Trying to Find the Intruder

SHAY

As Conner and I sped down the road, a massive warehouse loomed ahead. It was lit up like a runway, with men scattered all over the place. As we pulled up, Conner turned to me.

“Stay put, Sunshine. I’ll leave the engine running, but keep the doors locked. I’m the only one you should let in. Got it?”

I nodded, and he slipped out of the car. I moved over to the passenger seat, hit the lock button, and the car doors sealed shut.

I watched Conner disappear into the warehouse. Once he was out of sight, I turned my attention to the radio and found a station playing some mellow rock.

I leaned back, closed my eyes, and tried to unwind. After a while, I heard the door handle jiggle and opened my eyes.

A man in a red hoodie was at my window, his face hidden.

“Shay, open up. Conner needs you. He sent me to bring you inside.”

I looked around. The yard, once bustling with men, was now deserted. He was the only one in sight.

I shook my head at him, and he scowled.

“Open the damn door, woman. I’ve got orders to bring you in.” He started yanking on the handle and pounding on the window.

I scooted over to the driver’s side and started honking the horn. Men reappeared, and the hooded man bolted toward the woods.

Conner sprinted out of the warehouse toward me. I rolled down the window and quickly explained what had happened.

“Spread out and find him, men! He can’t have gone far.”

Men poured out of the warehouse and disappeared into the woods. Conner opened the car door, and I slid back over to the passenger seat.

He buckled up and gestured at my seatbelt. “We’re going off-road. You might want to buckle up.”

I fastened my seatbelt, and he gunned it toward the woods, driving along the edge and scanning for the man in the red hoodie.

I saw Zane’s men with flashlights in the woods as we zoomed past. I tried to keep a lookout, but I couldn’t spot anyone in a hoodie.

We reached the property fence, and there, hanging on it, was a red hoodie with a note attached. Conner hit the brakes, and we skidded to a halt.

“Fuck, he got away.” Conner slammed his hands on the steering wheel.

The men caught up and handed him the hoodie. He detached the note and as he read it, he turned pale, like he’d seen a ghost.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” I asked, looking at his face.

“We need to see Zane. Men, get back to the warehouse and finish cleaning up.” The men nodded and headed back. Conner spun the car around, and we headed toward the house.

“Conner, what is it? You’re freaking me out.”

He ran his hand through his hair, looking frustrated.

“The office area in the warehouse where Zane works was trashed. The men didn’t see anyone go in or out, and it was locked—I had to use my key to get in.

“The window was open, so that’s probably how they got in. I don’t know what they were looking for. His papers were still there, just scattered everywhere.

“Maybe Zane can make sense of this.”

I reached for the note, but he snatched it away and tucked it into his pocket. “This is for Zane to see, not you.”

I tried to read his face, but it was set in a hard, frustrated scowl. When we got to the house, he opened my door and walked in quickly beside me.

“Did you get a good look at the man who tried to get you?”

“No, his hoodie was pulled tight around his face—I couldn’t see him clearly. I could only see his lips and nose, really; he kept his head down while he was yanking on the handle.

“And when he was hitting the window, his arms were blocking his face.”

“Whoever this guy is, he’s smart and careful. I don’t get how he got into the yard, though.”

“Could he work here and have access that way?”

He stopped and looked at me, surprised. “All our men are vetted. We know everything about them.”

“But what if he was clean when he got here but is now working with an enemy? People can be persuaded to switch sides.

“His family could be threatened, or he could have been offered a lot of money. Or there could be another connection.”

Conner grinned at me. “You know, you sound like you’ve been in this life for a while. You think like us.

“That kind of thing does happen, and for you to suggest it out of the blue is pretty impressive.”

When we walked into the house, he hit the intercom to talk to Zane. “Where are you, man? I need to show you something.”

“Security room. Trying to see if I can find anything on the tapes.”

“We’ll be there in a minute.”

He led me down the hall and up a flight of stairs at the back of the house. We reached a massive steel door with a thumb scanner. Conner pressed his thumb on it, and the door slowly opened.

We walked into the room, and I stopped in my tracks. The room was enormous, filled with computers.

The floor was polished white and surrounded by tall glass. Monitors of all sizes lined the walls, and what looked like seventy-inch TVs were in two corners.

A third one was centered right in the middle with smaller ones surrounding it. Zane turned around and looked at me, amusement in his eyes.

“What’s wrong, love? Never seen a room like this one?”

“No way, this is amazing. I thought the one at the club was impressive, but it’s nothing compared to this.”

He laughed softly, pulling out a chair for me. I took a seat, and he planted a kiss on my cheek.

“From here, I can monitor pretty much everything that happens. This section,” he gestured to a cluster of computers on his left, “is for the house.”

The screens displayed every nook and cranny of the house, both inside and out.

“And this group on my right is for the warehouse. The ones down here show the gates and fences surrounding the property.”

I watched as he typed something into the computer, bringing up images on the massive screen in front of us. He observed men moving around the property from various angles.

We saw the warehouse and a man in a red hoodie emerging from the woods, prying open the office window. He slipped inside, and the screen switched to show him rifling through Zane’s paperwork and filing cabinet.

He extracted a piece of paper, tucked it into his pocket, then slid back out the window and disappeared into the woods. Shortly after, we saw Conner and me pull up.

We watched as the guy in the red hoodie attempted to get into the car with me, then bolted through the woods and over the fence. He then shed the red hoodie, revealing a black one underneath.

He attached the note to the red hoodie and vanished into the darkness, out of sight.

“What does the note say?” Zane pointed at the paper.

Conner retrieved it and handed it to him. As Zane read it, his face contorted into a terrifyingly angry scowl. Crumpling up the note, he tossed it into the wastebasket and turned to Conner.

“Then he gets his war!”