The Box by Jeremy Brown (ebook reader play store txt) 📕

before, now we got a crew coming in from Chicago. We don’t have time for this.”

“No, no, listen.”

Rison glanced over at Connelly, who stood close to Nora so they could have their own private chat.

“He’s good to go. Even if he does stay here with her, or wherever they go, he’s a stand-up guy. He won’t ever speak our names. To anyone.”

“He will if the Romanians start playing that card game with him. Or her.”

“They don’t know he’s in on this,” Rison said. “Everybody who’s seen him with us is dead.”

“They don’t have to know. They just have to wonder. That’s how it starts.”

Rison looked at Kershaw.

“You said we can’t kill them. Can you jump in on this, please?”

Kershaw told Bruder, “All the dead bodies so far are Romanian. When their crew finds them, my guess is they’ll go in a pit or a burn pile and nobody outside that group will know about it. If we start dropping other bodies—civilians—it’ll bring attention.”

“We can make bodies disappear as easily as the Romanians can,” Bruder said. “And even if they do get found, we make it so the finger gets pointed at Razvan.”

Kershaw thought about it.

Rison said, “So this is what we do now? We don’t like how somebody acts, so we put a bullet in him?”

Bruder nodded.

“When how they act puts the rest of us at risk. He’s making himself a loose end. I warned him not to do this.”

“You didn’t warn her.”

“That’s on him, not us.”

Rison looked down, shaking his head.

“What happens if I don’t go along with it?”

“I don’t need your help,” Bruder said.

“No, I mean what happens if I don’t allow it? You gonna shoot me too?”

He looked up at Bruder, then Kershaw.

It wasn’t quite a standoff, but it was heading in that direction.

“You feel that strongly about it?” Kershaw said.

“I do. It’d be one thing if he fucked up, like he didn’t set the charges right or ran his mouth before the job and got us jammed up. But he did everything right. Hell, he’s the reason we know all we do. Him and Nora. I just can’t get on board with punishing him for…well, let’s call it what it is: Falling in love.”

He pulled a bottle of water out of his jacket and turned away from Nora’s direction, then tugged his mask down and took an aggressive drink. He didn’t look at Bruder or Kershaw, and Bruder had the sense he was embarrassed, talking about love.

After a moment Kershaw told Bruder, “I see his point. I’m not sold on Connelly being a liability yet. I don’t like what he’s doing, but he doesn’t have blinders on. He knows what we’re talking about right now. And he’s still willing to try to make it work. My opinion, it’s not worth a bullet.”

“By the time your opinion changes, it’ll be too late,” Bruder said. “But I’ll let it play out. For now.”

While the three men talked in the back of the barn Connelly watched the road and, out of the corner of his eye, Nora, to gauge her level of anger.

He was a little worried about the gun in her pocket.

“So, what do you think?” he said.

She didn’t answer for a while.

Then: “About what?”

“Me sticking around. With you, wherever that is.”

“I think it’s pretty goddam presumptuous.”

He glanced over to see if she was smiling when she said it.

She was not.

He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he said, “It’s a lot to process.”

“Not really. You lied. Why go any further than that?”

“I lied out of necessity.”

She turned to him.

“Oh, necessity? You needed to steal Razvan’s money? You needed to put my life in danger, and everyone who lives here?”

“Well, no. But once the job was a go, certain things had to happen. Lying to you was one of them, to keep you safe.”

“No,” she said. “Don’t even. Don’t try to make yourself feel better by framing this as some bullshit white knight scenario. If you wanted to keep me safe, you never would have talked to me. But you did, on purpose, because why? I’m starting to see it all, right now—you got me to tell you all about them. About the town.”

She shook her head, bewildered.

“And just now, when that man said your name. ‘Adam does.’ The way he said it. That’s not even your name, is it?”

Connelly dreaded this, knowing it wasn’t going to make anything better, but lying again would only make it worse.

“No.”

“You piece of shit. What’s your real name?”

He winced.

“I’ll tell you when this is all over.”

Her mouth fell open.

“What? You’re not going to tell me?”

“Nora, I’m serious, it’s for your own safety. If you don’t know my real name, or how the other guys look, their faces, you’re better off.”

She crossed her arms and said, “In case of what?”

“I think you know.”

“I want you to say it.”

Connelly couldn’t help wishing she wouldn’t give him such a hard time, even though he knew he had it coming.

He said, “In case the cops come asking. Or the Romanians.”

“Ah. There it is. And from what you’ve seen—oh wait, and from what I’ve told you—do you think they’ll be nice to me when they ask? When I tell them, I don’t know your name, or how ugly the rest of your team is, do you think they’ll just say, okay, sorry to bother you, have a nice day?”

Connelly stared out at the road through the gap in the barn doors.

He wanted her to keep her voice down but couldn’t say so, not then.

Not if he didn’t want to get shot by that pocket gun.

He knew what the other three were talking about, back there in the corner. If they looked over and saw him and Nora going at it, possibly a sign of what was to come, it might tip their decision a bad way.

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s mostly in case of cops.”

“And what about Razvan and his men? Should I just start packing now for Arizona so I don’t get