Brother's Keeper V: Wylie (the complete series BOX SET): NEW RELEASE + Series Box SET included!

by Stephanie St. Klaire

  “I wish Eli would just tell the truth. The whole truth. I hate questioning his integrity like this. He took care of us for years. He even walked with our son in the middle of the night when he had colic so I could rest. He was invested in us, Dace. Not in a way that speaks cartel.”

  Dace mulled over what Ivy had said. Eli was invested in them, and it was important to remember that. As much as it pained him to hear Eli did things like walk the baby in the middle of the night when that should have been Dace, it also comforted him. It gave him confidence in his innocence. And eased the guilt of his absence. At least someone was looking out for them when Dace couldn’t.

  There was a knock on Dace’s bedroom door before Eli let himself in.

  “Am I interrupting?” he asked.

  “Of course you are, but come in anyway,” Dace said.

  “Are we good in here?” Eli asked. “I know that was a lot to hear. And I’m sure it led to a few questions.”

  “I’m going to be honest – he delivers a good story where you’re concerned, and you’ve been so elusive…” Dace shrugged.

  “I understand. I know how it all looks and sounds. All I can do is assure you that I’m none of those things he said as far as the cartel goes. I didn’t turn. I’m in nobody’s pocket.”

  “But you were a double agent and turned on your own country.”

  “There’s a reason for that, and maybe one day, I’ll share the story over an expensive cigar and glass of something rich and amber, but for now, it serves no purpose. One has nothing to do with the other, and I was no longer working for anyone when I took the job to protect Ivy. I was retired, if you will…”

  “I believe you,” Ivy said. “I know you love us and wouldn’t hurt us.”

  “I’ll always be there whenever you need me, and I mean that earnestly. Cash…” Eli shed a bit of emotion when speaking of Cash and stalled to regain his composure. “Well, he’s a great kid, and I’d gladly give my life for his. You have my word.”

  Ivy stood too quickly and lost her balance. Dace righted her footing, and she made her way to Eli and wrapped her arms around him.

  “You’re our family. You always will be.”

  Eli returned the embrace and let out a deep breath of relief. “Seems my family is growing by the days here. You know I think of you the same.”

  Eli stepped away from Ivy, placing her hand in Dace’s so he could help her back to his bed to rest.

  “Now, the real questions. Why are we in here when there’s a kitchen full of food and everyone waiting to break this case in the living room?”

  “Food?” Dace tossed his head back. “My ma?”

  “Yes. She and your dad were just here. She said the food better not go to waste and that we all get a pass this time. What on earth does she mean?”

  “She means don’t miss Sunday dinner again and get to work.” Dace laughed. “I’ll have Carly bring in a plate of food and sit with you. I want you to rest, okay?”

  She nodded and looked at both men. “Please…find our boy.”

  “Why would Kimble turn down security if he came here for our help? Doesn’t one contradict the other?” Wylie asked from his SUV.

  He and Eli were together, staged outside the area David was staying – waiting to engage should he be on the move. Ronan and Ryker, however, were on foot across the street from his safe house watching.

  “He said he had a place to stay, and he was safe here.” Dace shrugged. “Said he was working a few more leads and would be in touch.”

  “This is exactly why I don’t trust him. This was all a ruse. I’m sure of it,” Eli said. “When you ask someone for the kind of help he did, you tend to stay put.”

  “Yeah. If he were really fearful for his life or that of Cash’s…he’d bend over backward to be an asset. Not wander off in the middle of the night,” Declan added.

  “He has to know we have eyes on him. He admitted to knowing who and what we are,” Luke said, “He knows how we operate. He has to anticipate a tail or watch team.”

  “He may be anticipating one, but Ronan and Ryker are tucked in tight, so no way he knows they’re there,” Wylie added.

  “He’s moving,” Liam said, dispatching information through the shared comms system from Watermark.

  “No visual,” Ronan replied. “We have no movement.”

  “I show him one block north. He’s headed your way, Wylie,” Liam said. “And still moving. Ro… Ry… Why don’t you do a wellness check on our friend? Wylie will keep eyes on him.”

  “Copy,” Ryker said, “Moving in. Watch our back, Wy.”

  “We’re on it. Send me his location, Liam,” Wylie said, putting his vehicle into drive to move toward their target.

  Ryker broke through the system. “Liam. Check your data. We’re about to breach and don’t want to walk into a trap. How are you tracking?”

  Liam chuckled. “He’s definitely on the move. I planted a little dust. He has it on his shoes, probably his hair… There’s really no telling because he ate the peanuts, drank the water…”

  Eli looked at Wylie. “Is he talking about nanotechnology? He got the old man to eat it?”

  Wylie laughed. “He uses that shit all the time. Does it to us when we’re out in the field to track us. He loves it.”

  “That’s frightening.” Eli huffed. “Your brother is a bit insane, mate.”

  “Whatever gets the job done, and let’s be honest – when you’re dealing with psychopaths and sociopaths, what better guy to have on your team but a deranged genius?”

  “Is that a nice way of saying your brother is a psychopath himself?”

  “Twenty percent of the population is a psychopath. That’s one in five – there are five of us brothers, so you do the math.”

  “You know I can hear you, right? Your comms is on,” Liam interrupted.

  “It’s definitely one of you.” Eli laughed. “Hold up, that’s Kimble ahead.”

  Wylie pulled to the side of the road so they could watch from afar. “He’s going into the little market and deli. You’re clear, Ro. There shouldn’t be anyone in that house.”

  “Copy. We’re in.”

  The men at Watermark watched what they could through the video surveillance feed Ronan’s and Ryker’s body cameras were providing. They patiently waited as the men cleared each room in the small house.

  “House is empty. Nothing unusual. How far do you want us to dig?” Ryker asked.

  “Light. He can’t know you were there, and he’s trained to notice the smallest shit, so proceed with extreme caution, cousin,” Dace instructed.

  “Copy that. We got some weird shit in this makeshift office.” Ronan said. “How long did he say he’s been in town?”

  Ronan held his cam steady in his hand and scanned a wall that was covered with pictures, buildings, and notes which were strategically placed, all connected together with arrows Kimble had written on the wall. There were pictures of nearly everyone from Brother’s Keeper, Ivy, Cash, Eli, as well as pictures of the places they’d frequent, including the imaging office they’d been to when they were attacked.

  “He’s tracking everything we’re doing,” Dace said. “He knows Ivy is here.”

  “So what is this? Is he playing us?” Carter asked. “Is he genuinely in danger and looking for assistance, but not sure who the right side of this is?”

  “Who fucking knows?” Dace said.

  “Eli, you’re driving,” Wylie said, hopping out of the car. “I’m following on foot when he pops out of there.”

  “Got it.”

  “I have enough to pull him in,” C.T. said. “He has shit about the murders up on that wall. All our victims combined with Ivy’s attack. I can at least call him in for questioning and see what he does.”

  “I don’t think that’s the right move,” Dace said.

  “Okay, what is the right move?”

  “I don’t know.” Dace watched the screens as Ronan continued to feed them information as he came across
it in the space.

  Ryker joined Ronan in the office. “I don’t see anything unusual without getting into stuff. I have no idea how he got out undetected. I even looked for trapdoor shit under rugs. Nothing.”

  “Ronan. Ryker. Get out of there. He’s on the move again. Got him on the market’s camera headed out. He spent a little extra time at that deli counter, so let’s get a team to check it out. This place has shitty cameras. Wy, heads-up, here he comes.”

  “We’re ready for him,” Wylie said.

  When David Kimble walked out of the store, Wylie let him get several paces ahead before he began to follow from the opposite side of the road, using the shadows and the dark sky as his camouflage while Eli remained with the vehicle. They made it a couple of blocks when Wylie came through the comms. “Eli. Do a drive-by. See what he does.”

  “On my way,” Eli said, pulling out into light traffic. “I’m right behind you, O’Reilly.”

  “I knew it. You’ve been made, Eli. He looked right at you. Head back to Watermark. This is all a show,” Wylie said. “I’m tailing him all the way back to see if we can figure out what the hell he’s up to.”

  “I’ll hang. I’m not leaving you out here. I don’t trust him,” Eli said. “If he knew I was there, he knows you’re right behind him. I’ll ditch the rig and double back on foot.”

  “He’s in the park,” Wylie said. “Looks like he’s headed to the small brick building. I think it’s one of those small utility closets the city uses, can’t be more than a ten-by-ten space.”

  “Don’t follow him in without backup,” Dace ordered. “I fucking mean it, Wy.”

  “He’s in. He used a fucking key?” Wylie informed the team. “Where you at, Eli?”

  “On your six,” Eli replied, weapon drawn. “Hit it. I’m right behind you.”

  Dace had a moment of hesitation. The body cams showed Eli, weapon drawn, coming up behind Wylie, and it caused him to pause and reconsider all the things Kimble had said about Eli. Wylie was vulnerable, trapped between David Kimble and Eli who Dace wanted to trust, but didn’t know if he could at that moment. Dace never questioned his judgment — until now. This case was getting the best of him and his confidence.

  “Eli,” Dace said.

  “Fucking Christ. I got his back, mate. I’m not shooting him in the back.”

  Dace chuckled. “That’s what I needed to hear.”

  “There’s nothing in here. Just a set of stairs,” Wylie said. “Liam, can you pull up our location and see what the fuck this is?”

  “Stairs? I don’t recall any two-story utility buildings in that park,” Dace said.

  “That’s because the stairs go down, brother,” Wylie replied. “You have us located, Liam?”

  “Looking on city grids now.”

  “Okay, I’m going down and not sure if we’re going to get a signal,” Wylie said.

  “This feels like a very bad idea, mate.”

  “You scared, kiwi?” Wylie teased, weapon drawn with a flashlight guiding its aim as he slowly proceeded down the dark steps.

  “Kiwi? You think I’m from Australia?”

  “No, New Zealand,” Wylie said. “All this mate stuff and you said you weren’t Australian or British.”

  “Because I’m none of those things,” Eli chided. “Do you really think this is the time to play twenty questions and play a round of guess who?”

  “This is shady as fuck down here, and I thought I’d lighten the mood,” Wylie said, static coming through his earpiece.

  “There’s light ahead,” Eli said. “Is that cliché or what?”

  “Light at the end of the tunnel? I’ll take it as a sign.”

  The static rang louder as they made the last few steps of their descent and landed in a large open space with several tunnels running off in different directions.

  “What the hell is this place?” Eli asked in total awe.

  The static subsided as they moved deeper into the open area.

  “Portland is known for its underground tunnel system – the Shanghai Tunnels,” Wylie said. “Long history lesson. Basically, they connect China Town and Downtown and were used way back.”

  “You’re exactly right.” Liam came through clear on the comms. “You guys are right in the heart of the system.”

  Dace was piecing it all together. “We can see him traveling still, to your right.”

  “Well, there are a couple of options to my right.”

  “Get back to Watermark, no need to follow him,” Dace said. “I think he just showed us how he got in and out without notice, and how he’s been here for days, maybe weeks, undetected.”

  31

  “He’s a high-level detainee who is also an informant,” Carter told the group, delivering an unexpected break in the case. “He was pulled back in for a different case and started singing…about everything.”

  “And he gave you all this shit on Kimble?” Dace asked with a satisfied grin.

  “Sure did. He knew we were on Kimble and tossed it in for total immunity on that case too.” Carter tossed a file on the table. “It’s all in there.”

  “So Kimble was an informant too?” Dace asked.

  “Yes. They were both working with this backroom group made up of all sorts of officials from all over DC. Turns out, Kimble was running an unsanctioned black ops unit to do all their dirty work. Both were informants, infiltrating, and reporting on each other while the club stayed off everyone’s radar.”

  “So we have a bigger issue than Kimble and the cartel,” Dace pointed out.

  “Perhaps. But we can dig into that later. He isn’t telling us everything, and the club went silent. He’s getting a deal for turning over the operatives and Kimble now. That’s how I got brought in – the operatives are a part of my pending cases. They’re basically a militia for hire, and that’s how they’re resurging.”

  “This is a part of Esteban’s cartel.” Declan was especially riled by that idea. Declan met his wife, Lydia, when he was a part of her protection detail, hired by Esteban Valdez. She’d been none the wiser to his illegal activities and wound up under Brother’s Keeper’s protection when she witnessed her husband murder a man.

  Esteban took a fatal hit in a standoff that nearly cost the brothers more lives. Since they’d been dismantling his organization with the help of their operative, Eva, who also happened to be Esteban’s daughter. Valdez had been one of the world's most dangerous criminals and always managed to stay out of legal trouble because he owned the local law enforcement, judicial system, and public officials. The man was fucking dangerous, and any remnants of him were a threat.

  “It is, and they’ve managed to get this far without any attention, not even Eva’s. Whoever is at the helm of this thing is who we want. He or she is how we close these cases and how we continue to interfere with these organizations and rattle their foundation, so they all fall,” Carter said. “For now, we start at the bottom. We need Kimble.”

  Dace was pacing the room. Something was still off about the entire thing where Kimble was concerned. “I believe him. I believe David was truthful. At least most of the time.”

  “What the hell, man?” Eli said. “You think this is me?”

  “No. I think he was testing us to see if we were an option or an enemy. He really doesn’t know who to trust. He knew you were here. Ivy was here…he has your pictures, alive and well, from days ago on his wall. And who hangs a wall like that – goes to the trouble to print pictures. It’s ridiculous when you think about it.”

  “I’m still not following,” Luke said, gaining several head nods in support.

  “He was played. Someone turned on him, and he doesn’t know who. The men who showed up and took him at Moss Bridge were his men—”

  “Who turned on him,” Eli stated. “They double-crossed him and took orders from someone with more power than Kimble.”

  “Bingo. He knew we had Ivy and Eli and wanted to feel us out because he really did question their loyalty and affil
iation. He came here and refused protection because he wanted us to tail him, find his safe house, find all that shit in there. He was feeding us clues because he really is in too deep and needed someone to come looking if he disappeared.”

  “What does that mean for the deal going down over on the beach?” Declan asked.

  “It means he was probably a part of it, and it didn’t go as planned. Maybe he wasn’t there voluntarily.” Dace sat down and blew out a deep breath. “It means his black ops militia for hire was never in his back pocket like he thought. Everyone turned on him, and he doesn’t know who ordered it.”

  “Dace, what you’re suggesting is…” Carter shook his head as the words he was trying to say stalled. “It’s… It’s fucking huge. Bigger than we initially thought. His clearance goes higher than the president of the United States. You know what that means?”

  “It means we could be dealing with anyone, including foreign and domestic governments and defenses.” Dace nodded. “This shit goes above our pay grade, boys. DC has a little dirt under its nails, and we might be the only ones not on a terror groups’ payroll.”

  “He may not be behind Ivy’s attack, or Cash,” Eli pointed out. “We need to get him back in here.”

  “Too late,” Liam said. “Just got a coded message on our offline system.”

  “How the fuck did he get access?”

  “No clue. I’ll deal with that later. But I’ll tell you what I do know. The only way to crack our tech is with our tech, and there’s only one other place in the world you’ll find comparable – I created it for certain branches of our government. There’s a fucking clue.” Liam seethed, angry a loophole was found in his work. “His message said he’s been found and going underground. May have a critical lead. He’ll be in touch.”

  “Have Ronan and Ryker grab him,” Dace said to Wylie.

  “You’re too late.” Liam was frustrated as his fingers glided not so gingerly across his keyboard. “He’s not in town. He found a way around all of them. All of the teams guarding the tunnel outlets. He’s thirty miles outside Portland, headed to the coast.”