Page 43 of The Boss
“Arrogant,” Stellan said, trying on a smirk that didn’t fit his newface.
“Accurate,” Leif said. He let go. “Take him out of my bay,” he told Magnus. “Lose his phone.”
They dragged Stellan back to his own car and put him in the rear like a child who’d misbehaved at dinner. Leif stood in the noise that followed while Magnus’s crew finished the tidy part of a messy morning. Trucks boxed for impound. Men blindfolded and cuffed and sent to different rooms of the city to think about what loyalty felt like when it had a price. The river kept being the river.
He found Mariah again at the edge of the bay, arms folded, eyes on the water. He slid behind her, wrapped his arms aroundher waist, and drew her against him. She let herself fit, her back to his chest, her head tipping to his shoulder like her body remembered something from a different night and wanted itnow.
“Your brothers?” she asked softly.
“Running lanes,” he said. “By tonight, Stellan won’t have a crew he trusts.” He kissed the curve where her neck met her shoulder, slow. She shivered and pressed closer. “By tomorrow, your brother won’t have a river he can pretend belongs to him.”
“And after that?” she asked.
“After that, we talk to Cade.” She tensed and he tightened his hold. “Not to hand you to anyone. To put politics where they belong and blood where it fits. The Dantes need to hear what the Brand has done. Ineed answers about what it means when a mark crosses houses.” He set his palm over hers, his lion lined up with hers. Heat pulsed from both. “And I need the ledger to be the beginning of a conversation, not the end.”
She turned in his arms and looked up at him. “You don’t scare me,” she said. “You should. But you don’t.”
“Good,” he said. “I want you to fear everything that isn’t me.” He kissed her again, open, hungry, until Tomas cleared his throat very quietly from too close and Leif lifted his head without letting hergo.
“Boss,” Tomas said. “Message came to her phone while you were teaching manners. Unknown number.”
Leif caught the change in Mariah’s body, the way one part of her went cold while the rest stayed pressed warm to him. He took the device from Tomas, looked at the screen, and his smile wentthin.
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MINE.Below the words, alocation pin pulsed. VOSS & VINE. 8:00PM.
He handed the phone to her. She stared a long second and then looked up. No fear. Just the rage of someone who refuses to be owned.
“He’s not subtle,” shesaid.
Leif’s gaze sharpened. “He’s not stupid either. Apublic corner, awine bar, eight o’clock? That isn’t a meeting. That’s bait. He’s set a stage because he thinks he can draw us out where he has control waiting.”
“Then we spring the trap on him,” shesaid.
“He won’t be alive after,” Leif promised, and every man who heard it straightened.
He brushed his knuckles down Mariah’s cheek and let his hand settle at her throat for a breath, not squeezing, just sensing the fragile, furious life under his palm. “Together,” hesaid.
“Together,” she answered.
He dropped his hand, laced their fingers, and turned toward the light. The river slid on, indifferent. Leif wasn’t. He planned to make the water remember aname.
Chapter 13
MARIAH FELTthe room the way a fox feels a field—every sound sharpened inside her, every shadow a question.
Voss & Vine pretended to be safe. That was the point of expensive places. To convince you no one would bleed here. The lighting was soft and flattering, the walls paneled in wood that smelled faintly of citrus oil, the piano doing something breathy and French. Silver glinted, glasses chimed, laughter rose and fell. Normal. Pretty. Useless.
Leif sat beside her like calm in a suit, knees spread, one arm draped across the back of her chair so his fingers could rest at the curve of her shoulder. It wasn’t quite a claim. It was a promise. The lion branded in his palm lay against the wood of her chair, and the answering heat in her own mark pulsed back like a heartbeat. He’d kissed the corner of her mouth when they sat, quick, certain, aseal laid on skin. He’d told her she could bow out. He’d known she wouldn’t.
She sipped the wine she didn’t want and let her eyes go soft enough to pass for bored. Nearly everyone who mattered to Leif had drifted in, one by one, until they looked like a restaurant and not a perimeter. Acouple laughing near the bar. Amantoo interested in the piano’s sheet music. Abored pair at the window, one of whom was definitely not bored. The door guard had changed twice already. Magnus ghosted somewhere she couldn’t see, which meant he was behind her or above her, and either wasgood.
Her phone lay face down on her thigh. The message still burned in her head. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MINE. The pin marked this exact corner. Eight. The clock over the bar had slid past it with polite indifference. Rocco was late by three minutes, which told her he wasn’t alone.
“Last chance,” Leif said without looking at her, voice quiet enough to slide under the piano. “You walk out now, Idon’t fault you.”
“I’m not a parcel,” she said. “I’m a person.” She tipped her head until her temple met the tautness of his jaw for one ungoverned second, then straightened. “And I plan on being the last person in the room who isn’t dead or arrested.”
His mouth tilted, dangerous and pleased. “Good answer.”
