Page 14 of Declan

“I wanted to tell you my contact just called. Word is, Madeleine will be at the clinic tomorrow for a photo op.”

“Who’s your contact?”

“Ashaki Maloof.”

Jesus, I was tired of hearing that woman’s name.

“I don’t trust that woman.”

“So? I do. She’s never given me bad intel.”

What the hell?

My phone rang and I glanced at the screen.

“We gotta take this,” I told Autumn.

“We?”

“The whole team,” I clarified.

“Tex,” I answered the call. “I’m getting the team together now.”

“Before you do that, I wanted a minute.”

“You know, too,” I sighed.

“If by know you mean I know about Juliana and Violet, yes I know.”

Another stab to my heart.

“Jesus Christ. Does anyone around here not mind their own fuckin’ business?”

“My business is to know everything there is to know,” Tex returned.

“So why are you bringing this up now?”

“Because with Autumn in play—”

I glanced at the woman in question. Blank, impassive, dead just like me.

“Not going there because there’s nowhere to go with that.”

Brooks stopped in front of the door and lifted his chin in question.

Perfect timing.

“Brooks is here, let me get the rest of the team.”

Tex mumbled something under his breath about me being a stubborn jackass. He was wrong, I wasn’t stubborn, I was right.

“It’s Tex,” I told Brooks. “He’s got intel for us. Grab the team.”

With another jerk of his chin, he left, Autumn followed, and I took a breath that did nothing to calm the throbbing in my chest.

When would the pain end? When would the day come where I could think about my baby girl and not want to crumble to the floor? Why the fuck had they been taken?

Chapter 5