Warehouse rules
1132 Words
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7 PM came with rain.
Nairobi rain doesn’t ask permission. It takes the city, drowns the dust, and turns Industrial Area into a maze of black water and yellow headlights.
The black SUV Knox sent was waiting at my gate. Tinted windows. Engine purring. The driver didn’t speak when I slid in. Just handed me a black umbrella and locked the doors.
_Wear something you can run in, sweetheart._
I wore boots. Jeans. A leather jacket over my badge and Ministry ID. Capable. Prosecutor. Ready to arrest a king or run from one.
The warehouse sat at the end of Lumumba Drive like a coffin. No sign. No lights. Just corrugated steel and the smell of rust and secrets. The driver stopped fifty meters out.
“He says you walk from here.”
Of course he did. Knox Vance doesn’t do easy.
Rain hammered the umbrella as I crossed the dead lot. My badge was hot against my chest. Every step echoed. This was stupid. This was a trap. This was—
The warehouse door rolled open six inches.
Light spilled out. And him.
Knox stood in the doorway in black jeans and a white t-shirt that did nothing to hide the tattoos snaking up his arms, his neck. Water dripped from the roof and hit his shoulders. He wasn’t wearing a jacket. Wasn’t cold. Men like him generated their own heat.
“You came.” He sounded surprised. Pleased. Dangerous.
“I said I would.” I snapped the umbrella shut. “Ministry doesn’t bluff, Mr. Vance.”
His mouth twitched. “No. But pretty auditors do.”
He stepped back, letting me into the dark.
The warehouse wasn’t empty.
It wasn’t full of wheat either.
Crates were stacked twenty feet high, stamped with Vance Industries logos. But the air smelled wrong. Not grain. Not flour.
Gasoline. Copper. _Blood._
“Your wheat shipment,” I said, voice steadier than my pulse. “Where is it?”
Knox walked between the crates like he owned the shadows. “You tell me, Prosecutor. You’re the one with the warrant.”
“I don’t need a warrant to audit Ministry-approved facilities.”
He stopped. Turned. One eyebrow raised, the scar cutting through it pale in the single bulb hanging from the rafters. “So arrest me.”
It was a dare.
I stepped closer to the nearest crate. The wood was fresh. No dust. The shipping label read _WHEAT - LOT 773 - EXPORT GHANA_.
I pulled my Ministry knife from my boot. Knox didn’t stop me. Didn’t even blink.
The blade slid between the planks. I pried.
The crate cracked open.
Not wheat.
Guns.
Rows of them. Military-grade, still packed in oil and factory plastic. Rifles. Handguns. Enough to start a war in Westlands.
My breath stopped.
“s**t,” I whispered.
“Language, sweetheart.” Knox was suddenly behind me. Not touching. But close enough that his chest brushed my back when he spoke. “Ministry girls shouldn’t curse.”
I spun. “This is treason, Vance.”
“This is business.” His eyes weren’t cold now. They were fire. “Wheat doesn’t pay the bills in my city. But this?” He nodded at the guns. “This keeps the peace.”
“By arming criminals?”
“By arming _me_.” He stepped forward. I stepped back. My spine hit the crate. “Three containers went missing, Aria. You know what was in them?”
I shook my head.
“My men.” His voice dropped. Rough. Real. “Six of them. Dead. Dumped in the Indian Ocean because someone wants my territory. Someone who files fake Ministry complaints to get auditors like you inside my walls.”
The rain got louder. Or maybe that was my heart.
“You think I’m a plant?”
“I think you’re either very brave or very stupid.” His hand came up. Touched my jaw this time. One thumb, calloused and warm, brushing my cheekbone. “Haven’t decided which one I want you to be yet.”
I should have pulled my gun. Should have read him his rights.
Instead I said, “The fire at the docks last night. Was that you?”
His smile was slow. Lethal. “No, Prosecutor. That was them. Sending me a message.”
“What message?”
“That kings can bleed.”
Lightning split the skylights. For one second I saw everything: the scar on his eyebrow wasn’t from a knife. It was a bullet graze. The tattoos on his neck weren’t brands. They were names. Six of them.
His dead men.
“You’re not the villain in this story,” I said before I could stop myself.
Knox went still. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like I’m human.” His hand dropped from my face. “I’m not. Not in this city. Not with blood on my floors.”
He turned away, running a hand through his rain-dark hair. For the first time, the King of Nairobi looked tired.
“My Q3 paperwork says wheat because if it said _guns_, your Ministry would have burned me alive before I found who killed my men.”
“Let me help you.”
He laughed. No humor. All edges. “Help me? You? A Ministry auditor with a badge and a death wish?”
“I’m capable.”
“I know.” He faced me again. And God, the way he looked at me—like I was the only clean thing he’d seen in years. “That’s the problem.”
A sound cut through the rain.
Tires. Multiple. Screeching to a stop outside.
Knox moved faster than I thought possible. One second he was ten feet away. The next his body was against mine, shoving me behind the crates as the warehouse doors exploded inward.
“Down!” he roared.
Bullets tore through the air. Wood splintered. Men shouted. Not his men. Not Ministry.
_Them._
Knox pulled a gun from nowhere. Aimed over the crate. Fired twice. Screams.
He grabbed my wrist. His grip was iron. “Run. Back door. Now.”
“I’m not leaving you—”
“You’re not dying for me either!” He shoved me toward a sliver of light at the back of the warehouse. “Go! That’s an order!”
“You’re not my boss, Vance!”
His eyes locked on mine. Rain and gunfire and death, and he looked at me like I was something worth saving.
“I could be,” he said.
Then he turned and fired into the dark.
I ran.
Because I was capable.
Because I was a prosecutor.
Because Knox Vance, King of Nairobi, had just taken a bullet for me.
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