Chapter 29 · Switch 29

"Don't move." Voss's voice came out of the dark flat and unbothered, like he wasn't the one who'd just killed the lights on sixty men's pensions. I heard my own heartbeat before I heard anything else. Then Marco's boots, fast, wrong direction — toward the wall, not toward me.

"Lila." His hand found my elbow first, then slid to my wrist, thumb pressing hard against the bone like he was checking I still had a pulse.

"Don't touch the panel."

"I wasn't going to touch the panel, I was going to touch him."

"Same thing right now." His mouth was close enough that I felt the words on my ear before I understood them, warm air against cold skin, and for one stupid second that was the only thing in the room I could think about. Then the compressor kicked and died again, and the cold came back like a hand around my throat.

"Twenty-eight's out," Voss said. Somewhere to my left, metal ticked.

"Twenty-nine's next. That's the west room. Forty thousand pounds, Ms. Crowe. Cod, mostly. You'll smell it by Thursday."

"You flip that switch, you're not threatening my fish, you're threatening federal cargo under a customs hold.