He squeezed my hands, then leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. “Don’t worry,” he said again. “I just need to be inside. With Maddox. Okay?”
He turned, releasing my hands and hurrying across the road. I watched, my lip trembling, as he followed Maddox’s steps into the building, his hips swaying as he slid through the door. For a moment I stood there, alone in the middle of the street, listening to the distant sounds of trucks passing. When my heart kept thumping in my chest and I started to feel like I was about to panic, I did the only thing that made sense.
I rushed to my guys.
The old metal door creaked when I pulled it open, and I saw a single light on at the end of the dark hallway inside. I sucked in a deep breath of air, then stepped inside. “Gunner,” I whispered. “Gunner! Come back out now!”
“Hey!’ he whispered sharply, appearing from the shadows in front of me. “I’m right here!”
I pointed down the hall. “Why aren’t you with Maddox?” I hissed.
His eyes flashed in the dim light, and I was struck all over by how handsome he looked. “Come look at this,” he said. “Look what I found.”
Gunner had the light on his cell phone pointed into one of the small offices. I could tell from the plastic card stuck in the lock that he had found his own way to break in, just like Maddox had down the hall. I followed the circle of light made by his phone, gasping when I saw what it landed on.
Gunner had opened a small briefcase on the table. Shoved inside were stacks of cash, with a very large plastic bag of white powder laying on top of the bills.
“What the hell!” I whispered. “Gunner! We shouldn’t be here!”
“The guys who own your building are running drugs, too!” he said. “We have to tell Maddox!”
“What!” Maddox announced suddenly. His body blocked the doorway, and unlike us, he wasn’t whispering. “What are you doing in here?”
Gunner gestured to the briefcase again. “I found this!” he said, so excited he seemed to have forgotten he broke Maddox’s rules. “I found something we can use.”
“Fuck,” Maddox growled, a stack of manila folders tucked under his arm. “Fuck!”
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry that we came inside. We shouldn’t have done that, Maddox.” With everything going on, for some reason, the only thing I was worried about was making him angry. I knew what it looked like when I impressed him, and I did not want to see his face when he was disappointed in me.
Maddox crossed over, flinging the briefcase shut. “Where did you find this?” he asked.
Gunner pointed behind the desk. “It was just sitting there,” he said softly.
“Put it back exactly as you found it,” Maddox commanded. “If there’s no one on lookout, we have to get out of here immediately.”
Gunner fumbled with the suitcase for a minute, shoving it back behind the desk. When he was done, Maddox grabbed us by the elbows, hurrying us outside. He kept cursing under his breath, scolding himself for making the wrong call. When he kicked the door to the outside open, the sunlight made me flinch.
“Thank god,” Maddox said. “No one.”
He hurried us across the street, not saying a word. I hopped into the middle seat, and Gunner started the truck up. We caught each other’s eyes for just a minute. Gunner looked tense, like he had really messed up.
We drove in silence, the air thick with tension. Maddox kept grinding his jaw and tapping his knuckles on the window. I felt sweat pouring down my neck, and it took all my strength not to start hyperventilating.
Gunner pulled onto the highway, speeding down an incline. Finally, he broke through the silence. “Maddox, I want you to know—”
“Wait,” Maddox said sharply. “Drive to the Steel Rose. It’s too risky to go straight to your place. We’ll talk at the bar.”
I felt horrible on the drive. I failed Maddox, and I failed Gunner, too. I should have stopped him from going inside, and now Maddox was realizing that Gunner and I weren’t the men he thought we were. My insides were ripping with guilt, but all I could do was sit there, biting my lip and waiting.
When we entered the bar, Maddox pointed at a table in the back. He ordered himself a beer from the tattooed man working while Gunner and I sat there, anxiously holding hands and waiting for him.
“Fuck,” Gunner said. “I screwed it up.”
I squeezed his hand, but before I had a chance to say anything, Maddox joined us again. He took a deep gulp from his mug of beer, and when he lowered it, there were droplets of foam on his stubble.
“You’re damn lucky my uncle doesn’t bother with security cameras,” he said flatly.
I breathed out a sigh, relieved just to hear his voice. “No one saw us,” I said.
