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H: Check in STAT.
His heart thumped.
It wasn’t check-in time—or even check-in day. Dante was undercover in this backwater corner of central Oregon. He set the rules about when to check in with the brass. On the other hand, maybe someone else had found hard evidence proving the club president had first trafficked and then tortured and murdered seventeen-year-old Glory Henderson. There were enough alphabets hanging around the area to make several cans of soup.Maybethey’d finally gotten the MC for both arms and human trafficking. That would be an early birthday present.
Something told Dante that wasn’t what this text was about. And besides, he’d never gotten what he wanted for his birthday; there was no reason to think the future would be different from the past.
Catching the eye of the lone server, he gestured for her to come back over to his table.
“I’m gonna have to cancel my order,” he said, pulling out his wallet and handing a pair of tens over.
“We can box it up for you,” she offered.
His phone vibrated again, sending another fission of worry up his spine. Hatch never broke protocol. His handler was nothing if not consistent—and a stickler for rules. Dante met the young woman’s dark eyes and shook his head regretfully. This hole-in-the-wall café in the middle of nowhere central Oregon served the best Phad Kee Mao he’d ever eaten.
“That’s okay. Thanks for the offer.”
Shrugging into his leather jacket, Dante returned his wallet to his back pocket and strode out of the restaurant into the dusty parking lot where the crappy, department-issued, unmarked 1997 Toyota Celica with a manual transmission waited for him. Looks were deceiving though, because under the hood was a refurbished six-cylinder engine that Dante knew from experience could easily cruise at 100 mph. It never hurt to have a means of escape even if he generally stuck to the speed limits.
He waited until the town of Hampton had disappeared from his rearview mirror before pulling over to the side of the road and responding to the text.
D:Checking in
H:Get back to Portland
D:Why
Dante watched the gray dots go back and forth in the chat bubble. Whatever it was, it must be bad. Had the investigation been compromised? Dante hadn’t felt like things were falling apart and he was usually able to tell. The unfortunate result of growing up in a toxic household meant he was hyperaware of the people around him.
His phone rang, the sound loud in the confines of the Celica.
“Shit,” he murmured. With trepidation unfurling in his stomach, he pressed Accept.
“Castone here.”
“Dante.” Hatch’s voice sounded odd.
“Yeah?”
“It’s your sister.”
Shit. “Was she in an accident or something?” Simone drove like a Formula 1 driver. Dante hated being in the car with her.
“No. Dante—”
Abruptly, he knew the news was bad. Whatever had happened, it was far worse than a car accident.
“Get to the point. Fucking tell me already.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the connection. Every second it took for Hatch to speak had Dante’s heart clenching hard, then harder.
“Simone is dead, Dante. Murdered. Last night.” Hatch’s voice was raspy and broke on the last word.
Dante’s chest hurt. He sucked in a gulp of oxygen. Simone and her daughter were the only people in his immediate family Dante had a relationship with—if his other brothers and sisters were even still alive. The Italian Mob may not have been in the news much in the last couple of decades, but they still were around, taking up space on the planet that should have been reserved for good and decent humans.
One of the best people he knew was dead? Gone forever?
“Why? How?” he managed to ask around the bubble of pain in his throat.
