“Who’d Cheyenne give us up to? Marcus or Alders?”
“They’re probably one and the same at this point,” Cole said. “It doesn’t matter, though. We need to go get our forgery, now.”
He was right. They still needed the fake Puffin to get a meeting with Alders. Hopefully Cheyenne had actually bothered to make it instead of hedging her bets and banking on them being taken out.
“I don’t get it,” Will said as he got dressed. “If she’d waited a few more hours she’d have had half a million dollars instead of a tenth that. Why act now?”
“Maybe someone forced her hand,” Cole replied, buttoning his shirt. “We’ll find out soon enough.” He glanced at Will. “Carefully, though.”
“Of course.”
It wouldn’t do to fuck up this close to getting what they needed.
CHAPTER 18
Their cab dropped them off two blocks away from Cheyenne’s studio. Cole paid him in cash, and as the car drove off into the early morning darkness, Cole sent a text to their insurance policy.
Are you where you need to be?
Desiree
JFC, I’m getting there. I can’t teleport, you know.
Jansen
Fuck you, Cole.
Vanessa
You owe us so big after this, Dalton. (middle finger emoji)
Cole snorted. No, they hadn’t been thrilled about helping—especially Jansen and Vanessa—but they were the best motley crew he’d been able to throw together on a literal moment’s notice.
“Think they’ll show?” Will asked.
“Hopefully.” Cole pocketed his phone. “Hopefully we won’t need them.”
Will grimaced, skepticism written all over the shadows in his face. “Let’s hope.”
Cole studied him. “You still want to go through with it?”
“Of course.” Will fidgeted. “But if Cheyenne’s turned on us and has people ransacking our room—I mean, I’ve just got a bad gut feeling about it. Like if we don’t run for the hills this time, it’s going to bite us in the ass.”
“Like we’re going to get killed.”
“Or something almost equally unpleasant, yes.”
Cole didn’t like that Will had the same bad feeling he did. They should probably listen to it and get the fuck out of New York, but then what? Just run again when someone else caught up with them? It was time toendthis thing, for fuck’s sake.
“Well, let’s get in there and get this done.” He started walking toward an alley. “The longer we wait, the more time Cheyenne has to get backup.”
“And the more timeourbackup has to arrive,” Will muttered.
There was that.
They followed the alley, then came around the rear of Cheyenne’s building. He didn’t like that there were lights on in her studio floor. It waspossibleshe was burning the midnight oil to earn her half a million dollars. Given the men who’d been ransacking his and Will’s hotel room half an hour ago, though, Cole was dubious.
With about a hundred feet between them and the building’s rear entrance, Cole halted Will with a hand on his chest. To his credit, Will didn’t object and didn’t question him. He didn’t even make any snarky comments, which was nice, but it also unnerving. When Will understood that it wasn’t the time orplace to be a smart mouth, that meant things had truly gone to shit.
