“Sorry,” I breathed into her ear. “Can’t help my reaction to you.”
“I’m not complaining,” she murmured, her amused voice laced with heat. “We’ll do something about it when we get—” Her voice cut off as she suddenly leaned closer to the screen, and I followed her gaze, holding the controls of the drone steady. She pointed at the top right corner of the screen, where one of the little cranes that was used to lift the cargo off the boats was hoisting something into the air from the deck of the Argo Navis. “Do you see that? Can you fly it closer?”
“Yeah.” I flew it closer to the boat until it was hovering near to the hull, still keeping it at a safe distance. Even though it was tiny, and noiseless, and a solid black colour which blended in with the darkened sea and sky, it was possible that it could still be spotted.
“Z, are you seeing this?” I hissed.
“Yep.” The object became clearer the closer we got. A large pallet, stacked high but completely wrapped in some kind of plastic—it was difficult to make out from here. The deck had more, identical pallets, arranged in neat rows. A figure stood on the docks, gesturing as each pallet was placed down, unhooking them from the crane.
We sat in silence until all the pallets were unloaded, and then the boat shuddered to life, and I flew the drone to the side, hovering over the roof of the building Winter had been held in. Fuck, thinking of her in there, the fact she’d been under our feet all that time, I could kick myself for missing it. Whoever her rescuer was, I owed them. Massively. If only they’d show their face. Why had they kept themselves hidden?
Shaking off my thoughts, I used the oars to move us even closer to the coastline, where there was a thin strip of stony beach, and we waited as the Argo Navis moved out of the dock and disappeared out to sea. The drone’s low-battery alert flashed up, so I navigated it back to the rowboat.
“Now what? You reckon we should check out the pallets?” I asked Z in a low voice.
He studied the docks through the binoculars for a moment without answering me, before he lowered them. “Yeah, it looks to be safe. I’ll signal Creed.” Pulling his phone from his pocket, he texted “going in,” which would let Creed know we were entering the docks. We’d planned it all to leave as little room for fuck ups as possible—Creed had a couple of his guys waiting in a van a way down the road from the docks, and if Z didn’t make contact an hour after the first message, they’d come after us.
That was something we didn’t want to happen, but it was our safety net in case it all went wrong.
Rowing the boat around the side of the building, I steadied it, holding it in place while Z jumped out, tying the boat to a chunky iron ring that was cemented into the ground. If we were lucky, no one would spot it.
“What are the chances of you waiting here in the boat?” I tightened my arms around Snowflake possessively, the need to protect her so strong that it overrode everything else.
“Zero, so don’t even suggest it.” She twisted her head to frown at me, her blue eyes huge and serious. “I’ll be careful, I promise. You have to trust me.”
“I do trust you, but I fucking hate this whole situation. I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you.” I buried my face in her shoulder, and she sighed.
“I know. Same, though. I know you think you’re this big, bad, invincible person, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt.” She kissed my jaw, running her hands over mine. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“Are you coming, or what?” Zayde’s low hiss came from above us.
“Yeah, sorry, mate.” I helped Winter out of the boat. We pulled on the balaclavas and gloves we’d brought with us—Winter’s idea—and skulked around the side of the building, keeping low to the ground. We used the pallets for cover, keeping behind them with the sea at our backs, in case anyone showed up.
I held up a hand, signalling Winter and Zayde to halt, so we could examine the pallets. I took my knife from its sheath, carefully making a small slice in the wrapping, then digging it in further to reach the contents. Zayde pointed his phone flashlight at the pallet so we could see better.
White powder.
“Coke?” Z pulled a glove off, running his finger over the flat of my knife blade, which was dusted with the powder. Lifting his balaclava, he touched it to his tongue and grimaced. “Yep. It’s coke.”
What the fuck were pallets full of cocaine doing at Alstone Holdings’ docks?
“Are they all the same?” Winter’s soft, muffled voice sounded close to my ear.
“I think so, yeah.” I scanned the rows of pallets. I couldn’t be sure without examining them all, but they looked the same to me.
“You wanna check out the building, again?” Z suggested, and I glanced at Winter. I could only see her eyes, but they held so much trepidation that I was about to say no, not wanting her to have to relive her experience there, but then a steely glint of determination entered her gaze.
“Let’s do it.” Her voice was firm, with only the slightest tremor, and in that moment I was so fucking proud of her. My girl was prepared to face something that probably scared the shit out of her, and there was no hesitation on her part.
After a short, whispered discussion, we decided that Zayde would stay by the door as our lookout, and Winter and I would go inside. He took up his position, and we entered the building, turning on our phone flashlights. As we headed down the dusty, dark corridor, Winter swallowed nervously, her hands shaking slightly. I took her hand in mine, and she held on to me tightly as we drew closer to the metal door.
The door was ajar, thank fuck. I grunted as I threw my weight against it, pushing it open enough for us to enter the room. It was empty, just like before. But now we knew there was a hatch in the floor, I scanned the ground with the torch and noticed a dull metallic gleam off to the side of the room.
“There.”
I lifted the hatch with a scraping sound that echoed around us, reverberating off the stone walls, and shone my light into the gloom. Rough stone steps led downwards, and I descended into the room Winter had been held in. She followed close behind me, keeping her hand on me the whole time as if to reassure herself I was still there. When we reached the bottom, I looked around until I found the light switch on the wall and turned it on, bringing a dim glow to the room.
“Snowflake?” I turned around, noticing Winter standing frozen at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes filling with tears.