Page 76 of Lucky Strike

There are obviously things he’s not telling me, but I’m not going to squeeze him for info. Shrugging, I glance around. “I guess that’s why we’re out walking by ourselves, huh.” Terry and Mitch went home earlier. I’ve gotten used to having them tail Liam and me on our walks, so this feels different.

Lucky pats his waist. “You don’t need anybody out here but me.”

“And what, your gun?” I whisper, scandalized by the suggestion of one beneath his shirt.

He looks at me, amused. “You didn’t know I carried?”

“No!” My face heats as I consider my naiveté against the reality of Lucky’s life. “I guess I never really thought about it.”

A hint of regret passes over his face, followed by that familiar, resolute jut of his chin. “That was how I wanted it to be. But now you know.”

Maybe we’ve both been naïve, then. Me, not considering the implications of his lifestyle, and him, believing he could keep me in the dark about it forever.

“You’ll have to tell me eventually.” I flutter my fingers at Liam, who beams back at me as he sticks flowers in Shelby’s harness.

“Tell you what?”

“Everything.”

He hums softly.

“Otherwise, whatever this thing is? This thing we’re doing?” I motion between the two of us. “Is pointless.”

“What do you mean?” he murmurs, adjusting the retractable leash so that Bacon can investigate, and then pee on, the trunk of a small tree.

A current of nerves surges through me, but I decide to say what’s on my mind. We live in the same house. We’ve slept together, for God’s sake. “Intimacy dies without vulnerability. Relationships die.”

“Is that what this is?” His lips tug into a half-smile. “A relationship?”

I side-eye him. “It’s something.”

Lucky hooks his pinkie through mine for a second, eyes twinkling as he stares at me. The way he looks at me when we’re in bed is one thing, but this is different. It’s fondness. Affection.

Bacon barks at a dog and his human across the street. Liam jogs over with a yellow wildflower, which he gives to me. “Do you like this one, Bria?”

He’s been giving me flowers ever since the peonies at the beach. Nodding, I take it and put it behind my ear. “I love it.”

20.Lucky

Now

After weeks of quiet, the Sokolovs made their move late last night—a robbery at Heath Murphy’s bar, Benny’s, when they were closing up. According to Heath’s accountant, Jack, they took thirty thousand dollars from the safe in the office and roughed up a couple of employees.

Those employees said the guys were dressed in hoodies and masks, but one guy had a black ace of spades tattoo on his hand. Not hard to put two and two together; that’s the Sokolovs’ symbol. We’ve always left each other alone, so the sudden attack is baffling. Coupled with the incident down at the docks and enlisting those Blades, it’s like they’re deliberately provoking us. Is this all part of their plan to take Saoirse down? To be kings of Boston? Needless to say, Heath’s been on the warpath, promising vengeance and installing extra manpower at both Benny’s locations.

“Let us know what we can do,” Dad tells him on a conference call this morning with Saoirse leadership.

“I need you to help us bring these fuckers down,” rants Heath. “I told you shit like this was gonna start happening, didn’t I?”

Not long after, Tristan and I get texts from Johnny down at ConleyTerminal. A new security company just moved into a vacant office, apparently having won the contract with Conley. Johnny didn’t think too much of it until he noticed some of the new security guards lurking around incoming shipments.

I’m not too worried, though. Kelly Logistics hasn’t sent guns through Conley since we discovered the Sokolovs’ ploy with the Blades. We’ve been focusing on our legitimate contracts, small businesses and even the local government. Most recently we were hired by a non-profit to move emergency supplies to earthquake victims in Indonesia.

Still, Johnny’s been keeping an eye on the new guards, sending me footage from our surveillance cameras. I can’t help but wonder if everything’s connected—it’s weird that Conley got a new “security company” right after the Sokolovs set up shop. It might be nothing, of course, but if someone fucks around, we’re gonna find out. Few people know that we keep a skeleton crew there at night, run by Johnny, or that we have our own cameras installed in addition to the ones provided by Conley.

As soon as we get back from Cape Cod, I drop Bria and Liam home then pick up Tristan. We drive over to Conley and meet with Johnny so we can review the rest of the footage from the past few weeks. Johnny excels at surveillance, but it never hurts to have an extra set of eyes reviewing small details that might’ve been missed. And sure enough, we find something.

“Wait,” I say, pointing at a security guard doing his rounds a week back. “Can you zoom in?”

---