"Shit."
Sin felt as much as heard the word pass her.
It wasn't like being out with Lee. Nick was lighter, willing to swear because he stepped in an icy puddle of mud just under the window to the bar. Lee wouldn't have noticed.
But Nick was who she had and though he was normally good, he seemed distracted tonight.
"Get your head in this." She hissed at him under her voice. Ironically, whispers carried farther than normal vocal tones, and Sin knew not to give away anything she didn't have to.
A nod, and Nick literally straightened up.
There were no windows into the lower level of the closed bar. Multiple bolts on each door made picking their way in time consuming. A window was the fastest method, if the most obvious.
They brought a lightweight foldable ladder, and positioned it under the window. Sin kept watch as Nick stood atop the ladder and pried the wood before holding an old baby blanket over the glass. He then smashed it with his elbow, the blanket both protecting him and muffling the noise.
Sin was on lookout and, given the neighborhood, it seemed lonely work. A good place to store a prisoner.
She'd brought Nick back here, thinking this was the best of the four places Gilligan had gone to. His car remained at the rental house, which was a good indicator that he was home, though not proof. With Lee on her mind, she'd bumped the timescale.
They had no idea what was on the other side. Unable to see in, they were unable to predict. What Sin could tell was that something of value was inside.
Though all the windows were boarded, some of the boards were new. Someone had fought down the telltale signs of recent activity, and the fact that someone had gone to the trouble to replace the broken boards without looking like they had done it, told an important story. One that had drawn her here tonight.
She heard Nick's breath escape him as the window came loose of its moorings, pushing inward and revealing nothing of value. He nodded down to her and with minimal noise climbed inside, using the blanket to cover the jagged edges of broken glass.
Sin followed him up and into a darkened back room. Old, scuffed wood floors creaked softly under their feet, a ceiling fan hung unmoving over their heads, and in the faint light she could see a doorway ahead of her.
With a nod, she pulled a Springfield from her holster and slipped a lone kama from its moorings along her leg. Long range and close range, she was ready as she led Nick through the door.
The darkness closed around them and, as much as she wanted to run through the place, checking behind every door and around every corner, Sin's discipline held her rigidly in check. She was no good to Lee if she was caught. It was the only thought that was keeping her sane at this point.
Standing still, she let her eyes adjust for a moment, then pulled out night vision goggles, motioning Nick to do the same. They couldn't wear them on the way into the building. In this neighborhood, robbery didn't seem like that big a deal. But robbers with NVGs? That would earn a call to someone . . . and Sin didn't know who.
The world around her narrowed to a strip of information ringed in green. The edge of a table in the next room popped into relief and a set of doors leading off the front room to various locations gave her information. She walked through the kitchen, then leaned over and blew across the stove top. A puff of dust revealed that the area had not been touched in some time. Had she touched it, she would have left information that she had been there, that she had been checking things out.
The floor told another story. A path had been worn from the front door through the room out the second door to their left. Sin motioned to Nick, who pointed to the table.
Though most of it bore the same dust as the stove, the corner nearest them showed evidence that something had been set there recently. It also said that whoever had made the marks didn't have any real concern about people finding it.
She loosely followed the path along the floor, but she checked through every doorway before continuing on. Nick stayed at her back, giving them a three-sixty fighting radius should it turn out they weren't alone.
But all measures seemed to indicate that they were. There were no stray noises, and Sin listened deep into the corners. There were no movements at the corner of her vision. While trying to dart behind her would be monumentally stupid, some people were just that dumb. However, she didn't think the Mechanic was, and she doubted anyone who worked for or with him would be either.
It took so long to make it to the doorway they needed, and she almost laughed when they got there. She and Nick both had been trained by the blue to take down doors, make safe entry. Before that, she had been only relatively safe. When she was an officer she’d learned what it took to make the safest breach possible.
Anyone who looked would see the classic pair of cops bracketing the closed door using the hand signals learned at the academy. The only thing out of place was clothing—dark and with no identifying marks at all it screamed of illegal activities. Her kama, low and ready at her right, also told the story that they weren't quite what they looked like. If anyone around here knew enough to report them, well, the local PD would have a field day.
With a nod, she signaled Nick to turn the knob and push open the door. She swung inward with it, her gun leading the way. She didn't use the classic flashlight hold, though she knew it. While it would blind anyone it hit, it also gave away your location. Sin wasn't giving anything. Tonight she was only taking.
The floor fell away and her brain took a moment to process that they'd found the steps to the basement and that this was the path the person had worn in the dust on the floor. Not a person, the Mechanic. The man who most likely had Lee.
So she turned the narrow scope of her vision down the steps.
There were corners and shadows that even the NVGs couldn't penetrate, she aimed her gun there and hoped one wasn't aimed back at her. Taking an old piece of advice from Lee, she and Nick wore body armor. But it wouldn't stop her from bleeding out or protect against a head wound.
She stepped softly down at first, but the squeak of the wooden step broadcast her position and Sin changed tactics.
If someone was down there, they expected a soft, slow entry.
She ran.
Down the steps. Two at a time, her feet no longer worried about silence.
Nick came down behind her, taking her lead, and aiming his gun to the left where she'd aimed to the right. Another ingrained cop move; don't swing a loaded weapon in the direction of your partner.
She was tensed, ready for the Mechanic to pop up and fight for his life.
But nothing came.
Just as quickly, she spoke to Nick. One word. "Daylight."
An uncommon code, it wouldn't alert anyone waiting, but both of them simultaneously flipped up their goggles and turned their flashlights to "flood."
For a half second she held her breath, until all the corners were illuminated, until she was certain there wasn't anything down here.
Yes, she knew that there could be someone in the upper floors. That person could try to trap them down here, shoot down the staircase, any variety of options, but the breath eased out of her as she scanned the area.
A dirt floor stretched to the cinderblock walls. In the corners the dirt seemed to drift as though some wind had piled it there. Recent scuffings showed shoeprints and the dirt changed colors, darker in some areas, lighter in others.
She pulled out her phone and snapped two pictures of clear footprints she'd located. She was about to get a third when Nick touched her on the shoulder and pointed down where she was standing in the multi-colored dirt.
His voice was not a whisper, but even the carefully modulated tone didn't hide his concern. "Sin, that's blood."
Owen thought Nick looked bone tired, but Sin appeared to almost bounce in her shoes. Though she didn't move a muscle, there was a disturbing energy about her. He didn't know how she held up. Weren't pregnant women supposed to be tired? Even now, with all their awareness heightened, Annika would still be sleeping had Owen not woken her.
It was all tangled together. He wouldn't have woken her if he hadn't been afraid of her being alone, asleep, and maybe someone finding her. But then, once she was alert, she refused to be left behind. He was a trained agent, but she’d seen more war than he had. There was something about her like Sin—if the shit hit the fan, Annika might very well be the only one left standing. He had to trust in that even if he didn't feel comfortable with it.
He was even more uncomfortable with the comparison to Sin. Sin hadn't been normal since she was eleven, and given the way she'd come up fighting then, Owen would bet good money that she hadn't been normal even before that. She'd probably always been bright, steady, single-minded, and stubborn as fuck. It shouldn't surprise him now. But somehow it always did.
As he stood in yet another hotel room Sin had procured and watched dawn crack open, he reminded himself of his purpose. He'd thought his issues would untangle with time. Instead Nick Stelian had only tied the knots tighter.
"Here's the sample." Nick had carried it, and Owen was glad Sin didn't have to reach into a pocket and wonder if she carried her husband's blood. They'd scraped some of the soil into a plastic sample tube, functioning like cops though everything they did was patently illegal.
Owen pushed the thought aside and pocketed the sample, thinking to get it out of sight. "I'll overnight it ASAP. We might have results tomorrow."
"Do you need a sample from Lee to match?" Sin asked. She knew how this worked.
Owen fought the mild nausea that threatened. "We have the sheets from the cabin."
Only a nod as she compartmentalized that and shelved it for later, if at all. He was opening his mouth to say more when Nick beat him to the punch.
"Did you need to talk to me more . . . About our agreement?"
Sin chased the conversation, obviously behind and obviously perturbed by that fact. She didn't ask.
As Owen shook his head, he felt Annika's hand slide into his. She didn't know this either, but Nick's deep breath told them they were about to all come up to speed on yesterday's game of cops and robbers.
Nick's voice was steady. "I've been thinking for a while, Sin. Running Atlanta isn't what I need it to be."
When he paused, she nodded back at him, though Owen had no idea what passed between them. But Nick continued. "I want to live to spend the money I made—" a quick, fierce glance at Owen spoke volumes about his desire to retain some of what he had. Owen had other thoughts about that and kept his expression bland. "—at least some of it. And I need a challenge that doesn't make me sick to my stomach some days."
"This?" She asked him softly.
"Among other things, but yes. This was a tipping point."
"Reese." Her word was soft, Owen almost missed it and it took a moment of brain searching to recall that was the female officer lost when the Kurevs found Lee and Sin living and working as Will and Diana Kincaid just outside Atlanta.
Nick nodded in return and was opening his mouth when Annika's voice unexpectedly filled the gap. "You two made a deal."
She pointed back and forth between Nick and Owen, her brain chugging as the pieces fell together.
It was Sin who leapt into the fray. "You can't go to prison Nick!" She grabbed at her brother's arm, protective and fierce. Owen had to admire it though part of him thought that was exactly where Nick belonged.
Unfortunately, prison didn't bring exchanges. If Nick went inside, he would do so quietly. If Nick stayed out, he could topple his own empire in his wake. Owen also thought there were greater and lesser evils in the world. The lesser evil here was definitely Nick.
Sin had other ideas. "Nick, what about the head of the dragon?"
He shrugged back at her. "I can't be it anymore."
"Did you not believe it?" She let his hand drop, stepped back, and eyed him warily all during a cryptic conversation that Owen wasn't following.
Never one to be unaware of her surroundings, Sin crossed her arms. "Tell them, Nick. If you believe it, tell them."
Owen wanted to hear this.
"If you cut off the head of the dragon, another grows back in its place." Nick sighed, reciting the words like a child forced into an insincere apology.
Turning to Owen, Sin stared him down. "Nick is the head, Owen. You take him out and Atlanta goes to hell in a handbasket. You can't do this."
It hit him like a shotgun blast, nearly throwing him backward. She might as well have simply hit him, he thought.
Her words came before he could respond. "Do you not see what's going on in Chicago? Atlanta doesn't have the hits that Chicago does. No families are being taken out, like mine! Like Lee's! No one crosses Nick because they don't have to."
"There are deaths in Atlanta, Sin. Drug related, gang shootings." He wasn't taking this mafia-boss-with-a-heart-of-gold shit any longer. "Is Nick in charge of that, too?"
She shook her head, breathing heavily, her fists and power on tight rein. "That shit is Kurev shit. They've been trying to push into Atlanta for years. Heroin, meth, you name it. Nick keeps that shit out."
"Sin—Sin!" Nick's words seemed to reach her, stalling her tirade if not her anger. Owen still felt the white anger of her glare while Nick spoke.
"Stop talking, Sin, you're giving away my bargaining chips."
It wasn't true. But it worked. A little.
Sin stepped back. Her anger still evident.
Owen didn't buy it all, but he knew where the better decision was. It was with Nick Stelian.
"Tell him, Nick." Sin didn't turn away.
"No. I'm pleading the damn fifth." He tugged at her hand again, then spoke more softly. "I went to him. I asked for a deal."
That knocked her off her high demon-horse. Shaking her head, suddenly confused, she turned to Nick. "What?"
"He thinks he can get me a job . . . with the FBI."
It was Annika who suddenly burst into laughter.
Sin whipped back around to face Owen and if he didn't know better he would think she'd hurt her neck doing it. He just shrugged.
"Crimi—" She cut herself off. "People with Nick's history can't become agents."
Owen just shrugged. "You can say 'criminals'—it doesn't indict Nick. And there are a lot of former criminals working for the FBI. Who can think like a mafia don better than a mafia don?"
Lesser of the evils, he reminded himself. While his brain was okay with that outcome, his gut still hadn't quite come to terms with it.
"No!" Her outburst surprised him out of his thoughts. Before he could ask about it, she clarified. "You can't have any ties to Nick or to me!"
“It's a little late for that, don't you think?" After all, a bullet hadn't hit the window he'd been standing at the day before because of anything Owen had done.
Frustrated with his lack of comprehension, she blurted out, "No traceable connections."
"It's still too late, Sin."
She looked heartbroken. Maybe overly so for someone who had come to him to ask for help. The lack of logic in her thoughts concerned him, for if anyone was purely logical, it was her. She nodded slowly, "Don't connect too closely to Nick. I'll get out of your life as soon as this is over, and we’ll make sure there's no trail."
She thought for a moment, "None of the Kurevs should have any way to trace the woman at the party back to Annika."
Unless they were vetting their visitors more than it appeared. Owen didn't put it past them.
For a moment, they were all lost in thought, then Annika spoke up.
"Owen and I took a drive through the Kimmel neighborhood this morning. We went twice in two different cars." She smiled at the thought and continued, this time talking directly to Sin. "I thought Ann Evalyn was gone, the way you spoke yesterday, but she was out jogging this morning."
There was a pause, and Owen saw the incredulous look on Sin's face.
"What?"
Annika shrugged. "You had a cut and some bruises, but she didn't look any the worse for wear."