“Well, whatever anyone else wants you to do gets put on hold. We’ve got a squealer.”
“I’m listening.”
“Nico’s being blackmailed into helping Wilson. Wilson has his kid and the kid’s mom. Says Hillary and a woman named Isabella are holding them. We need to find this Isabella and where they are. Once we have the kid, Nico will help us. He could be our ticket to shutting this thing down.”
“There isn’t an Isabella in Hillary’s family.”
“Is there an Isabella with a rap sheet?”
“At least a couple dozen.”
“Okay, so how about one with ties to the Cubans? Hillary runs drugs for them, so maybe it’s an organizational tie.”
“This will take time.”
“Go.”
The line went dead.
“What do we do now?” Nikki asked.
“It’s getting late. We need to eat something. We’re going on empty. I say we get some gas, go back to the house, and let Emery do his job. That way when we have a lead, we’re ready to move. It might not be until the morning, though.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Okay, let’s go hit the hay.”
The hay wasn’t all he was hoping to hit.
Chapter Eighteen
Nikki opened the garage door a few inches, just enough to see Gabriel’s bent shoulders as he went through a regular cleaning exercise with his Desert Eagles. There was something calming about the actions. Everything fitting where it went. Knowing that when your life depended on the trigger, it wouldn’t misfire.
Watching Gabriel was a joy by itself. He was different from other men. His movements weren’t always the most efficient, but they were . . . fluid. Graceful in the way of a stalking predator. She’d failed to respect that years ago. He would never be typical. Aiden might go back to civilian life when his time was up, but Gabriel would always need to help people. It was part of who he was.
“Coming in?” Gabe asked without looking at her.
“How long did you know I was there?” She entered the garage and pulled the door shut behind her.
“The back door scrapes as it opens, so three minutes?” He turned his upper body, but never took his eyes off what he was doing. “What did you find out?”
“Wilson’s mother really is dead. I had the ME pull her autopsy. Looks like someone killed her brutally.”
“Think it was Wilson?”
“Maybe? He hadn’t shown this kind of brutality yet, but maybe this is who we’re dealing with now?” And that was a terrifying thought.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. We were able to pull the card number from the gas station Nico’s buddies went to. Emery hacked the account and is tracking the last two weeks’ worth of purchases. We have a better map of their activity now that we know more names. Want to see it?”
“Sure.” He drew the one word out for several seconds, never once looking at her.
Nikki watched his hands fly, fitting the gun back together and laying it on the waist-high table built against the side of the garage. He wiped his hands and turned toward her. No matter how many times she saw him, the first hit of his eyes on her made her tingle in all the right places. But that was for later. Right now was work.
She held her tablet out and showed him a map of Miami, with digital pins overlaying it.
“Black pins are the family members of people he’s recruited.” She tapped the one they already knew represented David Swiss.
“That’s a lot of people. He must have been recruiting heavily here. Why?”
“My guess? The drugs.” She tapped a blue pin. “These are drug related. Busts. Known dealers. He’s producing a lot more than we realized, and thanks to their particular blend of ingredients, we can reasonably link all of this to him. Now, we know the waterfront location was where he made it, but the cops busted another location a few weeks ago Matt thinks was also theirs. These guys set the place on fire and bailed, so there wasn’t much evidence, but he thinks that was their distribution center.”
“Damn. For once, I want a case with no drugs. How does his Kentucky base fit in?”
“Remember David talking about Keith? Matt was able to pull more information about him.” She flipped to the encrypted PDFs. “Keith White is from Miami. Judging from his arrest records, he must have been in the same militant cell with Wilson. My theory is that they struck up some sort of twisted friendship and moved on to start their own thing before that cell got raided. Keith does have a violent record, but nothing as brutal as what happened to Wilson’s mother. The Kentucky property? That belonged to the family of another militia member who died, which is probably why they pulled up stakes and left for Miami.”
“So what are we thinking? They pull back to Kentucky, organize there, but have the secondary operation running down in Florida?”
“I bet they indoctrinated people in Kentucky. Made them think they were getting ready to go to war, then dumped them here and the switches flipped. It’s a stretch, but I think we’re starting to get the bigger picture.”
“Isn’t it ironic that he wants to wake people up, and at the same time he’s making a drug to just fuck them up?”
“You’re right, but there’s often gaps in logic with these groups. They want to achieve their end goal so badly that they’re willing to overlook the means to getting there.”
“What are the rest of the pins on the map?”
“Oh. Yellow are any incident that the cops recorded in the last six months with one of Wilson’s group. If we follow with the theory that the most accidents or crimes happen in a five-mile radius from where they’re located, we can draw a circle around each grouping of crimes to one, determine where they might have a base, and two, to figure out which crime or accident doesn’t fit the pattern of our profile.”
“And they’re either looking to get something at these places—or scope out a location.”
“Exactly what I’m thinking.”
“It’s progress.”
“We’re stretching things.”
“Maybe, but it’s a good theory. Any word yet on Isabella or Hillary?”
“Not yet, but I had another thought there. Not a good one, but . . .” Nikki bit her lip.
“What?”
“Use me as bait.”
Gabriel stared at her. His lips thinned and his gaze had a hard quality that would have intimidated her if she wasn’t positive of her actions.
“She’s angry because I killed her brother, but she doesn’t know who I am. She knows it was someone in your car. So use me as bait to draw her out.”
“How would I do that?” His tone was cold, but she refused to fidget under his scrutiny.
“I don’t know. The car-racing network?”
“Not happening.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
“No one in this crew will back a plan like that. We’ve been down that road. Madison was kidnapped and it led to an ugly standoff. A lot of people got killed. Kathy was killed when the hit team tried to take Tori. We just have a bad history with our people being bait.”
“But those were accidents. Unintentional. If we controlled how she found out and where she came to ‘find’ me, it wouldn’t turn out like that.”
“And what if she brings Wilson’s people with her? Or her brother, Jesse? Andrew was a hothead and stupid. Hillary is high half the time. Jesse? You don’t want him involved. He’s street smart, and even the Cuban gangs here in Little Havana leave him alone. That tells me all I need to know about him.”
“Okay, okay. It was an idea. I just wanted to suggest it.”
“We discussed it. And it has nothing to do with it being you. I would be opposed to hanging any one of our own out as bait. We aren’t like that.”
She held up her hands. “I’m not arguing with you. If that’s the call you want to make, I’m good with it.”
He stared at her a moment longer before nodding. His hands unclenched and the lines around his mouth
softened.
“Heard from anyone else? I’ve only spoken to Emery and Matt.” She leaned against the workbench and relaxed.
“Aiden is still incommunicado, but Emery said he got a confirmation of receipt on some texts, so he’s at least seeing them. We’re trusting that he’s just taking Madison’s security very seriously. This would be a great time for someone to try to snatch her.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. We could arrange a protective detail . . . ?”
Gabriel shook his head. “She’d shake them and go right back to Aiden.”
“Okay, so we leave them be. What about Julian, John, and the twins?”
“The twins are helping Emery. I get the feeling Roni is ready to split. Julian and John spent the day checking locations, scouting a couple sites for events that are coming up, and drove down to the Homestead track. We’re the only ones seeing any action.”
“Because we made ourselves targets.”
“True.”
“Well, we’re the best equipped to deal with this, so that’s probably a good thing.”
Gabriel laughed and slapped his thigh.
“What?” she asked.
“You.”
“What about me?”
“Just—” He straightened and wiped the smile off his face. “If they’re going to shoot at someone, it should be us.”
“Am I wrong?” She couldn’t help chuckling at his impression. To anyone else that statement would be crazy.
“No, I just . . . nothing.” He shook his head, smiling a bit.
“What?” She pushed his shoulder. It felt good to not have to be so restrained with him. It was liberating. Sure, it could come back to bite her in the ass, but when things worked between them, it was great.
“I just like working with you again.”
She gulped as the warmth inside her rose a couple of degrees.
“I was just thinking the same thing.” She fought back a tremble at the admission. Around other agents she couldn’t admit something like that, but Gabriel was part of her.
“Where do you think we’d be now if I hadn’t left?” His question extinguished any rising desire. Oh the bitter memories.
“I . . . don’t know.”
Together still. Married. A kid on the way. Or shattered, husks of the people they once were because they couldn’t let go and they couldn’t change when they were too busy propping each other up.
“I don’t think we would have both fit in your apartment.” One side of his mouth hitched up in a devastating smile.
She had to pause to remember that apartment. She’d moved out of it years before.
“Maybe not, but it would have been cozy.” She didn’t point out that him moving in with her wouldn’t mean more than a few weeks here and there spent with her. His undercover work was often long-haul stints.
“Cozy. That’s a cute word for cramped.” His smile spread and her knees seemed to lose all ability to hold her upright.
“It wouldn’t have been for long.” She leaned her elbow on the workbench to keep herself standing.
“You moved. You told me that.”
“I did.”
“Remind me, where are you now?”
“I moved into DC not quite a year ago.”
“DC? Man.”
“Yeah. I guess I glossed over that detail. When we started this division it was decided we would be in the DC metro area. It’s different.”
“I must have missed that detail. I wasn’t exactly ready for you to just step back into my life.”
“Should I apologize?” Did he not want her here? He could not want to love her, just like she’d tried a million times to stop.
Gabriel took a step toward her and closed the distance. He cupped the left side of her face, pushing his fingers into her hair, and bent his head.
“No.”
His nearness drove whatever thoughts she should be having out of her head. All the neat mental piles of information went up in a puff of smoke when all she could see was him.
“Sometimes I think about what life might have been like if we’d stuck together. If I’d pulled my head out of my ass, got some help. I wonder if we’d still be together. I like to think that we would.”
She lifted her hand and splayed it on his chest, because when he was this close, why not indulge in the feel of him? His heart beat under her palm. She heard the whisper of his confession in the back of her mind.
Oh, God. He had no idea she’d understood him earlier. It was always Gabriel taking that first step, leading her down the path. She hated her paralysis when it came to things of a romantic nature. Maybe it was something bred into her by her mother’s cold, callous approach to matrimony, or maybe it was just her. How she was wired. But she could choose to change.
“I speak Spanish,” she blurted.
Gabriel frowned a little and blinked.
“Hablo español con fluidez. Aprendí cuando te fuiste.” She gulped and forced herself to look at him.
His brows drew down, making him look more confused. She saw the moment the realization hit him. It was a completely unshuttered sucker punch she saw play out in his eyes, the slack-jawed surprise. All of it.
“When?” he asked.
“I started learning about six months after you left. I’m fluent, or mostly fluent. I understand everything you say.” Okay, so learning had been useful. She’d interacted with a lot more Latino assets, and not needing an interpreter was invaluable. But she’d also learned because of him. Because she was a sap and making that effort had somehow, in her twisted inability to let go, made him closer to her.
“Everything?”
“Me dijiste que me amabas mucho.”
“You heard that.” His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“I did. I just . . . it didn’t occur to me that I hadn’t told you already.”
“Okay, then.” He glanced away and she felt the atmosphere change. It was cold. As if he’d already decided what she was going to say and didn’t want to hear it.
“I didn’t know what to say . . .” She clasped her hands together and wiggled her toes. Her insides squirmed. This was not a conversation she wanted to have, but it had to happen. “It didn’t seem like the time to have a discussion about it and . . . I didn’t know what to say. You know how I am. I have to think about things. I need to wrap my head around how to respond. I’m not good in the heat of the moment like you are.”
“It’s okay, we can just—”
“It’s not okay, Gabe. Stop cutting me off. I’m trying here.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. The door wasn’t shut between them. There was a small chance that something good could still happen. “I hate that it’s taken four years for us to get back together. I wish I’d have come seen you sooner, but I think we needed time apart. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. But we’re still the same people we were. Leaving was the best thing you could have done for yourself, and I hated you for leaving me because . . . because I loved you and I was scared shitless without you. When you left, a piece of me was gone, and I feel like some days, the only thing that keeps me going is the job. That’s no way to live. You showed me more than that, and I still miss you.”
What was she saying? She was circling the drain on this one, pouring out all the words, and none of them were what she needed him to know. Nikki took a deep breath and stood a little straighter. He’d told her he loved her, she could put a little of herself out there for him.
“I’ve slept in your shirt at least once a week since we broke up. I’ve never really gotten over you. I don’t think I stopped loving you. Ever. So when you said that . . . I couldn’t think. I didn’t know how to get it out. I can’t express emotion like you do. I’m just not wired that way and I know it annoys you, but I can’t help it.”
“What do you feel now?” he asked.
“Right now? Fear. I’m scared. What if telling you how I feel means . . . I don’t know. Something bad will happen? I don’t like being afraid, but if you’ve taught m
e anything, it’s that fear shows us what we really want.”
“What is it you want?” He was so quiet, his exterior stony and unreadable, but the undercurrent had changed.
She stared him in the eye.
Now or never, right?
“You,” Nikki replied.
Chapter Nineteen
Gabriel took a small step toward her and grasped her hand.
“I’m right here,” he said, squeezing her fingers.
She smiled weakly and clung to him. It was that or fall on her face. Her legs were jelly and her head was spinning. For five years she’d held on to that secret, never uttering those words out loud.
“I know.” She reached for his other hand, needing that contact and his reassurance. He was still there. “And . . . I love you. It doesn’t make sense or fit any of the boxes in my life, but I love you, very much. You should probably remember this because I’m actually talking about feelings.”
He laid a finger across her lips and she stopped talking.
“Remember our deal? You tell me what you want and I make it happen.”
She nodded. Their candid conversation last night was a little hazy, but the important parts had stuck in her mind.
“I’ve always loved you, too. I just never thought I’d hear you say it in quite so many words.”
Nikki blew out a breath that turned into a nervous chuckle. Her palms were damp with sweat and her knees nearly knocked together. He was worth it, but she didn’t know if either of them could pay the price. Right now all that mattered was hearing him say those little words to her face.
He bent his head. She held her breath, waiting. His lips brushed across hers, his skin blazing hot. She kissed him back, clinging to his arms, pressing closer. A heady rush of adrenaline pumped into her system.
She’d told him she loved him, and he’d said it back.
How many times had she dreamed this moment? It wasn’t perfect, but this was them.
“Speak Spanish to me,” he whispered against her lips.
“What?”
“I’ve never heard you speak Spanish. I want to hear you say something.”
“Te he extrañado.”
“You already told me you miss me.” He looped one arm around her waist and pulled her against him.
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