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“Well, the way she phrased it, I’m not sure. It sounds that way. But you haven’t reached out to the Paynes, have you?”
I shook my head. Emerson had once turned River and me into PMCs. Not without a little help from his hubby, Danny. We’d worked together more than once over the years, but while River and I had been naïve to think we could retire, those two had just switched things around to become full-time instructors. They trained new recruits at Hillcroft these days. As far as I knew, they hadn’t been in the field in the last ten years.
“You reckon it could be Elliott or Darius?” I asked. They knew the Paynes too.
Considering the ongoing shitshow in Europe, maybe they’d decided we needed reinforcements.
“Without tellin’ us?” River was skeptical. “Hold on—she’s responding.”
I checked the rearview and my side mirror.
“Yeah, she’s linking them to the explosion at Blanco’s estate,” he said in disbelief. What the fuck? That made no sense. Vincente Blanco was our goddamn funder—why would Elliott or Darius ask Emerson and Danny to blow up the place?
On any other day, sure, ’cause Vincente was still a cartel motherfucker who deserved to rot, but right now, the enemy of our enemy was our friend. Vincente wanted Carillo dead almost as much as we did.
“Jesus Christ,” River muttered. He snapped his head up and turned to me. “It’s the FBI agent Crew’s with.Heknows the Paynes.”
The FBI agent who’d fuckingkidnappedCrew?
I clenched my jaw and tightened my hold on the wheel. Frankly, River and I had distanced ourselves emotionally from the updates from Crew because we couldn’t handle that right now. We’d checked out when we’d understood that he was letting himself be taken—plus, we had people vouching for the agent. He was supposedly a good guy. And honestly, if he knew Emerson and Danny, it was pretty much all the relief I needed about whatever Crew was going through. And wherever he was at the moment.
“In that case, I’m not gonna worry,” I said firmly. “I don’t know what the fuck they’re up to, but I trust Emerson, I trust Danny, and I have faith in Crew.”
I trusted Crew as well, obviously, but the kid could be unpredictable. He was a Finlay and a Marine through and through. His uncle was one of our closest buddies, and he was much the same. Or he had been. Age tended to mellow people out. The only thing that didn’t change was their loyalty. Crew was a sweetheart, and he would never betray us or do anything that jeopardized the operation.
But he’d better be all right, or I’d hunt him down too.
Christ, I couldn’t think about it. My stomach was already a mess as it was. I could barely allow my mind to wander to Shay for too long. If…whenI did, my emotions got the best of me.
He was okay. Our boy was strong and alive and just waiting for us to get him.
Nausea churned in my gut, quick to call me out on my bullshit. Because I didn’t fucking know, did I? I didn’t know if he was okay. If he was alive. I didn’t know what Carillo’s men had done to him. How badly they’d hurt him.
I heard Shay’s voice every time I dozed off. My nightmares conjured the worst scenarios and shoved them down my throat. I imagined him furious with his captors, disgusted with River and me for pulling him into this life, where shit like this was a risk we hadn’t warned him about, and I pictured him devastated and broken and…
I blew out a harsh breath and scrubbed a hand over my face. Then I sped up a bit and checked the rearview again. So far, so good. We’d wreaked so much havoc on this godforsaken cartel’s turf that I always expected someone to be following us.
“Deep breaths, brother,” River reminded me. “We can’t lose focus now.”
He was right.
Traffic thinned out the closer we got to Malibu.
We’re coming, sweetheart. We’ll be together again soon.
* * *
Was this young Luiz even trying to hide his affiliations? A question I’d asked myself for days. I was just saying. It wasn’t often a guy of thirty-two who worked as a manager for a café and two bodegas could afford a mansion on the outskirts of Malibu. He’d conveniently put his wife’s name on the deed, but she worked as a hairdresser, so…
I parked the truck on the other side of the ridge where their house looked out over the sea. The moment Riv and I jumped out, we heard the music pumping from the property. Big party tonight. River estimated at least a hundred people were here.
We’d seen cars parked along the side of the road before I’d driven straight up the mountainside.
I attached my helmet and switched on the flashlight fastened to the side of it.
Pitch-black and nothing but shrubs and probably rattlesnakes.
I hated the desert. I didn’t care if it was here, in Nevada, or in Iraq.
