“And Goldie?”
“Paddleboarding.”
“I didn’t know she could paddleboard.”
“She can’t,” Danny says over a laugh, but I don’t join him, too stressed. Worried. I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy wait, but the fact we’re not on talking terms is making it worse. “Hey.” Danny nudges my knee with his, knocking my attention away from the door. “The challenges we’re facing now won’t be around forever.” Something tells me he’s not just talking about business. “Work, family, wives, kids.” Danny pulls on his cigarette and pouts, looking up at the ceiling and exhaling. “This is the rising, mate.” He blows smoke up into the air, and it rolls and swirls above us. “There’s only one thing that will stop us from staying on top once we’ve killed all the fuckers in our way.” He drops his eyes but not his head. “Hell hath no fury like my wife.” He smiles, and it’s sick. “She terrifies me more than anyone. Including you and Beau.”
“Beau terrifies you?” I ask over a laugh. I get it. She petrifies me. My laughter fades off, and Danny nods.
“If we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t need to be doing this. But we can’t play dead. And we can’t live a normal life.”
“And we can’t be without them,” I finish.
“Precisely.” He stands, pointing at me with his cigarette. “So let’s get the fuck on with rising and make sure we never fall, because that, my friend, is the closest we’re ever getting to normal.”
I get up and head to the door.
“She’ll be fine, James.”
“I know,” I say to myself. We both know Beau’s trained and capable in keeping her cool in the face of danger. We both also know she’s incapable of keeping emotion out of it since her mother died. She’s pissed off with me. She may not be showing it, but she’s hating on me—for constantly treating her like she’s glass. It’s in my nature where she’s concerned, and I can’t promise I will ever change, so we need to compromise. She’s more delicate than she allows the world to see, but I know her now. To her core, I know her.
She needs me.
And I sure as shit need her.
If not for each other, why the fuck are we going through this hell?
30
BEAU
I’m pretty sure Leon is stoned, because he won’t shut the hell up, rabbiting on at a guy who’s dressed in traditional tribal garb, popping question after question—where’s he from, does he like Caribbean food, has he been to Zambia, Congo, the Sahara?
Eventually, he lifts his shades, revealing eyes as black as his skin, and Leon pipes down. “Friendly,” he mutters as the guns are transferred from the boat to the empty skis.
“They’re not here to be friendly.” I wade toward the first ski, pull down the handlebars and press into the padded seat, putting my weight behind it until I hear the catch click into place. I take the rope that connects the first dummy jet ski to James’s jet ski and feel my way to the next. “A bit of help?”
Leon flashes the friendly black guy a smile and comes over to assist helping me to get all the skis closed again. The water is busy, boats crisscrossing constantly, but Chaka’s catamaran is concealing us from the open water while we move the goods. I can’t lie, my heart is going crazy in my chest, my eyes constantly scanning the space, both water and land.
“Are we done?” Leon asks as the final catch on the final ski at the end of the rope attached to his clicks into place.
“Done.” I face the five guys on the small speed boat. “Thanks.” I inwardly frown, wondering how I went from upcoming FBI agent to gun smuggler. The Enigma. That’s how. Him and a whole heap of corruption.
Mr. Friendly moves his shades back over his eyes. “Tell Black the next shipment will be ready next week.”
Great. We don’t have enough guns? “Aye, aye, captain,” I say quietly, retying my hair as I head back to my jet ski and Leon gets on his.
“Take it easy, okay?” he says, squeezing the throttle in demonstration. “Don’t jerk. We have a bit more weight going back.”
I nod and follow his instructions, my heartbeats starting to gain momentum as we chug farther out onto the water. “Have you had a joint today?” I ask.
“Yes, I’ve had a fucking joint today.” He reaches for his bandana and pushes it back into his wild hair. “Not just because I’m nervous as fucking shit, man.”
“Why else?” I ask. Keep talking. We look more casual if we’re chatting.
“Because, Beau, babe, if we get pulled by the Coast Guard, they’re smelling my weed before they’re seeing the guns.”
“Are you saying you’d go to prison to save Danny and James?”
He laughs hysterically, looking back at me. “I wouldn’t be saving the bosses. I’d be saving myself, because I’m a dead man if we don’t make it back to the boatyard with these guns.” He takes one hand off the handlebars, relaxed. Good for him. I should have asked him for a puff of his joint. “It’s all right for you,” he says. “They won’t kill you, will they?”
Don’t be so sure. “They won’t kill you either. They like you.”
“They do?”
“They only have people they like work for them.” We stick to the coastline, moving at a reasonable speed. I can see the curve in the cove that’ll take us back into the bay. As soon as we’re around it, we’ll be able to see the boatyard. My heart slows for the first time, my muscles softening, and I sink into the padded seat of James’s ski. The water twinkles at me, the sun seeping through the rubber of my suit, warming me. It’s peaceful out here, despite the busy water today. But the Coast Guard seems to be keeping their distance, getting on with their training, because no one in their right mind would smuggle a small arsenal into the country in plain sight.
Not for the first time, I wonder why I’m doing this. And not for the first time, I can’t say with my hand on my heart that I’m not trying to prove to James that I’m not made of glass.
Beep, beep!
I startle and look back, seeing a boat tailing us. A Coast Guard boat. “Fuck,” Leon hisses, reaching into his suit and pulling out a small bag.
“What are you doing?” My galloping heart is back.
“I told you.” He pulls out a joint and a lighter.
“Leon, no!” I look back at the boat, waving an arm in the air, acknowledging them. “Hey!” I call, easy-breezy, my mind racing, trying to think of another way out of this. I will not let him go down for possession. “Can I help you?”
“You mind telling me what you’re doing, ma’am?”
I look at Leon. “I’m warning you,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’ll kill you myself if you light that joint.”
“What the hell else do you suggest?” He looks back, worried.
“Just give me a minute.” I stand in the seat, shading my eyes with my hand as I turn my shoulders and look back. “Just towing the new skis from storage for the boss, sir.”