by Lexi Blake
“You think you can handle that?”
“I know I can. I’m actually quite good at my job.” It would be convincing Kay that it was best she stay behind that would be the real task at hand. He wouldn’t be good at that, but he had to make it work.
Her life depended on it.
* * * *
Kayla walked along the beach, her feet sinking in the sand. The tide rushed in, covering her ankles with Pacific Ocean water. The water was a chilly tickle to her skin in direct contrast to the heat of the sun on the rest of her body. Oh, this was her home. This was where she felt healthy and whole, and she’d avoided it for so long because… Well, she was certain Ariel would tell her she hadn’t felt worthy of being healthy and whole.
Maybe she was finally coming out of it, finally processing that she was here in the real world and she’d done her duty. She was ready to move on and find a real life.
With Josh.
She glanced down the beach and the one thing that could trip her up was striding her way.
“You know you’re dressed for the part of the beachcombing tourist, but no one will buy it because your shoulders are around your ears. What’s going on, Ezra?”
She’d watched him as he walked up the beach. He was in a pair of board shorts and a T-shirt, showing off toned arms and his muscular body. A pair of aviators completed the laid-back look, but unlike all the people around him who were enjoying a low-tide stroll, there was nothing at all relaxed about Ezra Fain. He’d walked onto the beach with one purpose, and it wasn’t looking for seashells.
“We need to talk.”
“Yes, I rather thought you covered that with your text. You know according to the contract I signed, Josh has the right to check my phone. I don’t know how much he’s going to like some random number sending me gibberish.”
“I don’t care. I want to know what happened last night,” Fain demanded.
She sighed. She should have expected this. “I’m sorry I haven’t sent a report in. It’s been crazy around here. My dads showed up and they do not take no for an answer when it comes to brunch. I had to do some fast talking to get them to go home. As it is, I promised we would visit when we get back from Mexico. Let’s walk a little bit. I’ve got a serious food baby going on, and if the press gets a pic, then all the real baby rumors will start up.”
“You know you’re falling way too deep into this role. We? You mean you and Josh, right? Your op is over when you leave Mexico.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” She knew he wasn’t going to be on board with her plan, but he should probably know what she intended to do. “I’ve been thinking about it and it kind of makes sense for me to stay on for a while. It would look weird if I up and quit right after a shoot. He still needs protection and McKay-Taggart can provide it. I’ll simply shift from the Agency’s priorities to my company’s.”
“God, Levi is right. You’re in love with him.”
“My feelings for Josh will not compromise this op. I promise you that. I know how important this is.”
“You think I’m only worried about the op?” He put his hands on his hips and did an excellent impersonation of an annoyed older brother. “Did you or did you not nearly get murdered last night? What the hell was that about? Because according to Riley, you did. Not only did you nearly get killed, but he was worried about sending you off alone with the man. He said Josh had shown no signs at all of any fear or emotion other than anger at the two of you.”
“Riley doesn’t know him very well.” She glanced up and Shane was standing on the balcony.
Shane cupped his hands and shouted down. “You’ve only got about fifteen minutes. Dec says they’re on their way back now and Josh wants to talk to you.”
She gave him a thumbs-up to let him know she’d heard him and then started down the beach toward the rocks in the distance.
Ezra strode along beside her. “All right. Tell me what happened from your point of view.”
A lot had happened. “Josh tried to go rogue. Riley and I followed him. Lucky for us Levi told Riley when and where the thing was going down or Josh would have lost us. He wasn’t playing around. He knew how to ensure we couldn’t follow him. Not that he knows his plan worked.”
And that fact started the guilt building up in her gut.
He’d told her his truth and she was lying. She was lying for a good reason, but she was still lying.
“Yes, but from what Levi told me we’re no closer than we were before to figuring out if that drop was to Hector Morales. All Riley could tell us was they were well armed and ready for the two of you when you went in after the target. He said the three of you got separated.”
“Josh twisted his ankle.”
“He’s moving around fine today,” Ezra pointed out.
“No, he just looks that way. Josh is good at hiding the pain. He’s sore, but he’s able to walk because he got off of it pretty fast. And like I said, Riley can’t read him the way I can.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Ezra insisted.
“Yes and no. Yes, I did find myself in a cozy situation with his blackmailer last night. No, she didn’t nearly kill me.”
He stopped. “Blackmail?”
Shit. She’d known she was going to have to give the Agency something. There was no way anyone believed she hadn’t discovered at least some of the facts. “Yes, he’s being blackmailed.”
“Over?”
She was silent for a moment. “I don’t know.”
He gently gripped her elbow, pulling her around so he could look at her. “You’re lying. He told you. I need to know.”
She shook her head. “You don’t. It has nothing to do with Hector Morales. It’s not the Agency’s business.”
“And if I told you I thought you were wrong?”
“I would want an explanation.”
He let go of her and started to pace, his bare feet moving over the sand. “When did the blackmail start?”
“About five years ago.”
He pointed her way as though she’d made some point. “Yes, about five years ago, and that’s also when the Jalisco Cartel started to come into its own. Up until five years ago, they were a subsidiary of a Colombian cartel, think of it as the Mexican arm of a company. And they specialized in something other than drugs. After that cartel’s head was literally cut off, Morales rose up and took over their drug distribution. He filled the void, but he also took over a lot of the old head’s men. Five years was also the first time Hector Morales sent a contribution to Hunt’s charity.”
She was getting this history lesson why? They were going in to see what happened to their operative. How did Joshua’s problems fit in? “What does any of this have to do with the blackmail?”
“Everything started happening at roughly the same time. I don’t like it.”
“You can not like it and it can still be coincidence. Things happened and they’re not always some grand conspiracy.” She wasn’t seeing how the facts lined up. “Josh was already a big star then.”
“Yes, that’s my point. Why had this blackmailer waited? Unless you tell me this is about something he’s done recently and this is not about those lost years of his youth.”
“I can’t tell you that.” She wouldn’t break Josh’s trust, but she also wasn’t going to blatantly lie to Ezra. He would know if she was lying. But there was something about the way he was talking that made her wonder if he hadn’t already figured it out.
“All right, if this is some secret that’s been out there for a long time, why not come forward five years ago?”
“There could be any number of reasons,” she replied. “She could have been in prison and unable to reach him. She could have waited until he had the money to give her a big payday. Now that I think about it, it makes more sense that they waited until Josh had something to lose. She wouldn’t have wanted the information to come out before he had the assets to give her what she wanted.”
“You keep calling her a she. Ar
e you sure?” Ezra asked.
“I can’t possibly be sure that the woman who met with me last night is the mastermind behind the blackmail scheme. She could be working for someone else, but Josh thinks it’s been the same woman all along. She hides her voice, but I do think whoever was around me last night was female.”
Ezra stopped and let his head fall back for a moment. Frustration was evident in every muscle of his body. “This is all wrong. I feel it. I want to pull you out now.”
There was no way she let that happen. “You can’t because I’ll quit. I’ll quit and I’ll stay with Josh. You might as well allow me to do the job you hired me for because I’m not leaving him.”
He pulled his sunglasses off his face, his blue eyes fierce with intensity. “You damn straight will if I tell Dec and Shane to fucking carry you out of here.”
She stared at the agent, well aware that he was simply worried about her. Still, there was the alpha female part of her that wasn’t about to take that shit from anyone. “No. I won’t. I’ll just make Dec and Shane wish they hadn’t been born male.”
“I can call Big Tag and Knight and explain to them that you’re in over your head and you’re going to get hurt,” he continued. “They’ll see things my way.”
“And I’ll quit and stay here with Josh and have no one to watch my back.” She had him in check and she knew it. He knew it.
He was quiet for a moment and she could practically see every wheel in that big brain of his working.
She needed to calm him down and see reason. “Tell me what you’re really worried about. It’s not me dealing with Morales. You know I can handle him.”
“Don’t underestimate Morales. He’s a killer.”
“And I’ve dealt with men like him,” she assured the agent. “Many men like him over my years of service. It’s the joy of being a five-foot-three-inch chick. They underestimate me. Always. They see a piece of arm candy and don’t bother to look past the surface.”
“I don’t know. I’m worried that we’re not seeing past the surface. I’m worried we’re seeing exactly what they want us to see and that’s going to get you killed,” he replied.
“All right. You obviously have a theory. Let’s hear it.”
“What else happened five years ago, Kayla? It’s all in the history. That’s what I think. Before five years ago, the Jalisco Cartel was small. They ran some drugs, but mostly they did the bidding of a Colombian cartel, one of the biggest. Then something happened and shortly thereafter, Morales’s cartel took over and started getting damn lucky with the DEA. They started getting lucky by avoiding raids on their properties both in Mexico and the States. Did you know that years before, when Morales’s father ran the organization, I heard about a case involving human trafficking and drug cartels? One of the cartels was involved in a slavery ring that ran from South America up to Canada and all through the Midwestern US.”
A chill went over her skin. “The Jalisco Cartel was responsible for that?”
“Yes. Before they took over the Colombian drug routes, that was what Morales was suspected of running. Prostitutes. And he didn’t care about age. They talked about it in the Agency because all the files went missing. This all went down shortly after the operative working on the case was blown up in his car. Kayla…”
She shook her head, utterly denying every word that came out of his mouth. “It wasn’t John Bishop. It wasn’t. You didn’t know him. Call Big Tag. Call Ten. They’ll tell you that John Bishop wasn’t capable of doing the things you’re accusing him of.”
“John Bishop was known as the Ice Man, and he didn’t get that reputation by being warm and fuzzy. It was Bishop’s faking his own death that started all of this. I know it. That was the trigger that led to the Jalisco Cartel taking off and putting Morales into the position he’s in now.”
“No. Okay, maybe, but it can’t mean what you think. Maybe John Bishop leaving the case led to that, but Bishop didn’t leave so he could help Morales build the cartel. No way. According to your own records, he’s been in Colorado.”
Ezra’s head nodded tightly, as though her very words proved his point. “Yes, and I’ve studied that town. Did you know there are two ex-DEA agents who live in town? I find that highly suspicious. They would have contacts with their former coworkers. It would be easy for them to feed Bishop information about where and when their buddies were going to raid. They could all be in on this. It all fits.”
“But it doesn’t,” she argued. “I know you’re looking at this puzzle and seeing how the pieces fit, but you don’t understand how the most important piece works. John Bishop would never hurt his country. He’s capable of some deeply ruthless shit. You want to tell me he’s sent an agent into situations he knew the agent could die in, I’ll believe that. I was that agent. He did it because I was his asset and he was the spy master. I signed on knowing that could happen, and I knew damn well Bishop might have to make a call that ended with me getting hurt or dying. It’s part of the risk we take when we take the job. You’ve done it, too.”
“Not the way that bastard did,” Ezra shot back. “Don’t you put me in the same folder as him. I would never have sent a college student into fucking MSS. I’ve read his files, well, the ones that aren’t redacted. He’s beyond ruthless.”
“But he wasn’t a criminal. And you know what, he never let me down while I was on the inside. I knew what I was doing. If he hadn’t offered me the job, I would have found a way to make my sister’s death meaningful. I would have gone after someone, and it likely wouldn’t have ended well. I know he saw that fire in me that night.”
“He left you inside when he ditched the Agency.”
“No, he handed me off to Ten, who took care of me, too.” She took a deep breath. “Look, this is easy. Let’s get him on the phone. I can talk to him.”
“He’s gone. Disappeared a couple of days ago,” Ezra explained. “Well, we think he’s disappeared. His so-called wife says he’s out on something called a nature walk, and she doesn’t expect him back until he’s rethought his life choices. No one in town will say anything else. I don’t believe her. He’s not out on some fucking nature hike. I think he’s on the run. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in Mexico right now.”
She couldn’t help but think about the smile on his face in that picture. No. If he was in the wind, he had a reason for it. “I can’t believe that John Bishop has spent the last five years as the mastermind behind a cartel.”
“Someone is,” Ezra said. “Someone is working with Morales, and I don’t like the connection between Morales and Joshua Hunt. And I’m starting to worry that we’re being led down a path we don’t want to go down. I don’t like this. Any of it. I don’t like Levi. I think he’s in on this with Bishop.”
A chill went down her spine. “That’s a hefty accusation, Ezra. Do you have any evidence to back it up?”
“Nothing but the feeling that this is a trap of some kind. Someone is working against me back in DC. The files I request go missing or the exact information I need has been redacted. I’m being blocked. And it’s not just in DC. You know that nasty feeling you get in your gut when you know someone’s watching?”
She’d felt it. God, she’d felt it over the last couple of days several times, but she couldn’t be sure if that wasn’t about the fact that the press stalked Josh like an animal. “I do, but we’ve got an op to run and we don’t get to cancel it because we feel like something’s off. We have to figure it out. If Levi is working some angle, it’s up to us to find out and take him down.”
“And if that angle leads to Bishop?”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to even contemplate that path. “Do we even know if they ever met? Levi hasn’t been around as long as the rest of us.”
“He’s been around long enough, and I know Morales and Bishop have to have a partner on the outside. Perhaps several.”
There was a whole bunch that didn’t make sense to her. “But what would be the purpose of this op? Wh
y would he want the two of us in a particular place at this particular time? Why bring us into this at all? I would think it would make more sense for them to want to keep us as far away as possible. Do you think he made up an agent in trouble? Or was that a mistake?”
“No, not even he could make up some phantom operative. Our plant is gone. Unless, of course, he’s in on it, too.”
She put her hands on his shoulders. “Ezra, when this is over, I need you to take a vacation and think about getting the fuck out. You sound paranoid. It’s not good for you.”
“It’s not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you,” he said quietly. “I can’t talk you out of going?”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t let Josh walk into this alone, and I do not for a second believe that he’s involved in any criminal way. Josh is innocent. And if Bishop is involved, well, I probably know him better than anyone but Ian and Ten. Certainly better than anyone on this particular team.”
His shoulders slumped, obviously giving up the fight. “All right. I’m supposed to head back to DC in the morning and coordinate from there. Levi is your contact while in Mexico, but I’m going to shadow you. I won’t be far behind. I promise.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” There was no question in her mind that it was time for Ezra Fain to look for different opportunities. Maybe he could join McKay-Taggart since they were definitely in a hiring phase after losing several experienced agents to a new firm started up by Adam Miles and Chelsea Weston, but she was worried with how he would go out. “Levi said something about you being on thin ice. Do you want to get burned?”
“Chelsea can cover my tracks,” he assured her.
“And if you get caught?” It was a dangerous game to go directly against orders.
“I don’t know that I care anymore.” He stared off into the distance. “I don’t think I care about much of anything anymore. None of it matters, you know what I mean?”
She would have to disagree since he’d been arguing with her over her safety for the last twenty minutes. “Let’s get through this and then when we get back, we’ll talk about your options. You’ve done your time, Ez. Maybe it’s time to take the off-ramp. I know you don’t like him, but that’s what Bishop always told me. He said if I saw a way out, I should take it.”
