Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Javi.
I texted Jeff: Love you too. Thanks for your number. And try to keep your chin up.
To Javi, I said: I’m there anytime too, hermanito.
I walked into the kitchen and saw Eric leaned into his forearms on my bar, his phone in his hands, but when I showed, his head turned my way.
And he caught my vibe because his voice was quiet and cautious when he asked, “What?”
I lifted my hand and shook my phone side to side. “Jeff gave me his new number.”
That was when his whole, gorgeous face went soft. “Good.”
“Javi gave me his number too,” I told him, coming in closer, a lot closer, so much so, my stomach was brushing his hip. Once there, I leaned my side against the counter.
I was pulling up the Mad Greens menu when Eric announced, “I’m gonna tell you something, sweetheart, and I want your okay on it.”
I turned my attention to him.
“I’m gonna suggest to Mace that we make moves to recruit Javi and Jeff to the team,” he announced.
My breath stopped coming.
Eric kept talking.
“We have some intel on the last member of their crew. Not sure he’d be a good fit. The partners have a zero-tolerance policy about drugs, except marijuana. That said, there’s no pot usage for twenty-four hours if you’re going to be on duty or at all if you’re in the middle of a case. This isn’t an issue because none of us use weed. Javi does, only occasionally. Same with your brother. But the last member of their team, a guy named Cody, is a habitual user. To the point he might have a problem with addiction.”
One, it seemed they’d made great inroads into amassing info about Javier and his crew.
Two, I was weirdly relieved the last member of that crew didn’t have a J name.
“Cody is also much younger,” Eric went on. “He’s only twenty-three. As far as we can tell, Javi doesn’t use him in the heavy shit. He’s usually surveillance or their wheel man.” A smile quirked his lips. “And since they don’t have an anonymous benefactor, they all have jobs, and Cody doesn’t do too badly. He’s self-taught and designs e-commerce websites.”
“What does my brother do?” I asked.
“He works with Javi at Sky Harbor as a baggage handler.”
I knew to my bones this was a waste for both of them. No shade to baggage handlers. Their job was important, not easy and probably held no small amount of stress.
But even Superman didn’t fit in his mild-mannered reporter suit, if you get my drift.
“So, I guess that one guy flipping on them opened the floodgates for you boys,” I surmised.
“If we know your name, we can find out just about anything about you.”
Fascinating.
“How long have you known all of this about Jeff?”
“Mace and Roam were digging into that crew, and I wasn’t keeping anything from you. They’re not done. I wanted to give it all to you, or at least all we could find, when we had it.”
“I didn’t think you were keeping anything from me, baby,” I assured. “We haven’t had a ton of time together since I met Javi.”
“We had this morning, but you fell asleep five minutes into our stakeout.”
I just knew he wouldn’t let that slide.
I decided not to engage, something that was hard to do with the smug, playful grin he was shooting at me, so instead I looked back down at the menu.
Seriously.
How could normal people find anything to eat at this place?
“So?” Eric prompted.
“I think I might do a Spicy Bacon Hearty Wrap,” I told him.
I mean, it had bacon. So it couldn’t be bad.
Right?
“No, I mean about attempting to fold Javi and Jeff into NI and S.”
I looked to him. “I sense what you do is not a lot less dangerous than what they do.”
“It actually is a lot less dangerous, because we have vastly more training and experience, but also simply because most of our cases don’t involve us dealing with drug peddlers, asshole pimps and gangbangers.”
This was good to know.
“And I’d recommend Jeff for the surveillance room,” he went on. “Knowing his diagnosis, we’d need to keep him in situations that have less stress.”
This was sounding better and better.
“Javi would be in the field,” Eric continued. “And Jeff might think what he’s doing is less of a rush, or less important, but even if surveillance can be boring, it’s vital. Not only is it a healthy line item in our income, when we’re in the middle of a tactical operation, input from the control room and efficient, organized, informed comms is crucial.”
“I have no issue with this, Eric. I just don’t think they’re gonna say yes,” I warned him. “You were the one who told me they’re in a blood pact brotherhood. And I’ve seen the tattoo on Jeff’s arm. I wasn’t in any position to inspect it, but he didn’t have it before. And tattoo says permanency like nothing else.”