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“I’m positive. I’ll talk to my sister later, but if you see her first, then please tell her I’m okay and not to worry. She doesn’t have to look out for me anymore. I can handle myself.”
Blake had seen all he needed to. He just had one more order of business to take care of. “Good. Now that we have that sorted, when are you leaving?”
Contreras cast Rena a soft but commanding look, and with a gentle pat on the back, she smiled and left the room. The look he gave them next wasn’t nearly as nice. “I already told you, I’m staying right here. This is my home now.”
“You mean this is where you conduct your business. Which we don’t want. At all.”
“And we’re going to burn it to the ground before we allow you to sink this county and its people into the ground any more than you already have,” Moose backed Blake up.
“Ah, so I see now what the problem is here. You think I’m to blame for the influx of drugs and prostitution?” Wasn’t he? “No. That would be Victor. I sell him arms, and when he comes through, he does a little business of his own. I don’t like the impression he leaves any more than you do, which is why I have been working on a plan to sever my ties with him, permanently.”
“I don’t want another war on my turf,” Blake warned.
“If everything goes to plan, then it won’t come to that.”
Blake didn’t like the sound of that, but he didn’t like the options on the table either. He already knew the sister thing was a longshot, and it had gone about the way he’d expected. He hadn’t banked on the whole daughter-biker-dating angle, though, and he didn’t want a shootout over that whole can of worms happening today. Or any day, even though it might come to that. There was no way to know for sure if Contreras knew Cricket and his daughter were involved, but he wasn’t about to ask. That was potential suicide. Let the daughter work that shit out. A man’s little girl only had to beg a little to make her daddy fold, and he didn’t care who Contreras was, if his baby girl asked nice enough, he was gonna turn into a house of cards on a windy day.
“All right,” Blake drawled, “I’m listening.”
twenty-five
Talia signed off on the last of the paperwork, amazed at the crazy turn of events the case had taken. When Rena Grace climbed into the back seat of her unmarked Crown Victoria and told her she had something better to give them than Manuel Contreras, she hadn’t believed it possible.
Victor Rubio. He was the Great White in a tank full of stingrays.
The whole reason the FBI had never gone after him was because he was too hard to take down. In a pyramid, he’d be the point at the top. He fed all the other dealers, kept them in supply, while mostly sitting on his throne and basking in all of the glory.
But in recent years, he’d been leaving his hiding place in Mexico and getting back into the fray, meeting his buyers personally, doling out his product more organically. Almost as if he missed the old days when he was still young and trying to work his way in and to the top.
Must be lonely up there, Talia mused as she rose from the chair opposite her superior’s desk and reached across the top to shake his hand.
“Good work, you two,” SAC Ingram grunted, a wide smile permanently in place since the moment they’d stormed the castle, cuffed the bastard and all of his men—those who were willing to be taken alive—and hauled their asses in. Currently, they had Rubio and fifty-two of his men in holding downstairs with round the clock armed security waiting for the DEA, CIA, and other departments who’d been working his case for years to come down and help tie up loose ends so they could get the bastard locked away permanently.
“Thanks, boss,” Marley beamed, her bob swinging around her ears, she was shaking his hand so damn hard.
“Are you sure you want to step down?” Ingram asked Talia, he and Marley turning their full attention on her now. “You did fine work out there today.”
“Well, I’d like to make sure that I have a home to return to first, but yeah, I’m pretty positive this is it for me. I love my job, and I always will, but it’s not where I want to be anymore.”
She’d paid her dues and settled some things within herself that needed attention, and now Talia felt like she could finally walk away from the bureau in peace, knowing that she’d left it on a good note, rather than how she had the first time. To her, it was no different than how Tucker would feel if he’d been dishonorably discharged. She had to part with it on her terms. It helped that she was also leaving the world a better place than when she’d signed on as an agent with the FBI in the first place.
They hadn’t gotten Contreras—yet—but they’d taken down the biggest fish with his help. In exchange, they had to leave him alone. At least, on the charges they had stacking up against him so far. They weren’t enough to put him behind bars for years, so it was an easy deal to make—big guy for the little guy. But just because they weren’t slapping cuffs on him today didn’t mean he wouldn’t give them enough to do it tomorrow. The FBI was going to keep an eye on him, and one day, he would give them enough to land himself in a cell right next to Rubio.
And then there was Rena Grace, who’d made it all possible. She’d put her ass on the line, and in exchange, she’d been given full pardon. Her record was already in the process of being expunged, and by the end of the week, she’d be clean as a whistle. Now, as far as her future? That was something Talia wasn’t so confident about. It was clear she’d gotten in too deep with the mark, so Talia wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few years, she saw the girl pop up again on the nightly news as an accessory or, heaven forbid, a victim. She prayed that it worked out for her as well as it had for Talia and Tucker, though.
“Well, I’ll hold onto your shield and weapon until you call and tell me otherwise,” Ingram said, and she could see in his eyes that he truly wanted her to stay.
They’d hit a few bumps in the road because of her relationship with Tucker and the Spartans, but she’d regained his trust with this assignment. That was enough for her.
“I hope you’ll be waiting by the phone,” she told him, “because I might be calling before the day is out.”
He nodded his understanding, and Talia returned the gesture to him as well as Marley before turning on her heel and walking out the door.
The drive back to the home she’d left was long and yet not long enough. She was nervous. It’d been so long since she’d stood before Tucker and looked him in the eyes. And now she was going to have to do that with the knowledge that she was also a liar.
At least she’d had the guts to call him and tell him everything beforehand. Knowing that she was following her colleagues into a hot zone, she’d sat there in the locker room, outfitted in black tactical gear and armed to the teeth, she’d made what might be her last call.
“I just need you to know that I love you. I never stopped.”
