"Shut up, Marcus," Silas hissed. He quickly shoved the gloves back into the box and folded the cardboard flaps down, hiding them from view. He turned to me, his expression hardening back into a mask of total control. "The depot made a mistake. This is old trash. Leave it here. Get out of my gym."
"I need a signature," I said, holding out my digital scanner.
Silas snatched the scanner, scrawled a jagged line across the screen, and shoved it back against my chest. "Unlock the doors," he yelled at Rocco.
I didn't push my luck. I slung my backpack over my shoulders, turned my back on the men who had ruined my family, and walked out the glass doors into the blinding afternoon sun.
As soon as I was sitting in the driver's seat of my delivery van, my hands clamped onto the steering wheel, and I let out a long, shuddering breath. The first phase was done. I had survived.
I pulled out of the parking lot and drove three blocks before pulling into a deserted alley. I killed the engine, reached into my backpack, and pulled out my laptop. I flipped it open and launched an encrypted video application.
The box I had just delivered wasn't just holding Leo's missing gloves. The bottom corner of the cardboard carton had a microscopic pinhole camera seamlessly embedded into the packaging tape. I had built it myself.
The video feed flickered to life on my screen. The camera angle was looking up from the floor of Silas's VIP office. Silas had carried the box upstairs and set it on his desk.
On the screen, Silas paced frantically back and forth. He picked up a landline phone. "It's me," Silas said, his voice tinny but clear through the hidden microphone. "Someone shipped Leo's gloves to the gym. I don't know who. But I'm looking at them right now."
Silas paused, listening to whoever was on the other end. Then, he grabbed a heavy hunting knife off his desk.
My breath caught. On the screen, Silas took Leo's left glove and brutally sliced the leather open, tearing through the dense foam padding over the knuckles. He dug his fingers into the ruined foam and pulled something out.
It was a tiny, silver USB flash drive.
I stared at the screen in shock. I had found those gloves hidden in the false bottom of Leo's gym bag in his apartment. I had sent them to the gym hoping Silas’s reaction would prove he had tampered with them. I had no idea a USB drive was hidden inside the padding. Leo must have found it in Silas's office and stitched it into his own glove to smuggle it out of the gym on the night of the fight.
"I have the drive," Silas said into the phone, holding the silver USB up to the light. "No, the courier didn't see anything. But she knew how to fight. Find out who drove that route today. Get me a name."
I slammed the laptop shut. Silas was going to run the courier manifest. My fake ID would hold up for a few hours, but if he checked the hospital visitor logs or dug deep enough, he would find out Maya Vance was Leo's sister.
I threw the van in drive and sped toward the hospital. I needed to move Leo to a secure facility before Silas sent his men to finish the job.
I sprinted through the hospital lobby, bypassing the front desk, and took the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor. I pushed open the heavy wooden door to Room 412.
The room was empty.