Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 246(@200wpm)___ 197(@250wpm)___ 164(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 246(@200wpm)___ 197(@250wpm)___ 164(@300wpm)
“Hey!” Luiz croaked.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out to see a message from Greer. I’d been waiting.
Next time, encourage my nephew to become a paralegal or an accountant. We fly out in the morning. Any updates?
Oof. Crew as an accountant? He’d murder everyone out of sheer boredom.
I texted back.
Since when can a Finlay be made to do anything against his will, buddy? Appreciate the backup. Adding you to our chat server.
Greer had offered his assistance as soon as he’d heard about Shay being taken. He and all the other Finlays made up about 80% of the Marines. We’d declined ’cause, honestly, Greer belonged in another universe. He’d gotten out of the service and returned to a civilian career years ago, and his life was supposed to be about his farm and kink. He had a big family, and he’d been there when we’d started our community. We didn’t wanna take him away from that.
Now we were running out of options.
After messaging Willow about adding Greer to our server, presumably Cullen too, I sent Elliott a private text.
How are y’all doing over there?
He responded a couple minutes later.
Climbing the fucking walls. We’re just trying to puzzle pieces together. From what we gather, Mercier used Carillo to secure a sit-down with the higher-ups in Colombia, under the guise of brokering a peace deal between Blanco and Carillo. But once on-site, we suspect Mercier will carry out his own agenda. Ortega’s been calling everyone he trusts in law enforcement. He has plenty of buddies with both SDPD and the Bureau in Los Angeles, plus border patrol agents and the DEA—and nothing. Not even a whisper. We’re not saying there’s no task force or operation going; there obviously is, and they know how to keep their mouths shut. But with how little intel we get, how little we hear, not even a rumor or guess? We can at least assume the op isn’t involving several agencies and hundreds of people. And once you eliminate half the force of diplomats, tech, and paper pushers, you can start wondering if Colombia’s involved at all. That’s where we’re at.
I hummed and scratched my jaw. He had a point—and River had already guessed that Adrien was going to Colombia to assassinate Luca, which would likely occur without the knowledge and sanction of Colombia’s government. Emerson was on the same page.
It was my turn to provide an update, so I wrote about our interrogation of Luiz Gomez. I mentioned the operations in Brazil—another thing that lined up with Adrien’s work with Carillo. If Carillo wasn’t happy with the suppliers in Peru, it would do him good to strike a deal with Blanco. I let Elliott know about how Shay had been separated from Marisa and Blake as well, and that Emerson and Danny were on the case with us.
By the time I sent the message, Emerson had a new update for us.
We have eyes on Jorge. He’s alone with a single guard. No sign of Shay or any other reinforcements. Unless you have a reason to object, I want to interrogate Jorge. We can bring him back to the boat and head out.
I sat up straighter and texted back as impatience and anticipation buzzed through me.
Get him. Take care of the guard too. Aside from intel about Shay, we need to know where a man named Luiz Gajero could be. He’s holding our other two hostages somewhere. He’s supposedly close with Jorge, and he’s one of Carillo’s most trusted men.
Emerson’s reply was concise.
We’re a go.
I blew out a breath and reached for the smokes.
“They’ve run into trouble, haven’t they?” I paced the area outside the barn and checked my phone like a fucking teenager with a TikTok obsession.
It was officially past midnight.
I’d asked Vásquez to drive to the other location and check things out, and Emerson and Danny had at least left. Vásquez had driven down to the marina too—and nada. No trace of the Paynes or their boat. Or Jorge, for that matter.
My phone lit up with an incoming call, and it was fucking Coach calling.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“Hold on, running interference,” he said, all business as usual.
He was the type of man who jumped into ops without an official debrief and somehow knew what was up anyway. Okay, Emerson had let me know he’d spoken to Coach, but I couldn’t imagine the man knew very much. Considering Emerson had only talked to Adrien. We were running two missions at once.
“Okay, that should do for a minute,” he went on. “I have a transport for you and River at zero four hundred out of Ventura marina. I also need to know your current location and if there’s cleanup required.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake, we were back in the old days.
I rubbed my forehead and rolled with the punches, and I gave him our location, which made River look up with a confused expression.