He set his bag down and lit up a cigarette, drawing in the smoke until it filled his lungs. He was so jittery there would be no way he'd be able to go to sleep when he got back to his house. He smoked until the butt was close to finished. Tamping it out on top of the metal black trashcan, Ian pocketed the butt. He then flipped the lid on the trashcan and leaned over it, slipping the backpack into it. He was bent over, covering much of what the cameras could see.

  It was the perfect cover. As soon as he had the lid back in place, Ian smoked another cigarette. Eight in the morning could not come soon enough. He finished that smoke, pocketed the butt like he had the other and then he walked off the way he had come. He walked for five blocks before Spencer swung around and picked him up in the middle of a neighborhood where no one would see.

  It had worked perfectly. Ian let out a breath. The three of them went back to their houses. Ian was right. He hadn't been able to sleep at all that night. He'd been so full of adrenaline that every time he tried to sit down on the futon he called a couch he'd stood right back up. He'd smoked through an entire pack and drank at least a case of beer.

  Stumbling toward his living room after his last smoke break, Ian flipped on the television. It was eight in the morning. He wanted to know, to see, to hear when the news broke about the bombing. He wanted to see what they thought of it, hear the words he knew they'd say. It was done to make everything better, done to turn their neighborhood around, done to scare them. The ones who didn't deserve to be there. The ones who were taking over moment by moment.

  When nine rolled around and there was no sign of breaking news, Ian was at his wits end. He scrounged through the basement for another smoke, finally finding one, but he was going to need more. Any time he sat down, his body was exhausted, but he couldn't stop his leg from bouncing or his hands from shaking.

  Ten. Still nothing. Tim had called once already. Spencer nothing. Ian snorted. If anything had happened, he was pretty sure Spencer was the one who would have ratted them out, the one who would have given them up, told someone, anyone. Ian swallowed. He needed smokes.

  It took him ten minutes to get to the smoke shop where he preferred to buy his stuff, a place that catered to true Americans. He bought plenty to keep him going, charging it to the one card he still had on him that would let transactions go through.

  He was shaking when he got back, barely able to get the cig into his mouth and lit. Tim was parked outside, and as soon as Ian showed up, Tim was out of his car, coming straight round for him.

  "What the hell happened?"

  Ian glanced up at him with a curious look. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, nothing happened. So what the hell happened?'

  Clenching his jaw, Ian looked around the neighborhood. His brother lived in one of those stupid suburbs they'd built, far out from the center of town. He'd hated moving there, but he'd had no option. Shaking his head at Tim, Ian said, "Shut up. Let's go inside."

  It took them less than a minute to get down into the basement. Ian shut and locked the door behind time. "Have you heard from Spence?"

  "No. You?"

  "No." Ian sucked down his cigarette, not caring that his brother hated it when he smoked inside the house. He needed it. "I don't know what happened."

  "I drove by. Nothing happened."

  "Do you think...do you think Spence called it in?"

  "I don't know, man." Tim ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, his rounded face from the extra sixty pounds he carried around weighing on him even more. "You don’t think he would, do you?"

  Ian had to be the sane and rational one. He had to be the one who was calm. "If he did, he'd probably be gone by now."

  "True. But he's not answering his fucking phone."

  "Nope. I tried him too." It was a lie, but Tim didn't need to know that. Ian hadn't called either of them. Tim had called him, multiple times, and Spencer had been silent on all fronts. "Should we go over there?"

  "Maybe." Tim grabbed his phone and put it to his ear, no doubt calling Spencer again. When there was no answer, he cursed and slammed his cellphone onto the coffee table. "What the hell are we going to do?"

  "Nothing. There's nothing we can do. We've got to figure out why it didn't work, assuming Spence didn't give us up, and then we'll go from there for the next time."

  "Next time?" Tim's eyes were wide with shock. "What do you mean next time?"

  "This was never a one and done kind of deal." Ian stared directly at Tim, making sure his meaning was understood.

  "It didn't work."

  "It will work," Ian said through clenched teeth. "It will work. We just have to figure out what went wrong this time."

  Tim let out a sigh. "Let's go find Spence."

  "Righteo."

  They took Tim's car, since it was nicer and didn't smell so much like smoke. He drove directly to Spencer's small apartment. When they got to his door, Tim pounded his fist on it. Ian stood next to Tim, fidgeting with the cigarettes he had just bought in his pocket. It took Tim knocking two more times before Spencer came to the door, looking wasted off his ass.

  "What?" Spencer asked.

  Ian shook his head, grabbed Spencer by the shoulder and shoved him inside. Tim followed closely behind, shutting the door behind them. Ian took Spencer to the couch and made him sit down. The apartment reeked of booze and pot. He gripped Spencer's chin and raised it up to stared directly at him.

  "Shit."

  "What?" Tim asked.

  "He's gone to the wind for sure. You anywhere near sober, Spencer?"

  "No," he grunted.

  Ian shook his head. "When did you start?"

  "When I got home." Spencer slurred all his words, everyone taking him three times as long as normal to actually speak them.

  "Fuck," muttering, Ian looked around the room again. He grabbed Spencer by the wrist and dragged him to the bathroom and shoved him in to an ice cold shower. "You didn't do anything stupid did you?"

  "Drink. And smoke."

  "No, stupid like call the cops."

  Spencer popped his head out, staring at Ian. "No."

  Ian looked over his shoulder at Tim and shrugged. "You trust him?"

  "Yeah."

  "Then something else went wrong. Sober up, Spence. We've got shit to figure out."

  Spencer took a thirty minute shower, and when he came back out to join them, he still wasn't sober, but he was at least more put together than before. They sat around his living room until Spencer's girlfriend came back from her shift. Immediately, Ian had shut up. Spencer was still high as a kite, and she looked none too happy with him.

  Standing up, Ian grabbed his pack of cigarettes. "See you tomorrow, Spence."

  "Yeah."

  As soon as Tim and he were outside, they could hear the shouting inside. She really laid into him. Ian gave Tim a sheepish look. "I fucked it up."

  "What do you mean?"

  "If Spence didn't call and no one found out, then I'm the one who fucked it up. Come on, let's go to your car." As soon as they were inside and headed back to Ian's house, he laid it all out. "There's no other explanation. We'll see if they found it, but if they didn't, then the bomb didn't go off, meaning I fucked something up along the way so it didn't go off. I'm going to have to go back and look at what I did."

  "You wrote it down?"

  "Of course I did. There's a lot of numbers in it." Ian shook his head. "It's not exactly put this here and that there and then you're done. No, you have to decide how big of an explosion you want and that is determined by how much you put of one thing in verses another."

  "Oh." Tim gripped the steering wheel tightly. "Maybe it's a sign."

  "Sign of what?"

  "That we shouldn't do this."

  Ian clenched his jaw hard. He was done with the whisy-washy bullshit. Tim and Spencer needed to man up and do what needed done in order to take back what was rightfully theirs. He couldn't and wouldn't hold it out for them.

  “Are you with me or not?”

  Tim stopped. He paled. “I’m with you, Ian.”

  “Good. Then we need a new plan. Where are we going to hit next and when?”

  “You sure?”

  Ian sent him a scathing look. “Yes. When Spence sobers up, we’ll bring him in. Until then, let’s figure out what we’re doing.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait to see if we’ve been had?”

  Ian shrugged. “Why? If we wait, we’ll never know. Let’s plan. Let’s take back what is rightfully ours. Let’s make it safe for your kids, again. Let’s make it so they can find jobs when they graduate. I’m tired of this bullshit, of living in a place where I was born where that doesn’t even matter anymore. You said you were too. So are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then where next?”

  Tim’s eyes were wide. “There’s that factory we talked about.”

  “Yes. Perfect.”

  Chapter Five

  Morgan woke up to her phone shrilly ringing next to her ear. Groaning, she squinted at it as she tried to make out the words. Unable to, she gave up and answered. "What?"

  "Bright little thing you are in the morning."

  "It's not morning. It's still dark outside." She twisted onto her back, her legs still tangled in the blankets on her bed. She rubbed her eyes as she tried to wake up, but the severe lack of coffee in her bloodstream did not bode well for her functioning. "What time is it?"

  "Three."

  "What?" Morgan looked at the clock on her nightstand. "Why the hell are you calling at three in the morning, Pax? I don't do booty calls anymore, you know that. And never with you.”

  "Like I'd ever want your booty."

  "Shove it."

  He good and truly laughed at her. Pouting, Morgan forced her body into a sitting position on her mattress. She brushed her bangs out of her face and stared down at her messy floor around her in an attempt to locate some kind of clothing to wear as she was no doubt getting called in to work.

  "We got floated a case."

  "What do you mean floated?”

  "From your little friend over at the Chicago PD.”

  "A murder?"

  "Okay, so maybe not your little friend, but from CPD."

  Morgan ignored his jovial tone. Catching sight of a pair of slacks that looked halfway decent on the floor near the corner of her bedroom, she stood up and snagged them. "What kind of case?"

  "There's some unrest in one of the extremist groups in town."

  "They're in perpetual unrest." She shoved one foot into her pant leg and then the other, balancing the phone in the nook between her shoulder and her ear. "You're going to have to give me more."

  "Don't know more. I haven't talked to the witness yet."

  Sighing, Morgan zipped and buttoned her pants then spun in a circle to try and find a shirt. She hadn't done laundry in near a month, and well, that had obviously been a mistake. "You better have the good stuff."

  "Right here sitting next to me."

  "How far out are you?"

  "Pulling up now."

  "Shit." Morgan grabbed whatever shirt was closest to her. "Give me ten."

  She didn't wait as she hung up. Shoving her head through the hole in the shirt, she pulled it down over her breasts and belly, tucking it into the slacks. She grabbed her shoulder harness for her weapon, checked her weapon before shoving it into the holster, and grabbed whatever blazer she could find on the floor to cover it up. She looked a mess. She knew she did, but when she was dragged out of bed at three in the morning, whatever witness they were meeting could deal with it.

  With the promise of coffee from Pax, Morgan bypassed her own coffee pot and went into her bathroom. A quick brush of her teeth, and an annoyed roll of her eyes at her hair, she shoved water on her hands to try and make it go back down into place. Her short hair was always unruly. She could only ever tame it with a shower, which she definitely did not have time for.

  Sliding into the car with Pax, she let out a breath of relief when he immediately handed over the good stuff. She took in a deep whiff and then had that first blissful sip of it. "Thanks."

  "Any time." Pax put the SUV into drive and pulled out from the curb of her condo building. "CPD got a call in couple hours ago from a guy, clearly drunk, who keep saying something is going to happen."

  "Okay, slow down. Start from the beginning. Who is he?" She stared out the windshield, holding her coffee like it was her lifeline, which it likely was.

  Pax let out a breath. "We're not exactly sure. He says he's a member of National Freedom Party, but from our records, that's a pretty low lying group. They don't do much other than talk a bunch of crap."

  "Yeah." Morgan closed her eyes and tried to drum up everything in her memory about that group, but she wasn't coming up with much. "Who do they hate again?"

  "Who do they not hate? That's kind of the point."

  "Oh."

  "Yeah. Drink up. I need you not in caffeine withdrawal for this interview."

  Morgan huffed. "What made them send it up to us?"

  Pax shrugged. "Someone put a memo out for some reason that we were looking for information on them."

  "We? As in the bureau?"

  "Yup."

  "Are we?"

  Pax shrugged again. "Who knows, but we got a call, so now we're going to interview."

  Morgan sipped even more of her drink, feeling the caffeine hit her system and her brain thinking more clearly. "Taylor knows?"

  "Yeah, he said he didn't know what was going on, but since it's a hate group that we should check it out just in case, and if nothing, it'll rebound back to the CPD."

  "That's stupid. Waste our overtime hours for this when they don't even know if it's our case or not."

  "It could be."

  "Only if there's a credible threat."

  Pax shifted his gaze to her before looking back out the front window. "He says there is."

  "A threat or a credible threat."

  "I don't know, Stone. I'm just as frustrated with going as you are. It's Monday. I was supposed to do breakfast with the girls before taking them to school today and now Mel's got to do that and I'm stuck in this damn car with you."

  "Real nice." Rolling her eyes again, she pushed back into the seat and focused on her coffee. "You interviewing or am I?"

  "You are. You're better at it than I am, besides, if he's anti-Black people, he probably won't even speak to me."

  "Yeah, but he's probably anti-queer too." Morgan clenched her jaw. It was the first time she'd really brought it up with Pax in a way that made it obvious she also experienced discrimination, not in the same way, but it was very likely this guy, whoever he was, didn't like either of them.

  "You can hide yours for two hours."

  "Fuck off." Morgan scrunched her nose, and then swallowed her own anger before brushing her hand over her face. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. I'm just...I'm tired."

  "We all are."

  Determined to keep her mouth shut for the rest of the ride to the station, Morgan made sure to finish her coffee. She missed what she and Pax used to have before the glass had been shattered last Christmas. She missed their banter and their friendship, but she wasn't wrong, something had shifted between the two of them since then. Mel had even mentioned it in a text at one point.

  Pulling up at the station, Morgan got out first. Pax slammed his door shut shortly after she closed hers. They were led back into an interview room where the man was waiting for them to arrive. Morgan caught a reflection of herself in one of the large mirror like windows and cringed. She was definitely out of sorts. Laundry first thing before she went to work that morning, that way she could at least have something clean for the next day.

  "He says he's been part of NFP for years, but nothing like this has ever happened before."

  Morgan stared at him as the detective spoke. "What's his name?"

  "Ray Arnold."

  Letting out a breath, Morgan nodded. "Okay, you fill Agent Jones in. I'm going to talk to him. You recording?"

  "No."

  Morgan thinned her lips and sent Pax a look before she pushed open the door and walked into the room. The scent of alcohol was way stronger than she had anticipated, and it hit her like a brick wall as soon as she was four paces inside. She sat across from Ray at the table and tried to keep her nose plugged at the same time.

  "Hi, Ray. I'm Agent Morgan Stone. I'm with the FBI. Do you want to tell me what brought you here tonight?”

  His jaw trembled. His fingers curled and uncurled several times. He leaned back in the wooden chair and then shook his head at her. "No."

  She had hoped since he'd already come forward to talk to the police once that it would be easy for him to talk again, but her assumption had been wrong. Sighing, she started from the beginning. "Can you tell me your full name please?"

  "Raymond Arnold." He speech was slurred beyond what she'd first heard when he spoke.

  Morgan swallowed and glanced out the window, knowing Pax was right outside and listening in. "All right, Ray, can I call you Ray? Anyway, Ray, the Chicago Police called us in because you mentioned a group you're a part of. What group is that, exactly?"

  He shook his head, crossing his arms and staring at the table top.

  "You know, Ray, I can have my partner come in here and ask these questions, but he's a pretty big Black man, and was just roused from his bed in the middle of the night to come all the way down here to listen to you talk, and well, he's a bit cranky when he gets woken up in the middle of the night. I'm the much better option to be dealing with, trust me."

  Ray looked around the room, his pale blue eyes finally landing on Morgan and he gave a slight nod. "Nothing happened."

  "Why don't you start from the beginning, because the Chicago Police detective that called us in here just wants to make sure that nothing is going to happen. That's all I'm here for too, okay?"

  "Sure."

  "So, let's start again. What group was it that you mentioned you were a part of?"

  “National Freedom Party. I've been a member since I was twenty-eight."

  "Wow, that's a long time." Morgan noted the name and the year he joined in the notepad Pax had thankfully remembered to bring and shoved in her hand at some point. "What do you do in this group?"