“If she’s your rival,” the tall man said, “why were you at her house?”

As he asked the question, he turned his head, glancing at the shorter man next to him. When she saw his full profile, Molly froze in shock, her skin washing cold and then hot again.

Detective Bastien!

I knew I didn’t like that weasel, Molly thought as her shock faded and determination took its place. She didn’t dare text from her hiding spot. It was too close, and it’d be too easy for a flash from the screen to catch one of the guys’ attention.

“Haven’t you heard?” John grinned, but it was a macabre sight with his swollen mouth and blood coating his teeth. “You’re supposed to keep your enemies closer.”

“Can we just kill him and get on with it?” The shorter man next to Bastien spoke for the first time, sounding bored. “I have other things to do tonight.”

“I want to know how he heard about this meeting first,” Bastien said. “You don’t have to stick around for that, though. Let’s just do the transfer and be done.”

“Fine.” The man looked at Sonny expectantly.

“Let me see the papers first, Lubchek,” Sonny said. “Then I’ll send you the file.”

Bastien stiffened visibly, his head whipping around toward Sonny, but Lubchek didn’t seem to be offended. Pulling a large envelope from his laptop bag, he handed it to Sonny. “The file is complete?”

“Just like we promised,” Sonny assured him as he pawed through the contents of the folder. “It has the personal and financial details of every one of LZH Finance’s clients.”

Molly absorbed that information, a little shocked. She’d expected drugs or weapons or even black-market laptops, but financial data theft was not what she’d thought Sonny would be hocking. The way they were doing this right in front of John was a bad sign. She needed to act before they made sure he could never testify against them.

Lubchek snatched the envelope away from Sonny.

“Hey!” Sonny protested.

“Send me the file, then you get this and the rest of the payment we agreed to.”

Now! she texted.

Praying with everything in her that her hastily cobbled together, half-assed plan would work, she lifted a piece of wood that had broken off one of the pallets. Cocking back her arm, she threw it as far as she could to her left, desperately hoping that Cara was not close to where it landed. The wood hit the metal bracing on one of the shelves and clattered noisily to the concrete floor.

All four of the men turned toward the sound, all but Sonny drawing their guns in unison, as if they’d rehearsed it. The burly guy and Bastien took off toward the sound, while Sonny slipped off in the other direction, leaving Lubchek with John. Without pausing to dwell on the utter insanity of her plan, Molly darted out of her hiding place and sprinted toward Lubchek. His eyes widened as he swung around, bringing his gun up as he turned.