Chapter 6: The Warehouse

The door was open.

That was the first wrong thing.

Cole stopped me with a hand across my chest. He scanned the entrance. Dark inside. No guards posted. No sound.

"He wants us to walk in," Cole said.

"So we walk in."

"That's the trap."

"I know, just walk in anyway."

Under it sat my father.

His face was swollen. Blood dried at his temple. Both wrists zip-tied to the arms of a metal chair. His eyes found me and he shook his head. Mouthed something I couldn't read.

"Ashton." Marcus's voice from somewhere above us. The mezzanine level. "Right on time."

Cole moved me behind a crate without breaking stride.

"You look good, Cole," Marcus called down.

"Considering you just drove through three of my checkpoints."

"I didn't see any checkpoints."

"That's the point."

A pause. Footsteps above us. Moving slow.

"Send the senator out," Cole said. "We take him and leave. You walk away clean."

Marcus laughed. Not the laugh I remembered from the phone, easy and professional. This one had edges. "You think that's how this works? After everything you two have stirred up?"

"What do you want?"

"What I've always wanted. Leverage. Your senator friend isn't cooperating. Keeps insisting he'll testify. My employers need that to stop."

Cole's hand pressed against my back. Flat.

Steady. Keeping me still.

"My employers," Cole repeated. "Who?"

"Nobody you'd know. Nobody you'd survive knowing."

Cole looked at me. His eyes dropped to my lips for half a second. Then back to the mezzanine. "Let him go. Take me instead. I'm worth more to them."

A beat of silence.

"That's actually interesting," Marcus said.

"Cole, no," I said.

He didn't look at me. "I have the full file. Everything the senator gave federal investigators before you grabbed him. Names, transfers, offshore accounts. I copied it before we left the motel."

That was a lie. He hadn't touched the phone. But his voice was so steady, so certain, that even I believed it.

"You're bluffing," Marcus said.

"Am I? Pull up the senator's testimony file. Check the access log. You'll see my credentials from three-eighteen this morning."

Another pause. Longer this time.

Cole leaned close to my ear. His mouth barely moved. "There's a side exit. Thirty feet to your left. When I move, you take your father and you run."

"I'm not leaving you."

"You are."

"Cole—"

"I'm not asking." His hand found mine behind the crate. Squeezed once. Hard. Then let go.

He stepped out from cover.

"There he is." Marcus appeared at the mezzanine railing, two men flanking him. "Hands where I can see them."

Cole raised both hands. Gun still in his right. "I'll give you the file. In exchange for the senator and Ashton walking out."

"And you?"

"Me you can keep. Until your employers get what they need."

Marcus studied him. Tilted his head. "You know they'll kill you when they're done."

"They can try."

I watched Cole from behind the crate. His back to me, hands raised, standing in the middle of the floor like he'd already decided how this ended. Like he was fine with it.

My legs moved before I made the decision.

I stepped out from behind the crate.

"Ashton." Cole's voice, sharp and low. "Get back."

"No."

"Get back right now."

"He loves you," I said, loud enough for Marcus to hear. "You've known him for years. You've been his partner for years. And this is what you're doing to him."

Marcus's face shifted.

"Don't," Cole said.

"He trusted you." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "And you sold him to people who want to buy a senator. How much did it take? How much were you worth to yourself?"

Marcus looked between us. For the first time, something flickered in his expression that wasn't control.

"Cole." Marcus's voice dropped. "I didn't have a choice."

"There's always a choice," Cole said.

A long silence. The floodlight buzzed. My father shifted in the chair.

Then Marcus raised his hand. Two fingers up. A signal.

His men lowered their guns.

"Take him," Marcus said. Quietly. Like it cost him something. "Take the senator. Get out."

Cole didn't move. "And then?"

"And then you disappear. Both of you. You were never here. I never found you. You give me the file and I give you forty-eight hours before my employers send someone else."

"Marcus"

"Take him, Cole." Marcus's voice broke on the last word. Just barely. "Before I change my mind."

Cole crossed to my father in four strides. Cut the zip ties with a knife from his belt. Hauled him upright.

My father could barely stand. I got under his other arm.

We moved toward the side exit. Cole had known exactly where it was.

We were almost there when the shot rang out.

Not from the mezzanine. From outside. The door we'd entered through. It blew open. Men in tactical gear flooded the space. Not Marcus's men. Someone else. Someone who hadn't waited for the deal to close.

Cole pushed us behind a column. Gunfire erupted from both directions.

"The file," one of the new men shouted. "We want

the file. Where is it?"

Marcus's men returned fire. The mezzanine turned into a war zone above us.

Cole was crouched in front of me and my father, gun up, tracking. His shirt had ridden up. There was blood on his side. Old or new, I couldn't tell.

"You're hit," I said.

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding."

"Later." He turned to look at me. For one second, in the middle of all of it, he looked at me the way he had in the cabin. Before the first shots. Before everything fell apart. "Exit is ten feet. When I cover, you run."

"What about you?"

"I'll be right behind you."

"Cole, if you're not right behind me, I'm coming back in."

He pressed his forehead to mine. Fast. Fierce. "You won't need to."

He stood and opened fire. I grabbed my father's arm and ran.

We hit the door. Cold air. Gravel under my feet. I kept running, my father half-dragged beside me, until the shots faded and the warehouse was fifty yards behind us.

I stopped and looked back.

Cole wasn't there.

Gunfire. Still going. One shot. Two. Silence.

Then nothing.

"Cole." I said it to no one. To the dark. To the space where he should have been standing.

My father grabbed my arm. "Ashton. We have to move."

"He's still in there."

"Ashton"

"He's still in there." I pulled free. Started back toward the door.

A hand caught my wrist.

Cole stepped out of the shadows, gun lowered, breathing hard. Blood on his shirt, more than before. But standing. Upright.

"Told you," he said.

I grabbed him. Both hands on his face. His mouth found mine before I could say anything and he kissed me hard, tasting like blood and adrenaline and the fact that we were still here. Still alive.

When we broke apart, he was pressing one hand to his side

"How bad?" I asked.

"Manageable."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting right now." He looked at my father. Then at me. "Car's two blocks east. We move. Now."

We moved.

My father limped between us, barely holding together. Cole kept one hand on his gun and one on my shoulder, steering us through alleys, away from the main street, away from the lights.

When we reached the car, Cole put my father in the back and turned to me.

"Get in."

I didn't move. "Marcus let us go."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Cole was quiet for a moment. He looked at the city beyond us. At the lights spreading out across the dark.

"Because he's not as far gone as he thought," he said. "Or maybe because he remembered who we were before all this."

"Do we trust it?"

"No." He opened my door. "Not yet."

I got in. Cole walked around to the driver's side, moving carefully, favoring his left. He started the car and pulled out without headlights until we were three blocks clear.

"Where are we going?" my father asked from the back seat.

"Somewhere safe."

"Marcus will"

"Marcus gave us forty-eight hours." Cole's voice was flat. "I intend to use them."

He drove. I watched his hands on the wheel. Steady even now. Even bleeding. Even after all of it.

I reached over and put my hand over his on the gearshift.

He didn't pull away.

Still Bleeding

We were twenty minutes out when his phone buzzed on the dash from an unknown number.

Cole glanced at it.

"Don't answer it," I said.

He picked it up and read the text.

Whatever it said, his face changed. Not fear. Not anger. Something worse.