Dare (BLOOD Brothers Book 5), page 11
“One per day?” Legend echoed. “Gracie, sweetheart, we’re gonna win you by the hour.”
“You think so?” I countered, arching a brow.
Bones let out a low whistle. “She’s confident.”
“Confident?” AB snorted. “She’s plotting our destruction.”
I shrugged, the tiniest tug of amusement pulling at my lips. “I’m just saying… the odds might not be in your favor.”
Legend set out the food—sandwiches, fries, soup, and something spicy AB immediately claimed—and dropped into the chair beside me. “You’re talking big for someone who hasn’t played us yet.”
“Oh, I’ve played you,” I said lightly. “You just didn’t notice.”
Voodoo returned with drinks—beer for the guys, sparkling wine for me, because he noticed things—and set them down. The fact Voodoo had taken the time to step out and grab drinks was sweet. “Alright. House rules, lose a hand, lose a layer.”
AB raised his bottle. “Win a hand, earn a promise.”
Legend bumped his shoulder against mine. “You ready for this, Gracie?”
I looked around at them—these men who had torn men down for me today and they’d do it again tomorrow and the day after that if I needed it—and felt something warm settle under my ribs.
They needed this.
God, so did I.
I nodded, settling into my chair. “Deal the cards, boys.”
Just like that, for the first time since Bones had been taken, the air around us eased—not because the danger was gone, but because, for this moment, we let ourselves breathe.
Chapter
Twelve
ALPHABET
Caffeine made my pulse hum like malfunctioning wiring. Four cans of whatever energy sludge Lunchbox had stocked in the fridge were probably a sign I needed an intervention, but right now they were the reason we finally had movement.
Real movement.
My hands still shook a little as I braced one on the doorframe of the upstairs bedroom. I’d meant to knock. I really had. But the second everything clicked into place—the moment the name finally matched—I forgot all about etiquette.
“Hey,” I hissed, pushing the door open with my shoulder. “Hey, wake up—guys, seriously, wake up.”
In the low gray morning light, all three of them were a tangle of limbs on the too-small bed. Grace flat on her stomach, cheek pressed against Bones’ shoulder; Bones curled protectively around her; Voodoo sprawled behind her, one arm draped over her waist like he’d anchored both of them through the night.
Three sets of instincts came online in the same instant.
Bones’ eyes snapped open first—sharp, feral. Voodoo’s hand went straight under the pillow for the knife he liked to sleep with. Grace jerked, inhaled hard, then blinked up at me in bleary confusion.
I lifted both hands. “Not a threat. Just me. Hi. Good morning. I need your brains.”
Bones pushed up on one elbow. “Alphabet, you better be dying or this better be about her sister.”
“It is,” I said, too fast. Okay, maybe I was vibrating a little. “The second one. Definitely the second one.”
That got everyone awake fast.
Grace pushed her hair back, sitting up between them as Voodoo rubbed a hand down his face. “AB… breathe,” she murmured.
“Breathing later. Information now.” I dragged my laptop case off my shoulder and set it on the foot of the bed. “I found the match. One of Sinclair’s garbled names? It finally hit. Marcos Sarmiento. Or de Sarjiento. Or the alias ‘La De Sargento.’ One guy, three variations. Same signature style, same work patterns.”
Voodoo frowned. “Sarmiento… rings a bell.”
Bones grunted. “South American broker. The kind who handles deals between groups who don’t like each other.”
“Correct,” I said, pleased he’d saved me ten seconds of exposition. “And more importantly, he’s tied to a shell corporation that maintains a private port in Delaware. Harborstone Logistics.”
Grace’s eyes sharpened. She shifted forward, knees under her, the exhaustion dropping away like a shed skin. “What kind of ties?”
“Ownership. Operational control. And as of last month? One of Ignacio’s listed container IDs was processed through that port under a fake agricultural manifest.”
Bones muttered a low curse. Voodoo went still, like he was cataloguing every implication.
Grace’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He trafficked through that port.”
“Yes.” I flicked open the laptop. The screen lit the room in pale blue. “If Amorette was passed out through the States—which she had to be, she started here, but if they didn’t move her up to Canada or down to the Caribbean, then the supply chain would start there—Sarmiento would have known. Maybe even overseen.”
I paused a beat.
“That made more sense in my head than aloud, but I managed to tie a name, a container number, and the private port. This is a solid lead.” Maybe I needed more caffeine.
Behind me, someone yawned.
Lunchbox filled the doorway, hair damp from a shower, wearing gym shorts and a shirt he definitely hadn’t put on for modesty reasons. Goblin pushed past him into the room to nose at Grace’s hand.
Lunchbox squinted. “Why is everyone awake? It’s barely six.”
“Because Alphabet is buzzing like a neon sign,” Voodoo said dryly.
“Because Alphabet found the name match,” Bones corrected.
Lunchbox perked up, fully alert in an instant. “Which name?”
I pointed at the screen. “Marcos Sarmiento. Or de Sarjiento. Or La De Sargento. He’s tied to a private port in Delaware that processed one of Ignacio’s containers.”
He blinked at me. “…And you were going to lead with ‘good morning’?”
“I did lead with good morning. In my head.” I waved a hand. “Point is—we have a direction.”
Grace looked between us, something fierce slowly building in her eyes chasing away her sleepy expression. “Are we going?”
“That’s the next question,” I said. “But… yeah. I think we should.”
Voodoo cracked his neck. “We need intel before we walk into that hornet’s nest.”
Bones nodded, his hand finding Grace’s knee. “But we’re not letting this sit.” He pulled her to him and gave her a kiss that threatened to scorch the whole room. Her cheeks flushed and her lips were a little swollen. “Go shower, Dollface.”
Before any of us could offer to join her, however, Bones pinned us with a gaze.
“She showers by herself, we need everyone focused. Showers. Lunchbox, food and start the pack up. Voodoo—”
Already standing, Voodoo helped Grace off the bed before he gave her a good morning kiss of his own, then said, “I’ll get our transpo sorted out and lock in the location.”
Breathless but looking a little shaky around the edges, Grace came right to me and I wrapped her up in my arms. Tucking my face down against her hair, I took a deep breath.
Two days. Just over fifty-three hours of tearing the data apart, longer than I’d liked, but still good based on what I had to work with, but we had a lead. Her arms tightened and I inhaled the sweetness of her scent. She steadied my jitteriness.
“Thank you,” she whispered and I leaned back to meet her gaze.
“You never have to thank me.” Ever. “I just wish I could have gotten you this information sooner.”
“Well, if you had it any sooner, you’d have been waking us at four instead of six.” It was a light comment, a teasing one. One meant to make me play with her, and it worked.
“Go on,” I told her. “Shower. I’ll put together the briefing so you have everything.”
“Okay.” When she pushed up on her toes, I lowered my head obediently so she could kiss me. I savored the closeness, drinking in her simple presence before she darted into the bathroom.
No one moved until the bathroom door shut and the water kicked on—sharp rush, muffled by tile. The second it did, Bones rose from the bed like someone had flipped a switch. He pinned me with that steady, surgical stare of his.
“How solid is this?”
“Pretty damn solid.” My caffeine buzz dimmed under the weight of the moment. “And it gets better. Based on travel indicators and financial pings, Sarmiento’s in country. Right now. He should still be in Delaware.”
Voodoo’s posture shifted—a predator scenting fresh blood.
I pushed on. “There’s been zero chatter about Sinclair going dark. No alerts. No escalation. Nothing tying back to us. So for once? We might actually have surprise on our side.”
A rare beat of silence settled.
Getting ahead of the problem instead of chasing it like idiots through fire—that was new. It felt good. Dangerous, but good.
Bones didn’t waste a beat. “Shower. Food. Then you sleep in the car.” The last part landed like a gavel, aimed square at me.
I flinched. “Sleep… in the car?”
He sliced a hand through the air, precise and final. “You haven’t slept in two days. Napping at the keyboard while waiting on a search ping isn’t rest. You sleep in the car, or you stay here and remote in. Your choice—but the car’s the safer bet.”
The implacable set of his jaw told me exactly how that fight would end before it started. I gritted my teeth and muttered an agreement.
“I’ll… uh, walk Goblin?” I asked, stalling.
Bones gave me a single look. “I’ll take care of it. Get your gear ready, then eat after the shower.”
Lucky for me, there were two showers in the safe house. Lunchbox was already ducking downstairs to make food. I slipped into the empty room, the faint hum of pipes greeting me.
As the water hit, I caught Bones’ voice from the other room. “Cut him off.”
I rolled my eyes. Energy drinks? Please. I didn’t need the fake stuff when I was already juiced up on a lead this hot.
By the time I stepped out, the smell of cooking had already started to pull me back into motion. Two days of running, two days of little sleep—but finally, finally, the hunt was starting to feel like something we could actually get ahead of.
By the time we loaded the SUV and climbed in, the early morning chaos of rush hour traffic had the Beltway in knots. It was as good an excuse as any to take the time to sleep. I had search programs running that would ping me on other data, but it could wait—for now.
As it was, I stretched out on the third row seat as much as I could, tucked my head down and folded my arms then went to sleep. Sleep was a discipline as much as anything else. Threading through traffic was as good a time as any. A hand on my shoulder stirred me from patchy sleep.
It was nearly ten. The roads clogged with commuters and delivery trucks had given me more time than I expected to actually rest. My eyes gritty, jaw unshaven, but my body finally feeling like it’d caught up enough to function. Grace passed me a bottle of water and gave me a smile that immediately improved my day.
She sat on the middle seat with Voodoo and Goblin. Her hair, braided into one long tail, fell over one shoulder. Her bright blue eyes were alert, but the shadows that smudged the skin beneath them remained. I didn’t think we were going to get rid of those until we finished the mission. The quiet intensity in her reminded me exactly why we were chasing this lead.
I sat up, back creaking a little and my neck popping. I downed about half of the water bottle as I scanned the area, taking in the route, the cars, the weather, everything.
Up front, Bones navigated the traffic with his usual precision, calm as the city churned around us. Lunchbox sat beside him, eyes flicking between the tablet and the road, as he and Voodoo ran routes and contingencies in a quiet hum of conversation that I was so used to hearing, I didn’t even register it until I was awake.
I rubbed at my stubble, flexed my shoulders, and drained the water before taking the pair of protein bars Grace passed back to me, along with another bottle of water.
“You are the best,” I murmured as she handed over the pain relievers. The low-grade headache was manageable, but the ache in my leg wouldn’t be if I didn’t take care of it.
“I know,” she replied softly. I popped three pills, washed them down with the water, and tore into the bars. For the first time in a while, I felt almost human—or at least a reasonable facsimile.
Bones glanced in the rearview mirror, voice calm but sharp. “Port’s coming up. GPS says we’re close. Ready to move?”
I nodded, letting the last bit of alertness settle in. “Good to go. What’s the plan?”
He leaned back just slightly, eyes narrowing as he began to read me in, like he was layering the pieces in his head. “We’re not chasing anymore. We’re here to control the play, not react to it. For once, we get the jump on these jerks.”
I allowed a small, satisfied exhale. The sun caught the dashboard, glinting across Grace’s face in the backseat. We had a lead, daylight on our side, and, for the first time in a long time, it felt like we were the ones dictating the hunt.
Chapter
Thirteen
GRACE
The port looked ordinary. That was the first thing that struck me.
Just rows of corrugated steel containers in dull colors, cranes moving like patient metal giants, trucks weaving through lanes painted with peeling lines—nothing that screamed monsters operate here. Nothing that hinted at the kind of nightmare my sister had been swallowed by.
But the guys didn’t trust ordinary. Neither did I.
Bones drove slow as we looped around the perimeter roads—sweeping each access point, the chain-link fences, the double gates, the security booths. Voodoo took photos from low angles with his phone. Legend muttered observations under his breath, and AB kept tapping on his tablet, cross-referencing what he saw outside with the digital breadcrumbs he’d collected.
Goblin, head in my lap, watched it all in silent, canine judgment.
We took a short foray to a park to let Goblin walk. I took “point” on the task with AB so he could stretch his legs, and the others went two blocks down for coffee and food. By the time they returned, I had most of the kinks out of my back and Goblin was in a better mood.
When Bones finally pulled into a plain, beige-and-brown highway hotel a mile down from the port, I felt the tension in the SUV shift. We weren’t pouncing yet—we were staging.
The lobby smelled faintly of burned coffee and industrial carpet cleaner. Legend handled the check-in with a casual charm that made the clerk forget to blink, and minutes later, the five of us crammed into a single room with two beds and an extra rolling chair.
Voodoo locked the door behind us. Bones closed the curtains. Goblin sniffed the floor like he was sweeping for landmines.
Legend tossed the keycard on the dresser. “Alright. Recon review.”
We gathered around the small circular table while AB set up at the room’s desk, his laptops and drives clicking into place like he was assembling a portable command center.
I wasn’t quite ready to eat even if they picked up sandwiches, including a ham and swiss croissant for me. Though, after France, that sandwich looked terribly sad in its plastic wrap. So I left that in the bag and claimed my coffee.
“Alright,” I said, sipping the flat white while they began their breakdown. “What can I do to help?”
Bones looked at me first. Always him. Always that quiet, anchoring weight in his gray eyes.
“That depends,” he said slowly. “Do you want to be on-site? Or stay here and back us up?”
My heartbeat lifted in my chest, not from fear—something heavier. “Define ‘on-site.’”
Voodoo leaned back in the rolling chair. “On-site means you’re physically with us. Potential eyes-on with Sarmiento’s crew. Possible proximity to danger. Not necessarily engaging—just shadowing us.”
Legend added, “Staying means you watch feeds AB sets up. You run comms with us, call out any shifts in traffic, security patrols, container movement, or anything weird we can’t see from the ground.”
I swallowed once. “What are the goals?”
“Threefold,” Bones said, holding up fingers.
“One—locate Sarmiento, confirm he’s actually here and not just using this port as a drop point.”
“Two—identify his crew. Anyone connected. Anyone loyal. Faces, habits, routine.”
“Three—figure out the physical layout of his operation. What containers he uses. Who he pays. How they move cargo.”
Legend cracked his neck. “Four—don’t get caught.”
“That too,” Bones said dryly.
I exhaled slowly, sorting through the buzzing static in my head. “So if I go with you, I’m—what? A spotter?”
“More than that,” Voodoo said, voice calm but threaded with warning. “But less than front-line. You’d be eyes and instincts. You know what this looks like from the inside, Grace. We don’t.”
Legend’s voice softened. “But if staying feels safer, no one will hold it against you. You’ve already done more than most people could stomach.”
“To keep us all honest,” AB added. “We don’t know if you were meant for this port. We can presuppose you didn’t make it this far and that somehow you ended up more than halfway across the country…” But the way he spread his hands said that was all up for debate.
Goblin nudged my knee, like he was voting too.
I looked between them—four men willing to put themselves in the line of fire for me. For Amorette. For truth.
Whichever choice I made, they’d adjust without hesitation. They weren’t trying to keep me small. They were trying to keep me alive. But they were also letting me choose.
I set my coffee down, fingers tapping lightly against the paper cup while the room waited on my answer—four lethal men and one extremely opinionated dog.
“If you can use me there, then I’d like to be on-site,” I said finally. They were giving me the choice, but they were also the professionals. “If Sarmiento or any of his crew are here, I want to see it. I want to see them. I need to know…”
