After a short pause, she simply said, “Sit.”
The woman left the counter and went into the kitchen, leaving Wylie alone in the front of the store. He slipped his wallet back into his pocket and took in the details of the space. It was small with white plaster walls, a brick floor, and five small tables. It was clean, smelled like heaven, and had a small salsa bar that he took advantage of.
Wylie chose a corner table opposite the entry, where he’d have a clear view of the door and the street out front from the window next to him. He slipped his backpack off and set it on the chair to his right and settled in. There wasn’t much else to see inside, other than a small hall with a sign above that said bathroom in Spanish. He’d check that out too, but for now, he liked where he sat.
There was an unsettling feeling he couldn’t explain. Something about the crowds, as though he’d missed something or needed to prepare for it.
“So, what’s there to do around here?” he hollered to the woman. “I’m looking for things to do—tourist things.”
He took his eyes off the crowd and gazed at the old woman in the kitchen who just stared back at him.
“Eat,” she commanded as she plated up his food. “Lots to eat.”
“Well, I like to eat.” Wylie trained his eyes back out the window as that unsettled feeling lingered. “Guess I came to the right place. This is a nice little place you have.”
The woman appeared tableside carrying two plates of food to serve him. “You’re a big man. You eat both.”
Her accent was thick but seemed forced at times, and he noticed the breaks in her English seemed out of place. They were trained to notice everything, including things as unsuspecting as dialect, body language, and when someone put on a good act. This woman was putting on a show. He needed to figure out why and suspected it had to do with Eva.
“I came hungry so…” Wylie paused when he saw the second set of men from the vehicles at the other end of town walking the street.
Wylie looked up and saw the woman fixated on the same men.
“You eat. I have to sweep.” The woman grabbed her broom and went out front, sweeping the same stretch of street she had been only an hour or so before.
He was in the right place. Eva was here somewhere, and the woman was hiding her. Watching the first duo walk the street could have been a coincidence as they stood out in their overly dressed attire. These two men weren’t, though. They only stood out to Wylie because he’d seen them arguing with the other pair. Otherwise, they looked like any of the other tourists wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
Interesting, he thought. She had to recognize them somehow. Maybe they stood out to her because, despite their attempt at a casual presence, there was still a certain air about them, a swagger that matched the previous men. Perhaps they’d been wandering up and down that stretch of road for some time and she’d noticed. Or she’d been briefed and been brought up to speed about who and what to watch for. Maybe that was why she’d been watching him, too.
When the men were out of sight, the woman came back in and propped her broom behind the door, watching out the window for a few more moments.
“You know them?” Wylie asked between bites.
The woman didn’t look his way, but answered, “Who?”
“Those men who went by. They sort of…stand out, right?” Wylie was provoking her. “Something about them…”
“I’ve never seen them before. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Wylie smiled. She was good, but he was better at this. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? What about the men from an hour ago?”
The woman looked his way briefly, then turned and went back to the kitchen. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Aw, sure you do. The two men you were watching just before you noticed me across the street.”
“You have a big imagination and ask too many questions. Eat your food. It’ll get cold.”
Wylie snickered. She was tough. “It’s delicious. I can honestly say this is probably the best meal I’ve had in a long time, and I eat a lot of tacos. It’s my absolute favorite food.”
He paused, giving her a chance to speak, but she said nothing. “So. Are they here to help her or hurt her?”
Without a word, the woman moved to the front door. She turned the sign and then locked the door.
Wylie continued to prod. “The second set of men were less assuming. I’d say that makes them more threatening. And the fact they’re still walking the streets tells me they know she’s here somewhere. It’s just a matter of time before…”
“You should go wash up now. The customer bathroom is broken. Use the one in the back behind the kitchen. It’s in…my office. Go now.”
Wylie nodded and took to his feet. When he reached behind him to engage his weapon, the woman put her hands up to halt him.
“You won’t need that,” she scolded, motioning to the back. “Just put that away. And you go. Wash up.”
After a brief stall, he slid into his backpack and positioned his weapon in his back waistband and headed the direction the woman told him to follow.
“She said you’d come,” the woman called out. “She said you would come for her.”
He paused and looked over his shoulder at the woman whose eyes were rimming with emotion before she turned away and began to close the blinds on all the windows as if she hadn’t said anything of significance.
Wylie made his way through the small kitchen to an even smaller hallway that led to a single doorway. Slowly, he opened the door to a dark room, staring down the barrel of a gun pointed right at him with Eva on the other end.
He put his hands up in surrender. “It’s okay, Eva.”
She slowly backed up, letting him in the room as she looked over his shoulder to see behind him.
“It’s just me. Nobody knows I’m here,” he reassured, squinting so his eyes could adjust to the dark. He didn’t have to see her to know it was her. He’d recognize her silhouetted body anywhere.
Eva carefully moved around him and closed the door, never losing her focus or him as a target.
“Give me your gun,” she demanded.
With one hand remaining in the air, he reached behind himself with the other and slowly handed her his weapon.
“No.” She shook her head and nodded toward the bed. “Over there. Put it over there.”
She was cold, her voice seemingly monotone, but he sensed a trace of fear. Wylie could hear her hard swallow and the brief, barely there quake in her words. She was on edge, and that made her dangerous, leaving him to question everything at that moment. What had frightened her, and what left her afraid of him of all people?
“All of them, O’Reilly,” she cautioned. “All of your weapons. Don’t fuck with me.”
Against his better judgment, he pulled the remaining weapon from his ankle and tossed it on the bed along with his backpack. “There are a couple in there too.”
“Lose the hoodie,” she demanded, and he obliged. “Pants and shirt too.”
“Jesus, Eva.” His tone was sympathetic, not strained or angry. She was afraid of him, and it pained him to know that. He was the last person who would ever hurt her. How did she not know that? he wondered.
“Just do it,” she snapped, full of emotion. “Turn around, let me see you.”
Wylie stood in nothing but socks and his boxer briefs and spun around, arms up, so Eva could see he was no longer armed or a threat.
“No more weapons? No wire?” she asked, the darkened room clearly an obstacle for her.
“What the fuck, Eva?” His tone was still soft. He wasn’t angry with her; he was angry for her because she felt so unsafe with him. “Just turn on the light. You’ll see. No weapons. No wire. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Why are you here, Wylie?” she asked
“I’m looking for you. I’ve been looking for you. You just…disappeared. I was worried and—"
“And?” she interrupted, uni
mpressed with his plea. “I’m always undercover. You never come looking.”
“You always tell me, and you didn’t. When you weren’t there, and I couldn’t find you, I…”
“You what, Wylie?” she seethed in what seemed like anger. “You what?”
Wylie heard the emotion she was trying to hide through her gritted teeth. “I needed to find you, okay?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper, unable to hold back whatever had her so guarded in the first place. “How did you find me?”
“I remembered what you said before, the stories you’d tell about your aunt.” He paused when he heard a sob escape. “I remembered that she left the family and had come here and thought…more like hoped, this is where you’d come if you were in trouble. I had to find you.”
Eva had talked of this aunt often. She was about to be exiled from the family for loving the wrong man—a man from another crime family—when she left on her own and never looked back. The story was a modern-day Romeo and Juliet the way Eva told it, and he was always moved by how much the love story moved her.
“It’s the only thing I had to go on, Eva.” He went on, sensing her guard softening. “I-I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if you weren’t here. I hoped. Prayed even… I needed you to be here.”
Eva sniffled and pulled herself together. “Where are your brothers? You shouldn’t have come here. You’re going to draw attention and—”
“They’re on the run,” Wylie interrupted. “We all are. Just like you. Something big’s going down, and that bust we made at the coast was a big fucking bear poke. They’re coming for us.”
“Who?” she asked.
“No fucking clue. It’s all happened so fast. We had to get out of town so we could figure it out.” Wylie needed to gain her trust and showed the only card he had to play. “We’re all meeting up at Wyatt Ranch in Montana in a few days.”
“You’re using safe houses?”
“Yes. We split into teams and took different routes. The last team arrives in a week. Hoping there will be more intel or evidence by the time we all arrive.”
Her guard was up again. “Who’s with you, Wylie?”
She poked him in the chest with her gun. “Who did you bring here?”
“No one. Fuck, Eva. I promise you. Mercy was my partner, and I left him behind to come find you. I couldn’t go on to the rendezvous without you. I wasn’t leaving you behind.”
“But you’ll leave Mercy behind?” She still didn’t trust him.
“It’s Mercy’s ranch. He knows the way and can take care of himself. I didn’t want to put him or anyone else at risk by going solo. I know the route, so I figured I’d catch back up if I didn’t find you here, but I had to try.”
“So, what, I’m your new mission?”
“Yes. I guess you are. I wasn’t moving on until I at least looked for you. It was the only place left to look. I’d looked everywhere else,” he admitted. “I came for you.”
Another sob escaped her, only this time more audible, and it was followed by days of pent-up emotion that came flooding out. Eva dropped her gun on the bed and launched into Wylie’s arms. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she held him tight and cried. He’d never witnessed this side of Eva. She was soft but tough, and not easily intimidated or frazzled. Vulnerable was not a word he’d ever use to describe her. Until now.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, stroking her head with one hand while holding her around the waist with the other. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you now. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
He continued to calm her simply by holding her and letting her get it all out. He’d hold her for days if that’s what she needed. Having her in his arms made everything wrong in their world feel right, and he welcomed the feeling.
Eva pulled away from their embrace and wiped her face. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I just lost it like that.”
“It’s okay,” he consoled. “If you’re here hiding, I’m sure there’s a good reason to be a little emotional.”
“Sit down,” she insisted, moving toward the door where she flipped on a light switch but remained with her back to him. “Um, we should talk.”
He assumed she hadn’t faced him yet because she was embarrassed for breaking down, so he sat and gave her the time she needed.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?” he asked. “Why are you hiding? What happened, Eva?”
With her back still to him, she wiped her sleeve across her face. “I, uh, didn’t know who I could trust. So I ran.”
“What? You can always trust us, you know that. You know me, Eva. You can trust me with anything.”
Eva turned to face him, and the sound he made when he saw her face was something primal, angry, and instantly hungry for revenge. He jumped to his feet, and she was back in his arms instantly.
“What the hell, Eva. What happened to you?” he growled as he inspected every swollen bruise and laceration on her face. “Who did this? Who fucking did this?”
Wylie grabbed the hem of her oversized sweatshirt and paused, waiting for her permission to remove it. When she nodded, he carefully pulled it over her head, leaving her in nothing but her bra and panties, noticing her wince as her arms stretched over her head.
Every inch of her was battered and bruised. Wylie used a soft touch to trace one mark to the next as he looked her over, fueled with so much rage his face turned crimson.
“Eva.” He had no words. Nothing that would make whatever she’d been through better. “Jesus, Eva.”
He pulled her into a gentle embrace and just held her, kissing the top of her head every so often. “I need to know, darlin’. I need to know who did this.”
“I-I don’t know,” she cried.
“Were you still in Portland when it happened?”
“Yes. I was getting ready to head back to Miami and see where things stood after the coast bust. Men from my team were busted there, and I had no idea it was even going down. I needed to get control back and figure out who was organizing behind my back.”
“They saw you, didn’t they?” he questioned. “Someone from your team saw you there…with us.”
“I didn’t see them coming. It was dark. I just know they were men by their size.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “I was headed to the private airfield to leave and stopped for a coffee—a damn coffee. They grabbed me as soon as I left the coffee shop and pulled me around back where they…well, did all this.”
“Did they…?” Wylie turned away and dropped his head into his hands before raking them over his face. He wasn’t sure how to ask such a delicate question, but he needed to know. “Did they…violate you?”
“No. They, uh, tried…” She was embarrassed, and he hated that she felt that way. “I fought back just enough, I guess. Someone came and startled them. Honestly, I don’t know what happened after that.”
Wylie took a seat next to her. “How did you get here?”
“I woke up in one of the houses I’ve used. I don’t know how I got there, but I grabbed what I had there and ran. I made a couple of stops, swapped out my vehicle a couple of times, and stayed off the grid…”
“So Liam couldn’t track you.”
“Especially so Liam couldn’t track me. I didn’t know who attacked me, and I didn’t automatically think it was…you or your brothers, but I did know I couldn’t trust anyone, and if he could find me, so could a lot of other people as of late.”
“Yeah. We aren’t even using our own technology right now for that reason. It’s all old-school and off the grid.”
She snickered. “Backroads. No highways, bi-ways, freeways, interstates…and definitely no airports and train stations. Yeah, Liam was pretty loud in my head. It turns out, I did use that training I thought I’d never need.”
“I’m glad you did, and I’m glad you came here,” Wylie said, pulling his hoodie over her head to cover her up.
“I just wish I knew who showed up that night and how they got me out of there.�
�
“Sounds like there’s an ally out there somewhere watching over us, but no telling who it is right now,” Wylie agreed.
“I worry it’s my team. I mean, all this stuff lately couldn’t have happened overnight. Seeing them at the coast, knowing they’re working with whoever was behind that. I have to assume my cover has been blown.”
“I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet too. There were two guys from your organization walking through town earlier, and they were talking to a couple of guys I don’t know.”
Eva jumped to her feet in a panic. “We need to go. We need to get out of here, Wylie.”
He grabbed her hands and pulled them to his chest. “We will. But we’re going to be smart about it. They’re gone, at least for now. We’re still safe here. They didn’t even come in here, so we have time.”
“I don’t even know why they’re here?” she admitted. “Are they here to help or…?”
“That was my question too. Surely, some of these guys know your family well enough to know the history. They’ve been loyal for so long, how could they not? But they didn’t even give your aunt a second look, so I don’t think they knew who she was. I wonder if Kimble has anything to do with this. He played both sides for a while there and led us to that bust.”
“He’s in a coma, though, so I’d say he’s out of commission. Besides, he flipped. After the risk he took, surely he’s in as much danger as the rest of us,” she reminded him. “Do you think it could be someone from Brother’s Keeper? Like one of the Keepers?”
“They’re too loyal,” Wylie defended. “Every one of them. After we had one guy go rogue and work for your dad to pay for his daughter’s medical bills, we’ve paid even more attention to everyone’s financials and lifestyles. That’ll never happen again. Besides, that guy proved his loyalty to us in his final hour. Liam has been vetting everyone again, and nothing had come up the last time I checked.”
“Nobody from my team even knows I come to Portland, much less when I’m there. That’s the thing. Unless I was spotted at the bust. Then it’s back to my team. They’ve turned on me. It’s the only thing that makes sense right now.”
Brother's Keeper V: Wylie (the complete series BOX SET): NEW RELEASE + Series Box SET included! Page 122