Undercover Justice

by Nico Rosso

  “Do you now? Learning who her father is explains her?” Javier drank from a bottle of water and snuck a glance at him.

  The question rang in Arash’s head. “No.” Discovering her had been the thrill. She was more than he’d ever know.

  “Watch her back.” Javier cashed out. “Vincent the Fed will be in LA by the time you get there. Kick ass tomorrow.” He wove into the crowd.

  Arash left his machine with money remaining. Maybe it would bring someone else luck. Better than him holding on to the cash from Olesk’s jobs. He made his way to the elevators, then the eighth floor.

  Stephanie was already in the room. The lights were off and the curtains were open to show the glittering landscape below. She sat on the edge of the large bed facing him, with her coat and boots off, but otherwise dressed. Flashing video displays outside glinted off her pistol on the nightstand.

  Arash closed and locked the door, then double-checked the lock. He walked deeper into the room, feeling her gaze on him, and dropped his backpack by the long couch before looking about the room. “Are we alone?”

  “We are.” She shifted, curling one leg onto the bed to angle toward him.

  “Did David make another play?” Arash took off his jacket and laid it over the arm of the couch. He sat to take his boots off and stretched out his feet once they were free.

  “No sign of him. He probably won’t try something until tomorrow’s gig is over.” Half of her face was in shadow, half was painted with the dim colors from outside. “Did you have any trouble?”

  “Just Javier telling me to tell you Vincent will be in LA by the time we get there. Then he schooled me.”

  “About Frontier Justice?”

  “About you.” The room settled quiet.

  She adjusted her posture, defensive, and straightened the sides of her hair. “What did he say?”

  “He said all the right things, which is better than you and I had been doing.” A thousand miles separated them. He was a heartbeat away from reaching for her.

  Stephanie moved again, brought both legs up onto the bed and leaned back into a stack of pillows. The rustle of the blankets and crisp cotton should’ve been surrounding him, instead of being that far in the distance. He turned on the couch and extended himself along the length. Checking the watch that she had bought him, he saw that if he fell asleep in the next nine minutes, he’d have five hours of rest until the alarm rang.

  He asked, “Did your father want you to get into the family business?”

  “He wouldn’t have fought it if I’d gone into the management side.” She settled deeper into her nest. “But he was furious when I was running with his street-level crew.”

  “That’s where the real action is.”

  “And the real trouble,” she said. “I learned the stakes, the consequences of what we were doing. I learned that I’d be better at helping people than taking from them.”

  “The last car I stole for a joyride had a faulty starter and the driver’s-side window didn’t roll down. I took it two blocks, parked it and walked away when all I wanted to do was fix it.” He’d fixed a lot of cars since then. He couldn’t help fix Marcos’s life before it was cut short.

  “You’re going to make that shop happen.”

  “Sometime after tomorrow.” Neither of them knew what would happen in the next twelve hours.

  His own garage had been a secret fantasy. If he lived past the next day, it might still be a possibility. But it seemed as if the metal and concrete would be that much colder if Stephanie wasn’t there, sleeves of her coveralls rolled up, bringing a broken engine to life.

  Stephanie worked her phone. The glow shined in her eyes. “3:00 a.m. alarm.”

  He got up from the couch and pulled the folded blanket that lay across the foot of the bed. She curled the remaining blanket up from where he should’ve been lying next to her and brought it across her clothed body. He got back on the couch and dragged his blanket over him. “Can’t wait.” Revenge. Finally. But what would that leave him with afterward?

  “Good night.” Her phone went dark, and so did her face.

  He hated how the air cooled and stilled between them. His mind had processed all the new information about her, but the shocked burn of betrayal still lingered in places he couldn’t find to extinguish. They were deep and had remained unknown until he’d met Stephanie. “I’ve got your back.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice glided through the quiet room like slow lightning. “I’m with you.”

  “Good night.” He wrapped her words around him. They were warm from her breath and body, and slowed his heart until he could close his eyes and sink into the couch.

  They both woke before the alarm. He heard her shifting in the bed and opened his eyes to the same level of darkness as when he’d fallen asleep. The sun wasn’t close to rising, but he stretched his body to standing and flexed his muscles to pump blood into them. Stephanie holstered her pistol and pulled on her jacket. He washed up in the bathroom, then traded places with her. By the time she was returning to the bed, he had his boots and jacket on, his backpack over his shoulder. She laced up her boots, grabbed her bag and picked up her phone to cancel the alarm.

  “Los Angeles?” His pulse kicked into a higher gear.

  “You drive,” she said. “I’ll navigate. We won’t wreck.”

  On the other side of the door they were criminals, secret vigilantes and seekers of vengeance. There were no guarantees once they crossed that threshold. He stepped to her and she moved closer. Her face tipped to his and he leaned down. They kissed. A simple, small gesture that concentrated all the heat in his chest. She balled her fist in his jacket and he gripped her shoulders.

  The kiss parted, they separated and walked through the door.

  Chapter Twenty

  They were on the road for three hours before the sun came up. Drive-through breakfast had been bought and eaten. The minivan had been refueled. Stephanie had searched through radio stations and waited for word from Olesk. Arash drove with stern focus and appeared calm, but she knew the storm raging inside.

  Today.

  The sun rose and marked the beginning of the day they’d both been working toward. Tension churned deep in her, growing with each mile closer to Los Angeles. The bright morning had no clouds. Shadows stretched from the semis and smaller cars across the highway. She hadn’t spotted any other STR members. There’d been no communication. Olesk was expecting loyalty and precision from his team. She prepared herself to ruin his plans.

  With only scant details, she couldn’t fully predict how the operation would play out. But she carried one certainty with her. Nothing Olesk or the Seventh Syndicate could throw at her would change the steady, reassuring heat from her kiss with Arash this morning. They’d traversed rough territory to get there, but it only proved that what they were together was worth fighting for.

  So many lives at stake. The safest choice would be to run away. She would never. Arash sped them southwest, to the lost people who needed her help. To the people who needed justice.

  Less than an hour away from Los Angeles, a text came through. “Olesk.” She read, “San Pedro.” Then an address she punched into her mapping app.

  Arash shook his head. “I don’t know where San Pedro is.”

  “Near the port. Near Long Beach. On the far end of the city.” Which explained why he’d given them so much time to get there. “The airfield might not be far from that, but in LA, distance is set in time, not miles. Two blocks can take half an hour.”

  Arash pushed the minivan faster, then had to slow as they moved into the traffic of more populated areas. She checked the time and the map; they would be on time. The highway turned into a freeway. Traffic choked the lanes. Aggressive cars bolted into the smallest gaps as they jockeyed for advantage.

  She watched the frustration grow in Arash. His posture straigh
tened, and his fists gripped the steering wheel. “With what this minivan can do, we could tear this up. We’d blow away anyone else out here.” But they remained stealthy and moved with the normal flow.

  After typing a note on her phone, she tapped him on the arm and held it up to him. Soon.

  Arash nodded, face stony. Eyes blazing like a predator.

  A cold wind swept across the city to howl a chorus against the body of the minivan. Black road grime swirled at the edges of the freeway, where the lost ladders, torn-off bumpers and shattered tires collected.

  She slowed her breath and spun the ring around her finger. Pistol, knife, phone fully charged. She knew who the major players were in the operation, what they were driving and the address of the first destination. After waking before dawn, crossing a desert and a state line, and piercing through a city’s traffic, they were two miles away.

  The navigation took them off the freeway and down onto the streets of a partially industrial neighborhood. Warehouses and processing plants passed the windows, then rows of old, single-story houses and an ancient grocery store with a faded sign.

  “Two blocks.” Her awareness cranked high, marking every car around them and checking for anything that might seem irregular in the area. “Then left. It’ll be on the right.”

  Arash cruised deeper into the neighborhood and slowed at the address. It was an old, abandoned movie theater. Her heart caught in her throat. The victims of the Seventh Syndicate human trafficking were in there, and it was Olesk’s job to move them to the airfield. “We’re on,” she told Arash. If Olesk was listening, it wouldn’t set off any alarms for him. But Arash received her meaning and set his jaw.

  She was about to text Vincent the address and information on the location when a message came in from Olesk. “Keep moving. We’re to go four blocks north and circle in a holding pattern.”

  As Arash took them past the movie theater, she caught a glimpse of Olesk’s car in an alley a block away. Olesk sat, expressionless behind the wheel, with Ellie next to him in the passenger seat. Once Stephanie and Arash were clear from view, she messaged Vincent the address. He replied quickly: I’ll be there. 20 min? On official business with local officers. They’ve been informed that I have people on the inside.

  The two cargo vans driven by Thom and Hector passed Arash and Stephanie, heading toward the movie theater. Her gut clenched thinking about those terrified people who would soon be shackled to those seats. Arash shifted, rolling his shoulders and showing his frustration. He fumed for revenge, and she wondered if he’d be able to control that desire until the right moment.

  As soon as Arash pulled up to a curb and idled she showed him the message from Vincent. Arash checked his watch. She knew that twenty minutes would be too long. Arash asked, “You have eyes on David?”

  “Haven’t seen him, probably orbiting closer.”

  A new message arrived from Olesk. She read it aloud. “Loaded. Head north. Maintain your perimeter. Eyes open. You’re the first line of defense.”

  “No address.” Arash pulled onto the street and aimed them north.

  “Not until the last minute.” By then it would be too late to inform Vincent and the FBI. She turned in her seat to look behind and spotted the two vans moving slowly along a street. “They’re rolling.” Olesk darted past the vans and disappeared. David’s Chevy lurked farther in the distance.

  Arash watched the rearview mirror more than the road ahead. “We can’t let them scatter.” He pulled hard on the wheel and into a tight U-turn. The engine revved and she saw the energy growing in him, too. But could just the two of them end this?

  Another sedan moved on pace with the white vans. It was Grant Hemmings’s car. “The Seventh is here.” Her pulse raced knowing that the time had to be now. “Go,” she urged Arash with a whisper.

  He didn’t need much encouragement to rocket the minivan forward. Up ahead, the two cargo vans separated, one of them turning up a side street. It wouldn’t be long before they were all too strung out along the roads to contain.

  Arash aimed at the remaining van. David lurked two blocks behind it. Stephanie messaged Vincent. Now. He replied: Inbound. It looked like Arash was going to take them right into the nose of the van. At the last second, he skidded to the side. Their modifications to the suspension handled it perfectly, but her heart still thundered.

  The van screeched to a stop, blocked by Arash and Stephanie. She saw Thom behind the windshield, hands raised and eyes wide asking what the hell was going on. Arash turned to her. “Take the wheel.” He leaped out of the minivan and hurried toward Thom. She slid into the driver’s seat and strapped in. The fuse was lit. All the secrets were about to explode.

  * * *

  ARASH RAN TOWARD the driver’s side of the white cargo van, pointing vaguely up the street. “They’re coming,” he called to Thom.

  Thom rolled the window down. “Who?”

  “You didn’t see them?” Arash’s muscles blazed, ready. “Let me drive.”

  “Hell, no. That’s not part of the plan.” Thom waved at Stephanie to get out of the way.

  “The plan was screwed the second you killed Marcos.” Arash put his hands on the edge of the open driver’s-side window.

  Thom shuddered, confused. “Wait. What?” His eyes went wide when Arash reached into the van, grabbed him by his heavy flannel shirt and dragged him out of the window. Arash threw him down to the street. Thom rolled and came up with a knife in his hand. He charged Arash. “I always knew you were a son of a—”

  Arash’s knife was already out. He had to move without thinking to survive. He swiped his forearm across Thom’s wrist, redirecting his attack, and buried his own blade in Thom’s ribs. For a moment he held Thom standing, then let him fall to the ground. Sirens pierced the cold air. Thom writhed and Arash leaned over him. “If you live, you’ll rot in jail.”

  A motor growled from a block away. David’s Chevy approached. Arash threw the door open on the van and got behind the wheel. Stephanie sped away in the minivan and he peeled off behind her. Small voices wept behind him. His heart froze when he glanced back through the barricade he’d installed and saw the terrified faces of sixteen young boys and girls of different ethnicities who ranged in age from what looked like ten years old up into the teens. “You’re safe now,” he promised with a choked voice. “You’re safe.” But no one was yet.

  David rumbled closer in the Chevy. Stephanie tuned hard and away from Arash. As she curled around to cut off David, Arash saw her pointing in the direction of the coming sirens. Her friends were almost there. Before David could catch up to Arash, Stephanie swept past his front bumper, causing him to slam on his brakes. She nimbly doubled back and came at David again. The muscle car churned hard and powered away before she T-boned him.

  A block over to the right, Arash spotted three black SUVs with light bars flashing at the tops of their windshields. He angled toward them and honked repeatedly when he was just a few yards away. The SUVs came to a stop in a tactical formation and the doors opened. Arash stepped from the van with his hands raised calling out, “Bolt cutters. There are kids back here.”

  One man in an FBI windbreaker stepped forward, lowering his pistol. He was dark complected and spoke with clear authority. “Stand down. He’s with me.” The man waved the others forward. “And get those bolt cutters.” Once the man was close to Arash, he spoke in low tones. “I’m Vincent. Friend of Stephanie’s.”

  The other FBI agents threw open the van doors and were confronted by the scared faces of sixteen young boys and girls. Ellie’s voice came over the comm in the van. “What the hell is going on?”

  Arash burned to move. “Stephanie’s still out there.”

  Vincent held up his keys. “Take mine.”

  Arash glanced at the cumbersome tank of an SUV. He knew the mods of the cargo van outpaced it. “This’ll do better. Get me back on the road.”<
br />
  Vincent joined a female agent carrying a pair of bolt cutters and the two of them rushed to the van. Arash jumped into the driver’s seat as the shackles were being cut from the rings welded to the seats. With a gentle voice Vincent guided the boys and girls out. “This way. You’re safe now with the authorities and I will make sure that nothing happens to you.”

  Hector’s voice crackled on the comm. “I have no idea. Thom, check in.” All of the kids were out of the van and Arash stepped on the gas with the side door gaping open. Hector continued. “Thom. Thom?”

  Arash picked up the comm and impersonated Thom’s voice as best he could. “What’s your twenty?”

  Hector answered, “About ten blocks up from pickup, on the side street parallel to the main drag.”

  Standing on the accelerator, Arash ate up the streets. Up and to the right, he saw Stephanie take the minivan in a tight circle while avoiding a charge from David. The car Stephanie had identified as part of the Seventh Syndicate edged on the perimeter, as if uncertain how to get involved.

  Arash gritted his teeth and aimed for the rear fender of the Syndicate sedan. It was too late by the time the driver saw him coming. A direct impact had the potential to disable the van, so Arash yanked the wheel to the side and skidded the side of the van into the rear of the sedan. Glass and plastic shattered and rained into the open van. Arash jarred hard in his seat and gripped the steering wheel with all his strength to stay in place. The driver of the sedan wasn’t as strong and struck his head into the side window.

  The van was still operational and rolled forward. The side of the sedan was crushed around its rear wheel and could only limp for a foot before halting. As he sped away, Arash caught a glimpse of Stephanie in the minivan speeding toward the sedan. He knew how good a driver she was, but he still tightened with concern seeing her in the middle of the grinding danger. Whatever he was about to do next, he had to do it fast and get to her side.