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“Shit. You okay?” The tone of Mack’s voice switched from jovial to serious.
That’s the thing about us. We might do things that will forever haunt us, but we’re a tight-knit group. We always have each other’s back—no matter what. No questions asked.Till death.
Was I okay? I considered telling him that I’d just found out my brother was murdered by the very group I was tracking but stopped short. I didn’t know why, other than the fact that I hadn’t spoken about Nate—hadn’t uttered his name a single time in four years.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I lied as I reversed down the hill. “Before Leo got shot, my target, Sophia Banks, ran and got kidnapped along the way.”
“Sheranfrom you?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you let that happen?”
My teeth ground as I shoved the truck back into drive and slowly pressed the gas, hoping the second time would be a charm.
“She’s hot, isn’t she?” Mack poked before I could respond. “Got you all turned around, didn’t she?”
“Fuck you.”
“Where are you?”
“No, I don’t need you right now. Don’t come here.”
“I didn’t ask if you needed me. I asked where you were,” he repeated sharply.
“Mack, I’ve got this. Stay put. I’ll let you know if I need backup.”
“God, you’re stubborn. Just know that I can have someone out there within a few hours. Astor hired a new guy, Drake, a surly fellow, former MMA fighter. He started yesterday, eager as hell to get his first job.”
“I don’t need anyone right now.”
“Okay, whose phone am I tracking right now?”
“It’s the number Leo was talking to when he got shot. Best I can tell from going through the text threads is that Leo was crooked. A double agent. A gun for hire while secretly feeding information to the Black Cell Unit. I’m certain whoever he was talking to when he got shot is his Black Cell contact.”
“A double agent?” Mack snorted. “Astor’s gonna love that.”
“Tell me about it. According to the text history, Black Cell threatened to kill his daughter if he didn’t comply.”
Leo’s words from our first meeting echoed through my head.“The threat of losing someone you love can be enough to make anyone do things they never thought they’d do.”
Now that I knew Leo was working both sides, I realized I’d missed warning signs along the way. Like, all the little tidbits he’d provided about Kusma that didn’t come directly from the mission files. And how, ironically, the moment I came to town, Sophia’s house turned into target practice. And how he emphatically told me not to trust anyone.
He’d meantnot even him.
Leo was the one who had informed Black Cell I was there with plans to pull information from Sophia. That’s why she was shot at. And Leo had been killed for his unplanned meeting with me. Black Cell was tailing him and probably thought he was going to talk.
What a shit show.
“Okay,” Mack said as I finally made it up the damn hill. “I got it.”
“You pinned the location?”
“Yep. Looks like they’re out in the middle of nowhere, about thirty miles from Falcon Creek. They’re heading northeast on a dirt road.”
“Zoom out. What’s around it?”
“Nothing, dude.”
