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Kev’s voice sounded terrified, but there was something underneath it that gave me pause. I’d heard Kev scared, and that wasn’t what I was hearing now.
That sounded like Kev when he was enraged and trying to cover it up.
“Adam…” Kev sniffed. “I… how did you know? I’m s-so scared. I think they’re… I think they’re into something bad. I think they have information about something important and I’m somehow caught up in it. I’m innocent, I swear. All I did was protect the data!”
Champ keyed his mic. “Where’s the weapon?” he asked in a low voice as we neared a couple in the hallway on Linus’s floor. I could see the distraction agents further down the hallway, still acting drunk and silly outside of Linus’s room.
“At his side.”
Sweat beaded on my forehead and lower back. “Ten bucks said the sorority didn’t teach weapon neutralization,” I muttered.
Champ looked at me like maybe I’d lost my mind. “We going in?”
My heart screamed yes, but my brain knew better. “Not… not yet. Let him finish this. Get everything on a recording. Then we go.”
Champ nodded once as we approached the agents in the hallway and stood waiting.
“Warrant in elevator,” Laurel said over comms.
Riggs’s voice took over. “Weapon down for now. He set it on a table and is approaching Kev.”
“Oh, my poor baby,” Linus’s voice cooed, dripping with insincerity. “I’m so sorry. Come here.”
Bile rose up in my throat. Kev had no idea how close we were. He didn’t know if he had one more minute in that room or twenty.
“Are you caught up in this?” Kev asked in a soft voice. “Is that why you’re asking me about this stuff?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Linus replied in a fake pleasant tone barely holding back an angry growl. “I suggest you tell me what you know instead of asking me questions.”
Kev’s voice got stronger, his anger rising to the surface. “I know you’re really a DEA agent. I know you’re suspected of murder. And I know you’re planning to assassinate Gustavo Santiago while you’re here in Vegas.”
Champ’s eyebrows rose into the sky. “What the fuck?” he mouthed at me. I shrugged stiffly.
Kev was poking the bear. And the bear was made up of C-4 explosives. I hoped like hell he knew what he was doing.
“Kill Gustavo?” Linus asked with a huff of laughter. “Why the hell would I take out the source? Where would we get the drugs if we took out the head of the damned cartel? The drugs bring the money. I’m this fucking close to being able to quit and retire to a private damned island. No more fucking Horn for the rest of my days. And I didn’t kill anyone—Gustavo did. I just told him where to find the guy.”
Laurel’s voice over comms was reverent. “He’s getting us confessions on top of everything.”
The elevator at the end of the hall dinged, and an agent in a suit came out, waving the warrant. The “drunk” agents straightened up and pulled their weapons out of hidden holsters. “Back away,” one of them said to us.
Champ pulled me back when I wanted to lunge forward and be the first to breach the room.
“Get him out of there clean,” I urged them, voice cracking with fear. “Please.”
I sent a message to Kev’s phone, which was the breach signal we’d previously agreed upon…
Me: Rodrigo.
And then a second one that had fuck-all to do with this op.
Me: I’m sorry. I love you.
I knew he wouldn’t see them, wouldn’t take the time to pull his phone out of his pocket when his job was to find cover instead, but maybe later he’d notice them and know he continued to be loved fiercely regardless of how he felt about me.
Chaos ensued. Clatter and shouts, gasps and cries. One odd moment of silence before a single gunshot went off in the tiny room.
I broke out of Champ’s hold and bolted for the door.
For Kevin.
21
KEV
When I’d entered Linus Dixon’s hotel room, I’d felt nothing. Discovering Hux—my Jasper Huxley—was really SmittyKitty had been an unexpected blow. The kind that swept aside all of the false bravado and anger about Hux’s overreaction that had carried me down the hall.
My brain scrambled to process the totality of his deception. Honesty from here on out, we’d said. All the shit we’d said and done in the past would stay in the past, and we were a team moving forward.
So what the hell had he been thinking?
When Linus began playing me, my words came easy. No nerves, no overthinking. Too much of my heart and soul was wound up in razor wire to worry about this manipulative asshole when I was so distracted by the other manipulative asshole.
I was going to kick his ass. Unleash every self-defense move the Chi Omegas had ever taught me, complete with the bloodcurdling screams, and maybe add a few of my own besides. The kitchen laser plan was back on, complete with extra lasers, and I really hoped that no one I liked planned to ride in Huxley’s vehicle anytime soon because they would soon realize that his stereo only ever played “Cotton-Eyed Joe” and “Who Let the Dogs Out” on an endless loop, at volume eleven, forever.
