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“I thought you were a crime family?” She sounds confused as I take her down one aisle. She stops midway and picks up a box. “What’s in all this?”
“We are the premier importers of field hockey sticks to America.”
Her eyebrows raise. “Seriously? Field hockey?”
“Yep, and it’s shockingly lucrative. Didn’t your father have legit businesses to hide behind?”
“Well, yes, but—” She gestures around and puts the box back. “This looks evenmorelegit than usual.”
“That’s because it is.” I take her arm and lead her away. She gives me a wry look as we stroll along together as though we’re lord and lady out for an afternoon promenade. “That’s the trick, isn’t it? You want your legit businesses to be as legit as they can be.”
“You seriously import field hockey sticks?”
“We seriously do, and we distribute them all across the country. The fine men and women who work in this office have absolutely no clue what we’re really doing.”
“Come on, that can’t be true.”
“It’s very true. We monitor their communications just to be sure. Only the manager is aware, and he’s clever and careful. However, the ruffians and thugs that lurk down here—” I shrug slightly and pat her arm. “They’re the ones getting their hands dirty.”
“All right, so you import field hockey sticks. How does that help?”
“Easy, my darling.” We reach an aisle in the middle of the space. It’s blocked off by enormous stacks of boxes, leaving a small cleared-out meadow in the very middle. I grab one of the packages, rip off the tape, and pull out what appears to be a very normal field hockey stick. “You see, most of these are absolutely legit. Thousands of high school girls purchase them every single year, plus the occasional boy that doesn’t mind wearing a skirt. However, some of them—” I peel off the grip tape and unscrew the false end.
Long, narrow baggies slide out into my hand when I tip it upright. They’re packed very tightly, but the white powder inside is unmistakable.
Valentina stares as I hold them up like the ending of a magic trick.
“That’s absolutely insane,” she says and laughs, shaking her head. “You smuggle cocaine inside field hockey sticks?”
“We sure do, love. Can you guess how many American border agents know a fucking thing about field hockey? Can you imagine how many would notice if one looked slightly off? And these are very, very well-done replicas. I bet there are at least a few that snuck through and ended up in some teenager’s closet.”
“What about drug sniffing dogs?”
I tap the stick. “Airtight until you remove the tape. Nothing to smell.”
“Incredible. And they’re never checked?”
“Never. It’s a field hockey stick. You’re from a crime family, and even you seemed like it was crazy.”
I shove the coke back into the shaft and reapply the tape. It’s imperfect, but it doesn’t matter at this point.
“I have to admit, I’m impressed.” She follows me from the center spire and toward the back of the building. “You hide your activities behind a thriving and legitimate business, and your import method seems flawless. I bet nobody in the shipping chain even knows the coke’s in there.”
“We have trusted drivers when the good shipments are coming in, but in theory we don’t need them.” I steer her to another aisle, this one looking like it hasn’t been visited in a while. “But this is what I really brought you for.”
She watches as I pull out several big plastic tubs and pop off the lids. Inside, tucked neatly into rows, are the bricks of meth we stole from the Bullethole Boys earlier in the day.
I gesture at them, grinning madly. She frowns at the drugs and keeps on frowning at me. “You could’ve just told me you got it, you know.”
I sigh and lower my arms. “You have no sense of showmanship.”
“Okay, you’re right, I’mveryimpressed.” She leans against me, batting her eyes. “What a big strong man. All you had to do was follow the plan I meticulously made for you.”
She’s got a point there. “All right, fine, since that doesn’t seem to get you going, I have one more stop we need to make.”
“Let me guess. Soccer balls filled with heroin?”
“Not a bad idea, but no, even better than that.” We keep going, all the way to the loading bay doors. Two-dozen men are standing around in a cleared-out area where the trucks normally park. Niall and Seamus are among them, and everyone’s looking on edge.
