I walk out before the shot echoes.
***
Pier seven smells like dead fish and diesel fuel. The warehouse Vaska identified sits at the end of a row of abandoned buildings, rusted metal and broken windows. A single light burns inside.
Sloppy. No security.
The warehouse door isn’t even locked. Inside, I find Fuentes sitting at a card table. Looks like poker drawn. Tiny redhead and another man, I presume, Jace, flank his sides They look up when I enter, hands already moving toward weapons.
“I wouldn’t,” I say.
My voice cuts through the space like a blade. All three freeze.
Fuentes recovers first. He’s younger than I expected.
Hell, they all are.
“Korsakov,” he says carefully.
“Ayla Smith, where is she?”
His expression doesn’t change, but I catch the micro-adjustment in his posture. Recognition.
“Don’t know her,” he says.
They’re too young.
Too thin.
This doesn’t look like a setup.
But he lies.
I pull my gun, aim it at his head. “Try again.”
“Whoa, whoa—” the tiny redhead stands, hands up and blocks my target.
My eyes stay focused on Fuentes.
“Hi, I’m Kay, sorry for Ricky, he’s…protective,” her hands shake. “This is Jace.”
She gestures toward the other man who is staring daggers at me.
“We don’t know where Ayla is, but if you’re looking for her it must be important. Is—is she in trouble?”
I lower the gun toward her. She gasps.
Jace Stands.
“Don’t,” I bark at him, eyes on Kay.
I nod at her, “Speak. Who are you to Ayla?”
“Her friends. We’re all runaways. My father was an abusive ass who snuck into my room nightly,” My grip tightens on the gun. “Jace’s old man would beat the shit out of him and Ricky was in and out of foster care. We’re just like her, no family—so we made our own.”
Family.
The word hits harder than it should.
