We finish lunch, and it’s taken far more energy than it should to ignore Madisyn. When she finally gets up to leave, I breathe a sigh of relief.
She’s been a distraction for the entire meal.
We pay the waitress and get up to leave. Madisyn finished a few minutes earlier, and I would have expected her to have walked back.
But it’s still raining.
Shit.
She’s standing by the door.
“I’m going to use the bathroom real quick,” Luka says.
“You can’t fucking wait?” I’m already standing, and if I sit back down at the table, it’ll look like I’m intentionally avoiding her. Which, at this point, I am.
Luka ignores me and scatters off to the back, where the bathroom is situated. Is he trying to piss me off, because he’s doing a grand job at it?
I stalk past several empty tables and make my way to the front entrance.
Madisyn stands by the door, her crappy old cell phone in her hand.
Is she waiting for the rain to pass? It could be hours. The forecast wasn’t calling for it to lighten up until tonight. “Do you want a ride?” I ask.
“No, I’m waiting for my rideshare,” Madisyn says. She grumbles something unintelligible under her breath.
There’s an awkwardness and heaviness felt as we stand just a few feet apart.
“I'll bet your boss was proud of you.” It’s a cheap shot, but I can’t help but feel anger and hatred toward her for what she did.
“Excuse me?” She glances from the glass door to me.
“Being able to infiltrate my organization.” I’m careful not to use the actual terminology out in a public setting. “I'll bet they’re giving you a medal for that. It couldn’t have been easy.”
Her eyes tighten, and there’s a flicker of something unfamiliar. “Yeah, a real gold star for getting made. I’ll go down as the agent who fucked a bratva boss and still didn’t get a piece of intelligence to use.”
I open my mouth but quickly shut it. Why the hell is she pissed? I didn’t betray her. She knew who I was from the beginning.
“That’s my ride,” she says and breezes out the door.
She climbs into the back seat, and my stomach flops. I catch a glimpse of the driver, Santiago Rodriguez, a runner for the Sanchez Cartel. A lowlife scumbag on the bottom ranks. He’s a nobody, but he’s loyal to Carlos.
Usually, he runs drugs and guns. I’ve never known any cartel members to work for a rideshare service, not even on the side.
What the hell is Santiago up to, and why is Madisyn going with him?
She’s already out the door and in the back seat of the sedan by the time I step out into the rain. The vehicle pulls away from the curb and merges with traffic.
Madisyn has no idea what she’s done and who she’s with. But I don’t have the keys or know where Luka parked the vehicle to chase after her.
“You ready to go?” Luka steps outside and opens the umbrella, shielding himself and me from the rain.
“The cartel just grabbed Madisyn,” I say.
“What do you mean grabbed?” He points in the direction that we should head to retrieve the vehicle. I could wait inside. Usually, I do, but this is more urgent than usual.
“Well, she went with them. But she has no idea that it’s Santiago from the Sanchez Cartel. She thought she was taking a rideshare vehicle back to the office.”
“And you would know that because?” Luka asks.
We turn the corner and head into the parking garage. Luka closes the umbrella, carrying it with him as we head to the stairs. “It’s one flight,” he says.
We walk up the stairwell. It’s faster than waiting for the elevator, and at the moment, I’m in a rush to find Madisyn.
“I talked to her before the car pulled up. I didn’t see who the driver was until just before they left.”
I want to be wrong, but it was Santiago who I saw driving the car.
Luka opens the door to the second floor and leads me to the vehicle. “What do you want to do, boss?”
“Let’s start with trying to find them and track them down,” I say. “They have a few minutes head start, but you know how traffic is. Hopefully, they haven’t gotten far.”