“What can I say? That bitch up there has a strong pull over the man. She begged him. Said she’d do anything. Guess that was incentive enough. Now drive.”
“Hell, guess the guy couldn’t resist that. He does love it when they beg, don’t he, Bradshaw?”
Bradshaw grunted in reply and rolled his eyes as he put the car in gear, and they pulled out.
An hour later, they were back in San Jose.
Tate pulled the blindfold off Angel.
“We takin’ her to that clubhouse?” Bradshaw asked.
Tate’s eyes dropped to Angel. “Naw, too dangerous. They’re in lockdown. Brought in guys from all over preparing to move on this.” He watched her reaction to that bit of news. She didn’t look too surprised.
“Where’re we goin’ then?”
“Her house. Take her there.”
Fifteen minutes later, they drove down the road approaching the drive to Cole and Angel’s home.
“Stop here,” Tate instructed.
The car pulled to the gravel shoulder. Carter moved to open his door.
“Stay here. I got this,” Tate instructed
Carter looked over at him, hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “Fine.”
Tate pulled Angel out of the car. Her hands were still zip-tied behind her back. He pulled her along the shoulder toward the drive and started down it. The gravel drive was long and surrounded by tall pine trees. When he was out of sight of the car, but before they came into view of the house, he pulled her to a stop, her back up against his front. Leaning down to her ear, he whispered, “He wanted you dead. He didn’t change his mind. I made that call.”
Angel twisted, turning her face up to him, her eyes searching his. She moaned behind her gag.
He pulled her around by the upper arms and looked down at her, giving her a little shake. “Listen up. Before I let you go, you need to pay attention. Can you do that?”
She nodded her head.
“They pump too much of that shit into your system for you to understand, cause you need to get this?”
She shook her head.
“I’m DEA. Undercover.” He watched her eyes widen. Then he pulled the gag loose.
“What?” she whispered.
“You heard me. Been working this case for months. Didn’t count on you. You’ve been a thorn in the whole setup. But I’m not blowing months of deep cover, just so your man can fuck it all up.”
“Cole? What about him? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine, but if I had to guess, I figure he’s lost his shit over this. He’s amassing a small army. Only thing holding him back was he didn’t know where Nicklaus was. Now that Shannon has showed up, I’m figuring someone talked. And I’m figuring that someone was Alphonso, his driver. He never showed up last night. So, now I figure your man’s gonna come in, guns blazing and blow this whole deal to shit.” He studied her eyes. “I’m sure you’d like that, but you need to get this. I took care of you in there. Did the best I could to make sure you didn’t get the worst of it. I got you out of there. I wasn’t about to let them take you out. But now, you gotta do something for me.”
“I appreciate what you did, but I don’t gotta do shit for you.”
Tate grinned. “Okay, Angel, I’m asking you to do something for me. Fair enough?” When she didn’t reply, he continued, “A big player’s coming for a meet. His name’s Carlos Montoya. He’s the target. Nicklaus’s involvement is peripheral. But shit’s about to go down. Serious shit. I’ll have enough to take Montoya down. That’s not getting fucked up.” He shook her. “You hear me?”
She nodded.
“Your man moves to retaliate while Montoya and his men are there, it’ll be a bloodbath. Montoya travels with a small army of his own, and they’re all heavily armed. They won’t hesitate to slaughter anything that gets in their way. You don’t want that do you?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. But I can’t stop Cole, not on something like this. He’ll want Ralston’s head.”