There was only one thing that was better than waking up with Aaron in my arms: Aaron smiling up at me as he woke up and snuggled even closer.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said sleepily.
“Good morning to you, too. Forgot my name already, eh?” I teased, but the slight widening of his eyes made me realize he’d taken me seriously. “I’m just messing with you.”
He flashed me a smile. “I know.” He was such a liar. His phone rang, and I groaned because I had a feeling I’d lose my Aaron as soon as he put that cold mask he usually wore back on his beautiful face.
“What?” Aaron’s brow furrowed as he listened to something that to me sounded like a bunch of gibberish, or better said, a bunch of confusing words yelled out by an angry man. His father, I presumed. Stretching out, I yawned, and then got to my feet. I could use a bathroom break while Aaron was on the phone.
When I came back, Aaron was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands.
“Did you by any chance tell your family to go after those three guys who were supposed to deliver the new drug?” He lifted his head, his eyes inquiring.
“You read the message.”
He just gave me a long look.
“Maybe. I don’t know what they concluded, but I didn’t give them any names. Why?” I folded my arms.
“My father just called me and revealed that one of his trusted delivery guys, James, is missing, and that the office of another, Pedro, was ransacked. We know who’s responsible for the latter, but what happened to the other guy? Maybe James heard about Pedro, so he decided it was all too risky and ran away, which is a bit unlikely, because that would seriously piss off my father, and my father would never, ever hire a person who would easily betray him or get spooked just like that for something so important. So what happened? Was he kidnapped? My father thinks your family took him. He believes they’ll torture James for information.” He arched an eyebrow at me.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “But my family wants to stop your father from getting that drug onto the market and they’ll do anything to achieve that. If you’re asking me if they could be behind that, then I’d say yeah, but aside from having sent them that message, I can’t really contact them. Unless you want to let me go or let me call them.”
“You know I can’t let you do that. You could destroy me.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Really? Oh, yeah, right, that thing we did last night... totally destructive.”
He rolled his eyes and looked down at his hands. “My father still refuses to let me in on his plan, despite losing two of his men.”
“Wait, you didn’t say Pedro backed out or anything.” I didn’t remember him saying anything other than Pedro’s office, house, or whatever was ransacked. “Why would...? You said you didn’t find anything in his office.”
“We didn’t find anything, but Marco... He went back to question Pedro, and that didn’t go over well for Pedro. My father picked out well. The guy didn’t talk.”
“What do you mean by that? Is he dead?”
“No. Just incapacitated. Won’t be able to recognize Marco as his attacker, though.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered. “That means we only have one option. We’re going after the third guy.”
“Yeah. My father thinks no one figured Santini out, so he’ll be the one in charge of delivering everything.”
“Alone?” Getting to one guy would be an easy job, but things were never that simple.
“No. He has men working for him. But they might not know what they’ll be delivering. They might think it’s the regular product.”
“How are we going to know when the delivery is happening?”
“We’ll have to watch him,” Aaron said, intertwining his fingers. “Marco is already there. He’ll notify us if he notices any of the trucks moving.”
“What if he mixes it up with the regular product and sends multiple trucks?” My father used to send multiple trucks all the time, and usually only one had the actual product in it. And sometimes, the product was divided into two shipments, so if one truck got busted or something happened to it, he’d still have one shipment left to sell.
“He could. That’s why we have to find a way to closely monitor him. But the new drug will have to be marked somehow because my father won’t just sell it for a regular price, and since it has a high risk of causing death, it’ll have to be distributed very carefully.”
I rubbed my face. “So I guess lower quantities will be sold until people get super addicted, and then he’ll charge them a fortune for more, and when people start dying, it’ll be too late, and it’s not like he’ll have to give refunds.”
“From what little info we’ve got, Marco and I concluded it takes one small dose to get people so addicted they’ll do anything to get more. Even if they all die from the second dose, it would still bring in a whole lot of money, and by the time people figure out what’s going on... My father will rake in all the money, possibly blame someone else for delivering the faulty drug, and go back to selling regular shit. Except after all that, he’ll have enough money to finally confront your family once and for all.”
“We have to stop that.” I still had no idea what Aaron intended to do once he got to the drug. What if his father’s plan was actually his plan but with minor adjustments? Like, once he stole the drug from his father, he’d sell it and use the money to take over his father’s business. It would be nice to think that he’d do the right thing and just destroy the drug, thus ruining his father’s investment and dealing him a huge blow, but even if the adorable and good Aaron sometimes peeked out from under that cold mask, that didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of anything to get what he wanted. The only question was what he’d choose.
“We will. Get ready.” Aaron stood up. “We have work to do.”
***
“There are seven trucks,” I said incredulously. Marco, Aaron, and I were huddled in the bushes that surrounded the chicken farm where Santini was storing his shipments. Eggs, drugs... It was all the same to him, I supposed. It was still broad daylight, so there were fewer guards around. “Seven,” I repeated as Aaron plucked a leaf out of my hair.
“I can see that,” Aaron said, grinding his teeth together.
“What are we going to do?” Marco asked. “Pick one and pray it’s the right one? Pick two?”
“We aren’t going to pick anything.” Aaron sighed. “We’ll have to get closer and inspect the trucks.”
“Are you crazy?” I gaped at him. Even though there were plenty of trees and bushes around the farm, there wasn’t anywhere to hide once we went past the wire fence, and the trucks were out in the open. For all we knew, there were actual eggs in them. Armed guards could come at any time, so the chance no one would see us was tiny, and there were only three of us. If we were attacked, we’d have no way of defending ourselves.
“We don’t have a choice,” Aaron hissed.
“How do you even know they’ll be shipping the drug today? What if they don’t even have it yet?” Marco asked.
“I know because my father won’t risk losing the last guy he’s got. He knows the Ferraras are onto him, and if the guy they kidnapped talks, my father will be in trouble. It’s better for him to proceed with the plan as soon as possible, even if the drug isn’t quite ready yet. It won’t matter to him. Once he delivers it where he wants it, he’ll spread it out, and then it’ll be impossible to stop him from distributing,” Aaron said.
Marco’s face fell. “That means we have to check the trucks.”
“We do,” Aaron said.
“Do we even know what we’re looking for? I’m not going to taste that drug to figure it out,” I said.
“I don’t know what it looks like, but anything with strange markings on the package could be it.” Aaron pressed his lips into a tight line.
“So if it’s not an egg and it has a symbol on the package, then it’s probably our drug,” Marco said. “But there has to be a shitload of packages. How are we supposed to check them all? If a small package is hidden under a lot of eggs, we’re not even going to find it in time.”
“He’s right. We can’t do this,” I said, facing Aaron. “Can’t you just call the rest of your men and say you think something suspicious is going on? Maybe that you were checking everyone to make sure my family didn’t attack more of your father’s men, and you just happened to be here and...”
“No,” Aaron said quickly. “The guards have shifts, right?” he asked Marco, who nodded. “Did you notice a pattern? Any particular hour when they just stay inside or leave a few guards near the trucks while the rest are asleep?”
“Are you sure they won’t move it sooner?” I asked. “If they want to make sure the drug is delivered quickly...”
“No, it has to arrive with other shipments or it’ll be suspicious. My father only does this on specific days, and he won’t want to draw attention, so it’ll have to be tomorrow,” Aaron said with all the certainty in the world.
“Last night, four guards were moving around the trucks the whole night. The rest were all in the house or in that big garage. There was no light in the windows,” Marco said.
“Okay, then we should find a way to incapacitate the guards from afar and get in the trucks. We can flip every single box inside. Won’t matter. It’ll be quicker that way,” Aaron said. “We just need gloves. Don’t want any prints on anything.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Marco bumped his fists together.
“Let’s get ready,” Aaron said. I was so not looking forward to being a part of a potentially very stupid and dangerous plan again.
“Wait, if we find the drug, then what?” I asked cautiously.
“We’ll deal with it,” Aaron simply said, which meant nothing.
“How? Are you going to steal the truck?” I was stalling, not only because I was reluctant to do this, but also because a part of me was afraid of what would happen if Aaron finally got what he wanted. I wasn’t quite ready to let go of whatever it was that we had and see it changed into something else. If he used me as a bargaining chip, I’d understand, but it would hurt like hell. And if I tried to run away... I kind of wasn’t ready for that either. Sometimes I hated myself. If I had any healthy brain cells left in my head, I’d flee tonight. There were only three of us, and we’d have to separate to check all the trucks. I could easily slip away. Or maybe even find the drug and destroy it before anyone noticed. Yeah, I could...
“Don’t move!” someone shouted, and the three of us froze. Aaron and Marco reached for their guns, but it was too late. A group of armed men seemed to appear out of nowhere from behind the trees. Aaron cursed under his breath. Marco had been sure the guards weren’t checking the area around the farm. We must have tripped some kind of an alarm in the bushes. Shit. One call to Aaron’s father and we were all screwed.
“Hands up!” A man with short black hair, dark eyes, and a mustache stepped forward, his gun pointed at us. The others circled us, not giving us a chance to escape. There were at least eight of them that I could see. We all slowly raised our hands, and three men lowered their guns and patted us for weapons. They took Aaron’s and Marco’s guns and knives, and the guy patting me down lingered way too long on my breasts, his breath reeking of alcohol and smoke. My hands were zipped behind my back, and one of the men grabbed me by the arm.
“Walk!” he barked, and we were led toward the farm. Before I was shoved through the door of the dark garage, I glanced up at the sky, wondering if we were going to make it out of here alive.