by Sara Schoen
“It’s not clear what they were after,” Wes said. “They found the girl in one of the offices, which were packed up to get ready for the move to the new compound. We don’t have clear reports, but a few saw the girl holding a few files. They weren’t clear on what she was taking because she scattered most of the papers in the room when she escaped.”
“They let her escape?” Camden snapped, the anger prevalent in his features. His fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles were turning white. His dark stare had fixated on Wes, waiting for his answer.
Wes cleared his throat before he attempted to appease Camden. “They got her, sir. They chased her into one of the storage warehouses. That’s how the other two men survived.” Wes’s gazed fell to the floor. “Jax had ordered one of them to guard the door, and the other to gather more members so that they could finish her off if she escaped again.”
“How did they know she had entered if they caught her so late in the act?”
“One member, Tessa, according to other members’ reports, said she saw someone go in and got Jax to look. We don’t know what happened to her during the fight or what else she knew. One of the men Jax had sent said she was dead, but we don’t know for sure. The reports aren’t clear. None of them agree with each other.” Wes glanced at me, possibly to see how I had handled the news, but I gave away nothing.
Personally, I was pleased that the raid on Sandtown had finally gone according to plan. They’d found whatever they were looking for, and the girl had escaped. It had all gone smoothly for once, and maybe if they found what they wanted, I would be out of here sooner rather than later.
“There’s more news coming in as well,” Wes stated hesitantly. “The survivors went after the loose ends as instructed and one got away. There was a witness who saw him with the girl from the compound, but no idea where they were going.”
Camden sighed. “It’s not like she can go into hiding forever. Find out who she is and put out a hit on her. I want to know if she’s working for the same people we dealt with last time.”
My teeth clenched and my body went rigid at the mention of the last CIRA attempt to take down the Sandtown compound. It had ended up with five agents dead, just after I took the position and told them where the base was. Since then, Demon had made his meetings rare. I knew it was because he had taken the loss of the agents hard, and then he had to start looking for people to take over the missing spots in the team. Last I heard, they hadn’t found anyone to fill the positions yet, but they had pulled in a few people from other teams. A reconnaissance agent, taken from the team that usually handled sensitive missions for the CIA and FBI, and a girl who is known for her fighting skills and being a skilled tactician. They were a mash up of a few other teams, but if they had successfully completed this mission, they must have managed to pull together. I only hoped there would be a spot for me once I was done with this mission. I needed the flexibility they had so that I could search for Ash Crest, and finish him.
“If it was, then it wasn’t the same agents,” Wes said. “They didn’t recognize them, and they said there were fewer numbers. They only found the girl, and saw one other person. It could be someone else. We may need to move the compound earlier than planned, and your father wants to talk to you to discuss what to do, Camden.”
Camden hesitated, trying to figure out the correct response. His father had been pressuring him because he was next to take over, but with every decision, Camden suffered the consequences. It was tough love, but it worked as he slowly learned from his mistakes. “I want to talk to the survivors first. Send them in when they get here. Do not go back to my father until I’ve had a chance to talk with them.”
“I won’t,” Wes promised. “But what do I do in the meantime? They won’t be here for another few hours.”
“Find me everything you can on the base in Sandtown, and see if you can find out who this girl is. I want to know everything about her, and then I want her hunted down and killed,” Camden ordered without hesitation. It was obvious he wanted revenge for what she’d done to the Sandtown base because he would be taking full responsibility for the disaster from his father. He made sure to get rid of anyone who caused him trouble or embarrassed him for his leadership choices, even if it meant hunting someone down to kill them. I hoped whoever the girl was, she would be ready to run for her life. Camden wouldn’t let her live long once he discovered her identity. As for the people who helped her, they’d be dead as soon as they were located.
Chapter 2
Camden had been talking to the survivors of the raid for hours. They were piecing together an overall story from what I had been able to hear through the door. Most had only seen the girl, or heard about her from Jax’s men. They had ordered some of the other members to shoot if they saw her escape. Most claimed they’d seen her take Tessa as a hostage, and that Tessa was shot while the girl escaped. It wasn’t clear what happened to the girl, and most didn’t know what happened to the other members. All of them were shot, but they didn’t know who did it.
Camden did, though.
It was a tactic used to silence those who’d witnessed his crimes or plans—permanently. He ordered many of the survivors killed, which meant the plan hadn’t gone as Jax thought it would and extreme measures had to be taken. Jax was probably the only one killed by the agent, and the others were killed to keep what really happened quiet. The ones who survived the slaughter Jax’s men had unleashed weren’t near the action, and didn’t know what happened until after the smoke cleared. Either way, we were hearing what Jax wanted us to if he hadn’t died. It made me wonder what actually happened, and what the agent had done. She had escaped somehow, and no one seemed to know what she looked like. She might get out of this alive.
The only news that came as a surprise was that Ash Crest was found dead in his mansion. After the raid, they had discovered his file was missing and a few members were sent to check on him. They found the grounds littered with bodies. Whoever killed him made sure to leave no survivors. An angry growl escaped my lips when I heard the news, which caused Camden to kick me out of the room. He thought I was upset we had lost members, our ‘co-workers’ as he loosely called them, and sent me into the hall to calm down. My anger resulted from the lost chance for revenge, not at the deaths of a few cartel members.
The door opened, breaking me from my thoughts as the last survivor stepped out. “He’s ready for you, Marco,” the man said, the emptiness in his eyes suffocating. He had seen his friends die. He’d seen their lifeless bodies, and carried some of them off. This day would be with him forever, and hopefully it would make him see just how dangerous it was to be working for a cartel.
“Thank you, Miles,” I replied before forcing myself off the wall I had been leaning on for support and standing at my full stature. I towered over him by about a foot, and it took him aback. As he looked up at me, a pang of fear came into his eyes. He saw the part I played, just how it was supposed to be, but I wondered what he would think if he knew my true identity. Maybe then he wouldn’t look at me as the Angel of Death, more as someone who could save him from the hell he had willingly entered.
“Just let me know if you find the person who killed my brother,” he said with a sullen tone before he walked past me. Little did he know, the person who killed his brother was most likely one of the people who had flown over here with him.
“Miles,” I called, regaining his attention. “Do you know who did this? I want to know who did this to our people.” I tried to force the scowl off my face to make him think I was more upset than angry. Ash Crest was dead. It should relieve me, but instead it angered me that someone else had gotten to him first. I had wanted revenge, and I’d do the next best thing to get it. Find the person who killed him, and kill them.
“No,” he said sadly. “I just saw everyone being taken out around me. As I told Camden, everyone else is dead, even Ash and Theo. I have no idea if it’s connected to the base in Sandtown or not, but if it is then you’d better
watch your back, because whoever they are, they’re ruthless.”
“Understood,” I said, biting my tongue to prevent myself from saying a hired hit man and a cartel out for money were the ruthless ones. The people who had taken out members of the cartel were protecting the citizens from the dangers cartels, mobs, and mafia brought with them. I would much rather be around them than undercover here.
We turned away from each other, and Miles left with some of the other guards as I walked into Camden’s office to figure out what to do next. I knew there would be a few traitors and deserters to track down. They would have to be taken care of when we had the time, and I knew I could be sent out to make sure they paid for their decision. Didn’t these people know the only way out of the cartel was to leave in a body bag? I learned a long time ago that once you’re in the cartel, you’re in it for life.
When I stepped into Camden’s office, he was on the phone. I took the time to shut the door, knowing he would ask me to do it anyway; he always wanted the door shut for privacy. I looked around the office—immaculate as always. There were a few fake plants for looks, his desk, the seats for the clients, and a bookcase with a filing cabinet next to it. Somewhere in those drawers were files on the cartel, but they were buried under case files Camden and his father had used over the years to hide the true meaning of their business. They hid behind the masquerade of a private investigation service. It looked clean on the outside, meant to hide the drug running and weapons trade.
After I took the seat in front of his desk and waited for him to finish, he seemed to be in a rush to hang up. It made me curious who was on the other line, because he wouldn’t have normally minded me listening in.
“Something warm,” Camden stated easily, turning his attention back on me.
I could see his fingers tapping on the desk with anxiety. Whoever he was talking to made him nervous. I smiled lightly, realizing he was embarrassed. I would have to make fun of him for that later. My smile quickly dissipated as I noticed a poster depicting a missing person laying on his desk. It looked torn at the edges, as if he had ripped it off a telephone pole himself, and it seemed weathered like it had been through a storm or months in the Georgia weather.
I looked as closely as I could without being obvious, but it didn’t take long before I realized it was my photo on the poster. Fear and anxiety shot through me. Did he know I was a fake? Did he somehow figure out the real Marco Rykov was dead? He could have discovered my identity. He must know. Why else would he have my photo on his desk?
I thought my disguise was well put together, but clearly someone had found out. They could have seen me dying my hair black to cover the blond, or noticed the colored contacts I kept hidden away. I was usually very careful, but someone must have seen me, and if Camden knew then I was as good as dead.
How would I get out of this alive?
“It’s supposed to be cold. Now, I really must go. Marco just came in and we have to finish up some business before I see you tomorrow. Goodbye.” Camden hung up the phone and looked at me expectantly.
I waited for him to say something, hoping that he would break the ice and let me know if he’d figured me out, but he remained silent. That was never a good sign. If Camden didn’t tell you what was on his mind, it meant he either had bad news or he was in a foul mood. My gaze drifted back to the photo. I had definitely been caught, but maybe I could make a way out of this.
“What’s with the flier?” I asked, trying to determine what he knew, if anything, about me.
“I picked it up a few years ago,” he said, turning the flyer to face me so I could look it over. “I got it from a girl who was looking for her brother. She’s commissioned our help in locating him. Four years is a long time, so looking into this one shouldn’t be any problem. He’s probably dead. They usually are if they haven’t come back home by now, or maybe he met someone and just ditched her.”
My hand balled into a fist to stop myself from blurting out that I hadn’t left her by choice and that I was alive and trying to get back home to her. I could only assume Danielle had contacted him. No one else would take the time to look for me so thoroughly. She probably read all the faked reviews about the investigative service, and saw the record for solving cases. It looked good, but they rarely took cases anymore unless it somehow benefited them.
I glanced at the flyer again. The photo Danielle used was from my senior portrait. Our parents had insisted that I get it done since it would be their last school photo of me. I was going straight into the Army after school, and they wanted to make sure they could have the photos from senior year and then a few during my first year in the military as well. The description was plain, luckily for me, and described my blond and brown mixed hair, six-foot-four build, brown eyes, and other basic features. Nothing that would give me away, which hopefully meant Camden didn’t know who I was. I was safe, for now. “Are you going to take the case?”
I knew the answer would be no, and he would say they had too many cases at the moment. It was always a lie, but no one else knew that so it didn’t matter to the Cardozas. They were usually just busy with deals for the cartel, even though the leaders very rarely stepped out into the open, for fear of being targeted and taken out. Otherwise CIRA would have killed them a long time ago, or I would have. Either way, I wouldn’t have to be here now.
Unfortunately, CIRA had something against killing unless absolutely necessary. It didn’t make any sense to me because I had been trained to kill in order to keep the mission alive, and I would do just that, but when it came to leaders of cartels or small countries it was always hard to decide. Another person would just step up into the position and it would be as if nothing happened in a matter of weeks depending on who it was. By now someone had already taken over Jax’s position in Sandtown, but that was only to move people out to other bases.
Whoever CIRA had sent into that compound had made it impossible for the cartel to continue working there because somehow the citizens in the area found out. They called the police and they found everything. It wasn’t a big hit, because most of the merchandise had been moved out already, but it meant we were getting closer to taking them down. The more Camden and his father scrambled, the more they messed up, and the closer I came to going back home.
“Not sure yet,” Camden said thoughtfully, as if truly considering it. “I’m told we have to keep up the appearance of our business, so a few stray cases shouldn’t cause too much trouble. This one is just too old. I don’t think it would do us any good to look into it.”
“You could get a few people to help look for him,” I suggested, hoping that I could then lose the flyer while taking it to whomever Camden ordered to look into the case. There was very little chance of them finding anything on me since CIRA would have covered my tracks the moment they recruited me, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
Demon said I’d been missing the entire time I trained for them, from the moment I went into the military and my team had been attacked. They must work hard to keep up that appearance for all their agents, including me. Then again, they called me a renegade. I did things my way, always within the parameters of my orders, but I had a more efficient way of getting the mission done, which usually meant going as unnoticed as possible. Maybe it was easier for me to hide because my story made it seem as if I had died. I slipped under the radar. Unlike the two agents who had gone into Sandtown and revealed themselves.
Rookies.
“Yeah, I could have a few people look into it, then meet up with her to discuss it later,” Camden said, thinking about the suggestion for a moment longer. “That might be the best plan. Thank you, Marco.”
I smiled at the sound of my fake persona’s name. I dodged the bullet this time, but next time I may not be so lucky. I had to make sure they wouldn’t look too far into my case, and that I could get out of this without them ever realizing that I wasn’t Marco.
“I could look into it, sir,” I offered, taking the flyer from his desk. �
�There’s no need to bother everyone else with it, what with the trades and meetings we have coming up. I can do it when you don’t need me, and see if I can find out anything about him.”
“Thank you, Marco. You should have time tomorrow while I’m out. That way we won’t have to discuss it with her anytime soon and we can see what we find before she calls about it again.”
“Going out tomorrow? Is there another girl?” Camden was learning the ways of the cartel from his father, slowly taking over the whole thing until he married. His father’s first rule was that he had to be married before he could take over, because once he started running it there would be no time to meet women, at least not those who weren’t already in it for the money. In the end, all that really mattered to him was taking over the cartel, and if it meant having a woman he could tolerate being with, then he’d find someone.
Camden wanted to take over as soon as possible, but hadn’t found the right girl yet. Frankly, I hoped he never did. I didn’t want some poor woman to be lied to, and get involved with a cartel, especially when we were about to take them down. Although, at the same time, I hoped Camden would find someone and take over. He was less cautious than his father, meaning he would be easier to take out in the long run.
I’m sure his dad would teach him differently when the time came, but for now, Camden made it too easy to gather information on the cartel. He trusted me too much, but that was his mistake.
Camden sighed before he replied. “Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about it much until I’ve been on the date with her. I remember the last time I talked with you before I had my first date with a girl.”
“You mean Candice?” I asked with a laugh.
Camden shuddered at the mention of her name before nodding. Candice had been a wonderful young lady, until he got her alone and she had one of three different personalities. The one I had seen the most was her flirting with everyone, and being all over Camden. Most men wouldn’t mind having an attractive lady all over them, but when she did it in excess, anyone would get sick of it. Needless to say, it didn’t last long because everyone gave him shit for it.