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“Cash was aware.”
“He knew you were going to have a bomb strapped to your chest?”
Duke’s voice was getting louder and angrier with every question he directed at me. “No, but he knew something was going to happen. The bomb was courtesy of IRIS.”
“Your teammate put a bomb on you? Knowingly?”
I shrugged. “It’s sort of his specialty.”
Duke spun away from me, running his fingers through his hair. “Christ, I can’t believe this. I thought I was getting him away from you. And all that time, you knew!”
“Duke—”
“How the fuck could you do that to me?”
“I didn’t do it to you,” I retorted. “I was doing my job, and that doesn’t include anything to do with you. And in case you forgot, you were still fucking Carly at the time!”
He snapped his mouth shut and turned away from me. We weren’t going to solve anything by continuing to fight about this. What happened was in the past.
“Back to Rafe, his wife is Liberty West. She was Michael West’s daughter until Rafe killed him.” I turned to Nick. “I expect anything you learn here to be kept to yourself.”
“Of course. Wouldn’t want to get blown up with a bomb,” he muttered.
“Trafficking women was just one of many illegal activities West was involved in. His connections were even more interesting. We believe that he was connected to the Pike Crime Syndicate.”
“Are you serious? I’ve heard about this, but no one has much information on them.”
“That’s because they don’t have Rafe on their side. Trust me, it’s not necessarily a good thing. He’s gotten us into a lot of trouble because of his need to take them down.”
“What can you tell me?”
“Basically, the worst of humanity is part of this syndicate. Whether they’re dealing drugs, women, or weapons, these men work together to secure their positions and remain in power. That’s who we’re up against. And the worst part is these men rarely show their faces. It’s nearly impossible to get someone on the inside.”
“But you took down West,” he confirmed.
“Yes, but the syndicate is large. With Wixx, they slipped someone else into his place. In order to take one of them down for good, we need to take all of them down, which is damn near impossible.”
“How does this help us find the kid?”
I felt Duke tense behind me. I knew this was hard on him. I saw it on his face when he found out the kid he thought was his was missing. But we had to push through that if we had any hope of finding this kid.
“Can you search for him? I know the department is looking, but you’re…”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m what?”
“Well, Fox said…” He looked between me and Duke, then swallowed hard. “Anyway—”
“No, really. What did Fox say?”
He flushed slightly, which was hilarious because the man was a SEAL, but he seemed to be scared of pissing me off. I almost asked him why that was, but then my door opened and none other than Fox walked in.
“Hey, man. I see you found our hacker lady.”
Nick’s gaze swung to Fox momentarily.
“She didn’t kick your ass, did she?” His eyes quickly assessed Nick for injuries, nodding when he didn’t see anything. “You’re lucky. She kicked his ass on the first day they met,” he grinned, winking at Duke.
“She didn’t kick my ass,” Duke grumbled. “I wasn’t prepared.”
