“This is the lab,” he said.
“This is it, huh?” She turned to Dominick. “Only two guys? I thought it would be larger.”
“Sometimes there are more guys working. Not tonight.”
“Ah.”
Dominick frowned. “I thought Jake was going to be here.”
“I’m here.” A man stepped forward from a small doorway. Sera turned and stared at him.
Ryan could hear Carlos talking through the tiny earpiece he wore. Carlos was in one vehicle trailing the van in which Sera rode with Casas, other vehicles following him.
“They’re pulling onto the Eastshore Freeway,” he heard Carlos say. Great. The freeway. But where? He hadn’t picked up enough to know exactly where they were.
He tapped his fingers on the table. Fuck. He couldn’t sit still, couldn’t stand this tension zipping around inside him. “Do you know where the lab is, Zee?”
The pair of surveillance agents remained at the end of the bar, sipping drinks, ignoring him.
“Yeah. I been there.” Zocco eyed him. “Why?”
Ryan shrugged. “I guess I’m just worried about Sara. She hasn’t been doing this that long.”
“Whaddya think they’re gonna do to her?” Zocco asked. “Don’t you trust Dominick?”
“I don’t trust anyone,” Ryan answered truthfully. Surely Zocco would get that. “Do you trust him?”
Zocco thought about that. “He never did anything to me.”
“Take me there. I won’t go in. I’ll just wait outside and make sure she’s okay.”
“I don’t think so.” He shook his head, doubt creasing his brow. “I’d get in shit for doing that.”
Yeah. He probably would. Ryan tapped his fingers on the bar. “Hell,” he muttered. “If anything happens to her…”
Zocco was silent, turning his beer in his hands. “I like Sara.”
Ryan snorted. “Yeah. Me too.” That was an understatement. Christ, he was head over ass in love with her. And despite the way Sera and Zocco had started off, she’d somehow gotten him under her spell too. Ryan rubbed his eyes.
“Dude, you are antsy as hell,” Zocco said.
Ryan tried to control the agitation vibrating inside him. He listened to Carlos talk to the others through the earpiece.
“Shit,” Ryan heard him say. Ryan’s body tensed. “We lost ’em.”
Ryan sat up straight, every nerve on high alert. Fuck! He listened to more frantic conversation. Something had gone wrong with the GPS signal.
“Come on, Zee. We’re going.” He shoved to his feet, fists clenched at his sides. He wasn’t going to take any shit from Zocco, they were outta there. Sera was in trouble and Zocco knew how to get to her.
Zocco sighed. “Jesus, Tommy. Get a grip. She’s just a chick.”
What could he say to that? Just a chick? A string of curses ran through his head. Then Zocco heaved another heavy sigh and slid off the stool. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Exhilaration pumped through him and it was all he could do to not literally push Zocco out of the restaurant.
“Yeah.” Zocco kept talking even as Ryan hustled him out. “But we sit outside and wait, and for Chrissake don’t tell Dominick we did this. As soon as we see them come out, we’re outta there, hightailin’ it back here.”
Whatever. He knew they wouldn’t be coming back here. He flicked a glance at the two agents at the bar as he followed Zocco out. They were shooting him what-the-fuck-are-you-doing looks but he just scowled at them.
“Got wheels, man?” Zocco asked.
“Yeah. Rented a car. C’mon.” He led the way to the parking lot where he’d left the rental car, restraining himself from running.
“I gotta drive,” Zocco said. “And you have to be blindfolded. You can’t know where this place is.”
“Fine.”
He hoped the agents were on their asses, if he was going to be fucking blindfolded. Zocco whipped off his bandana and tied it over Ryan’s eyes, shoved him into the passenger seat and grabbed the keys out of his fingers.
Shit, shit, shit. No way of knowing if the agents had managed to be on their tail. No way of knowing if they’d been able to follow Sera. No way of knowing if the agents sitting outside that lab right now were obvious enough that Zocco would see them when he pulled up.
Where was she?
Sweat broke out on his forehead and his underarms itched.
Then he heard words that made him sag back into the seat with relief. “We got the signal,” Carlos said. “Turning right from San Gabriel, onto Tehachapi.”
“I’m there,” another voice said.
He blew out a long breath.
He wasn’t about to tell Zocco never mind now. They were on their way. Whatever. Nerves and adrenaline combined in a potent drug that jacked him up, had his body humming. He was going to catch freaking hell for doing this. This was so not in the op plan. But he had to make sure Sera was okay.
“So, how do you like Oakland?” Zocco was in a mood for conversation. Christ.
“It’s okay.”
“Where you staying?”
“At the Hilton. Near the airport.”
“Yeah. I stayed there once. That time Vince sent me up here to take out that witness.”
Ryan went very still. He wanted to rip the blindfold off so he could look at Zocco. “That’s the guy Vince wanted the new prospect to get rid of.”
“Yeah.” Zocco sounded relaxed about it and Ryan felt the vehicle accelerate as if merging through a freeway exit. He gripped the door handle. “He had to go. He was gonna testify against some other guys in an assault trial.”
“How come Vince asked you to do it?”
“He knows he can count on me,” Zocco bragged. “It was easy. The guy never saw it coming. I took him out right in his own house. Just shot him between the eyes and left. Cops didn’t know a thing.”
Ryan’s brain spun. His recorder was on, as it always was around the DAs. Unfuckingbelievable. The last thing he’d been worried about was getting that murder confession from Zocco, and now he’d just spilled his guts with no prompting whatsoever.
He should have been pumping his fist with excitement, which of course he couldn’t, but somehow his anxiety over Sera’s safety overrode the triumph he felt at nabbing that last piece of evidence he’d wanted before the operation shut down. Which it was, like…now.
He sucked in a breath. “Wow,” he replied. “You don’t mess around.”
“Nah. Vince knows I’m good. I’m his man.”
“Yeah. You are the man.”
And he and Vince were both going to prison.
They had to get this over with. Ryan wasn’t a religious man, but he supposed what he was doing would be considered prayer, all the way there, as he begged someone to keep Sera safe, to let this all unfold the way it should.
“So you wanted to see the lab,” the man said. He stepped forward, and as he moved into the harsh fluorescent light Sera saw his face.
An icy fist of fear grabbed hold of her.
Snake.
Time had not been kind to him over the last fifteen years. A life of drugs and crime would do that to you, but Sera certainly still recognized him, recognized the evil cunning in those small, dark eyes, the cruelty in his thin lips.
This was the man who’d destroyed her mother. And nearly destroyed her.
How could she not have realized he was still involved in the DA drug operation? Jesus.
“Yes,” she said, fighting jittery nerves for casual. “I wanted to see if the lab can really produce enough sugar for me.”
“You’ve been selling a helluva lot of sugar,” Snake said. His eyes fastened on her face and she resisted the urge to turn and run as fast as her legs would move, get the hell out of there before he recognized her. Her hair–he’d never make the connection. Would he? She swallowed through a tight, dry throat.
But she had to stay. Had to see this through. Her whole life had been leading up to this moment. Everythi
ng she’d done had prepared her for this, led her to this point, to this meeting, to this pinnacle.
“Yes, I have.” She smiled confidently. “And I can sell more.” She looked at Dominick and lifted a brow. “Who is this?”
“Oh. This is Jake. Jake Rivera. We work together. He’s a DA too.”
Like she couldn’t tell from his jacket and full patch. “I see that.” Huh. Jake the Snake. How original. All she’d known was his goddamn nickname–Snake. Shit. No wonder she hadn’t realized who he was. But she cursed herself for not knowing. That was inexcusable.
“Did you bring the money?” Jake asked.
She kept going with the pretense. “Right here.” She held up the leather satchel. “Where’s my angel sugar?”
“Hey, what’s the rush?” Dominick asked. “You wanted to see the lab. Let us show you around.” The swagger in his step as he led the way toward the equipment made her want to roll her eyes. He was so full of himself.
“Wait.” Jake spoke up and her heart stuttered. She turned.
“Did you check her? Make sure she’s not wearin’ a wire?”
Dominick frowned. “She’s one of us, man. Well, almost.”
“Check her.”
They wouldn’t find anything. No weapon. No wire. She was on her own. She endured Dominick patting her down, keeping her face neutral.
“She’s clean.” Dominick straightened. “Come on, see what we got here.”
She frowned and looked around the lab. “I have to say, I’m not all that impressed. This doesn’t look like you guys can produce enough sugar here.” She deepened the frown. “You better not be screwing me over.”
“Fuck, no!” Dominick turned to her. “Look at all the equipment we got here! Just ’cause there’s only a couple guys working tonight doesn’t mean we can’t make all the sugar you need.”
His greed was showing.
“It’s true,” Jake said, following behind them. She wanted to keep her back to him as much as possible. “We have a lot of people selling this shit for us. But not everyone wants to see the lab.”
Her skin tingled. She hitched a shoulder. “Well, I did. I’m not getting myself in trouble by promising people something I can’t deliver.”
“Hmm.” Jake walked around her, faced her. Studied her, eyes narrowed. He folded his arms across his chest, his ample belly protruding below. For a long, heart-pounding moment, he said nothing. He tipped his head to one side.
“You look familiar,” he said, his forehead creasing.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When they pulled up and stopped, Ryan jerked the bandanna off his face. “Hey,” Zocco said.
“I don’t have a clue where we are,” Ryan assured him, eyes darting around. It was growing dark, which was good and bad. There were a number of cars parked in the lot, any one of them could have been the surveillance team. All the cars appeared empty; he only hoped they had ducked out of sight when another vehicle pulled into the small parking lot.
The old brick building in front of them appeared to be a former warehouse. Ugly and plain, three cement steps led up to an unlabeled steel door with no windows.
“We just gonna wait?” Zocco asked him, hands still resting on the wheel. “I should move to the end of the lot.” He put the car in gear again. As they drove slowly past some of the other parked cars, Ryan noted a blinking red light in one. That was it. They’d managed to tail Sera and sat outside waiting now. He could only hope the guys tailing him had not alerted them to his and Zocco’s presence.
“I guess.”
He actually wasn’t sure what he was doing. He tried to time things. According to his watch, which he’d glanced at just as Zocco covered his eyes, it had been about a fifteen minute drive to the warehouse. Sera’d left with Casas about ten minutes before that. He’d been so distracted by Zocco’s confession he hadn’t heard the radio transmissions, so he wasn’t sure exactly what time Sera had arrived at the warehouse. He was guessing she’d been in there ten minutes. The plan gave her half an hour. She had to come out in half an hour, or they raided the place.
He sat there, acid chewing a hole in his gut, and reached for his antacids. None. Dammit.
They waited in the growing darkness. A light over the parking lot came on. Shit.
“What’s taking so long?” he finally growled.
“I don’t know.” Zocco too looked at his watch. “Man, I need a drink.”
Ryan rolled his eyes.
They waited another five minutes, and then Ryan couldn’t take it anymore. He was going to burst out of his skin. “I’m going in there,” he said, reaching for the door handle.
“No, you’re not.”
He ignored Zocco until he felt something hard jab into his ribs. He turned slowly and looked down. Goddammit. Zocco had a fucking gun pulled on him. Ryan slowly closed the door and sat back in his seat.
Sera shrugged and met Jake’s eyes with difficulty. The urge to shift her gaze away from him was almost overpowering.
His frown intensified and she shivered. Kept her face relaxed, her hands on the saddlebag firm so they didn’t tremble, but not white-knuckle tight. She cocked a hip. “Can we get on with this? I want my angel sugar.” She only had so much time. She had to be out of there before the team raided the place. It’d be too dangerous for her to be caught in the middle.
“This here’s Dawg,” Dominick said, introducing her to one of the chemists. Dawg’s glazed eyes looked like he’d been inhaling too many fumes. “And Reaper.” She gave them a tight smile and a nod.
“I swear I know you,” Jake said slowly. His brain too was probably fried from drugs and alcohol. He’d never figure out who she was.
“Were you at El Mirage?” she asked. “Maybe you saw me there. With the Clover City DAs.” Good idea to remind him of her connection to the DAs.
He shook his head. “Nah. I didn’t go this year.” His eyes flicked to Dominick. “You sure she’s okay?”
Now Dominick was frowning too, as if Jake’s response to her was grating on his nerves. “Yeah. We checked her out. Both her and Tommy. They’re good. And Vince likes Tommy. Wants him to patch in.”
Talking about her as if she wasn’t there. Her shoulders tensed up. “He likes me too,” Sera added with a tight smile. “Now, where’s my sugar?”
Dominick’s frown furrowed his brow. “You said you wanted to see the lab. What’s the hurry?”
“I’ve seen it.” She nodded toward the two men. The chemical smell was starting to make her temples throb. “I know you can deliver. And Tommy and Zocco are waiting for us.”
“The stuff’s in your office,” Jake told Dominick.
“Okay. Fine.” Dominick shot Sera a look. “Let’s go get it.”
She followed him back out the door and into a narrow hall. Jake followed after.
“Sera.”
Heat flashed in her veins at the use of her real name. The two names were so close, though, he could have just been saying Sara. She stopped and glanced at him over her shoulder, lifting one eyebrow.
“You’re Sera Manning. Dori’s daughter.”
Horror paralyzed her, numbed her. Shit.
“What the hell?” Ryan muttered, mind racing, sweat drenching his shirt. Were they busted? Did Zocco know what was going on? “Zee, come on. Sara’s been in there for fucking ever. It shouldn’t be taking that long.”
“We go in there, they’re gonna kill us,” Zocco said. “You know we can’t.”
Ryan let out his breath slowly. The big dumbass was doing this to try to protect him. How fucked up was that? Ryan glared at him. “I’ll go alone,” he said. “You get out of here.”
Zocco frowned at him. “You’re crazy, man.”
“I’ll tell them I…I don’t know what the hell I’ll tell them. If they even care to listen to how I found the place. But I’m going in. Don’t stop me, man.”
Zocco shook his head, staring at him in amazement. “Your ass, man.” He jerked his head, and Ryan opened the car door
and got out.
“Leave that way,” Ryan said, pointing to the far end of the parking lot. “Security cameras won’t see you leave.”
Zocco started, as if he hadn’t realized there even were security cameras. “Shit!” Ryan closed the door as quietly as he could and watched Zocco drive away in his rental car. There were no security cameras that he could see, but the surveillance team would nab him as he tried to leave the parking lot.
He stood there, fists clenched, aware of the gun tucked into the small of his back. Then he saw movement in one of the cars. He ignored them. They were probably having a major shit fit over his abandoning their plan. He was screwed now, whatever happened.
He walked up to the door. Locked. Of course it was locked. He studied it. Reinforced steel. No window. Several deadbolts. He wasn’t going to be able to kick this one in.
He stood there a moment. Bad feelings had made his gut a giant mass of knotted tensions, acid gnawing at his insides to the point of agony.
He ignored the frantic radio transmissions going back and forth between the surveillance cars. So far nobody had stopped him.
The only way in there was with his gun, shooting the locks off. That would certainly announce his arrival to everyone in there. He didn’t want to do it, he wanted to get in silently and take them by surprise. There was still a faint possibility that they could save this mission.
The guys had to be almost at the point where they were going in anyway. They’d agreed no longer than half an hour. He looked at his watch again. Seventeen minutes. If his calculations were right. He could only be a couple minutes off. He couldn’t wait that long. Something was wrong, he knew it with every fiber of his being.
But how was he going to get in?
Hot Ride Page 24