to climb upward.
“What did you see?” I asked again.
“Not sure. There’s someone up there on the roof. Might be nothing.”
“But you think it’s something?”
Again he shrugged, but that was so Aspen—he wouldn’t make a bunch of shit up if he didn’t know what was going on. I kissed his hand, and he didn’t so much as falter, just kept trucking forward. He slowed down when I began to wheeze, which made me feel terrible. I shouldn’t need to catch my breath on some fucking stairs, but it was harder to breathe now than it had been this morning, and I rubbed at my chest.
“You okay?” He lowered his eyebrows and leaned closer to me.
I shrugged. “Lungs. Probably.”
He narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything until we found the exit that led out onto the roof. The door was probably normally locked, but someone had propped it open with a brick, and I was shocked when he didn’t immediately shove out into the open, but instead peeked outside. After a second, he went out and I followed him. It took me far too long to realize he was holding a gun in one hand as I tried to catch my breath.
“The dust and smoke earlier irritated everything,” I murmured.
