Chapter 7 : The Warehouse

"Stay here," Demetrius said, without even turning around.

"No."

That made him turn. His eyes cut to mine, dark and hard, and for a second I thought he might actually toss me over his shoulder and carry me back inside.

"Iris."

"Someone is hitting your people because of what's going on around my father," I said, keeping my voice level. "I'm not sitting in a bedroom waiting to hear about it."

He stared at me, jaw ticking, then jerked his head toward the SUV. "Then keep your mouth shut and stay behind me."

I grabbed my laptop bag off the hall table and climbed in. The warehouse sat near the river, and I smelled the smoke as we approached. Two vehicles were crushed against the loading dock, glass scattered across the concrete, and men in bloody shirts sat on crates while others pressed cloth to their wounds. One guard was groaning, his arm bent at a bad angle.

Nobody spoke until Demetrius stepped out of the car, and then everybody did at once.

"Boss, they came through the back."

"Six of them, maybe seven."

"Half the shipment is gone."

"Quiet." He didn't raise his voice, he didn't have to but the whole place went still. "Marco, lock every entrance. Nobody leaves without my word. Check the wounded, get a doctor here now, and somebody tell me why my cameras were blind."

The orders came out like clockwork, and I watched men run to obey before he'd even finished speaking. This was the same man who had whispered my name in an empty club, but the cold fury in him now made that version feel like a different person.

I walked the damaged floor slowly, and something itched at the back of my mind. This wasn't a robbery. Robberies were messy, greedy, rushed. This was clean. The guards had been dropped exactly where their patrol routes crossed, one after another, like someone had handed the attackers a map.

"Who runs your security cameras?" I asked a guard near the wall.

"Uh, the system's automatic, miss."

"Then somebody turned it off before anyone walked through that door."

I found a terminal in the security office, dragged a chair up, and opened my laptop. The main feed was wiped, but the backup server had a ghost of a log if you knew where to look. I knew where to look. My fingers moved fast, and the same pattern kept appearing, small and elegant and familiar. I had seen this code before, buried in the systems I'd been chasing since my father died.

"You're not supposed to touch that," a voice said behind me.

"Can you stop me?" I asked without turning.

Demetrius stepped into the room and stayed quiet, watching over my shoulder as the footage rebuilt itself frame by frame. Seven men in dark clothing, slipping through a service door at the exact second the guards swapped positions.

"They knew the schedule," I said. "Which means someone from the inside gave it to them."

I felt him go rigid beside me. "Who?"

"I can't say." I kept scrolling. "But I can tell you where your shipment went."

The warehouse logs were sloppy compared to the camera system, as if whoever planned this had cared more about the front door than the paper trail. I followed the routing numbers through three transfers, then a fourth, then a delivery address that made my stomach drop.

"There," I said, pointing at the screen. "Eastside docks. It's moving toward Rossi territory."

"Rossi," Demetrius repeated quietly, like he was tasting the name. His hand settled on the back of my chair. "Salvatore Rossi never liked me."

"Then he'd be the first person you'd suspect."

"That's what worries me." He straightened. "It's too easy."

"Or it's exactly what they wanted you to think."

He looked down at me for a long moment, and something shifted in his face, respect maybe, or something more dangerous. His own people had missed what I found in ten minutes, and he knew it.

"Recovering it means walking into his territory," Demetrius said slowly, more to himself than to me. 

"Then let me come."

"No."

"Demetrius."

"You'll stay at the estate."

"I found what your own men couldn't," I said. "You need me in that room."

His jaw flexed. For a moment I thought he would refuse, but then he let out a slow breath and turned toward the door.

"Fine. But you move when I say, and you stay where I put you."

I said nothing. Agreeing out loud felt like a lie, and I wasn't going to start our partnership with one. Outside, the warehouse crew was already sweeping up glass while the wounded were carried out to waiting cars. Demetrius crossed the lot in long, steady strides, and his voice never wavered as he passed orders down the line. The calm frightened me more than the shouting had. This wasn't a man who lost his head under pressure, it was a man who got quieter the closer he came to violence.

Marco checked his weapon near the SUVs and waved four men forward. I followed, tucking my laptop under my arm, already knowing I was going whether anyone approved or not. Demetrius stopped beside the lead car, looked at his men, and then at Marco.

"Prepare the cars," he said. "We're taking our shipment back tonight."