I was going to bitch… DEA… no… but Ian shot me a look to shut me up.
“You—what?” Latham sounded panicked.
Calhoun pivoted to face him. “I’m taking these two marshals off your hands, and as our office has, as you know, taken over the Guzman case”—his arms crossed quickly, daring Latham to speak—“you can go back to work tomorrow, business as usual.”
Latham opened his mouth to protest.
“That will be all, marshal.”
Latham was excused, and whereas my boss—and me and Ian, for that matter—would have never taken shit like that from the FBI, I wasn’t sure if Latham had any idea what he did and didn’t have to put up with. Not that he cared, though. In his opinion, Ian and I were clearly trouble—better to not have to deal with us. I was sure he was pleased.
“Sit down, gentlemen. We have a lot to go over,” Calhoun said and then told one of his aids to bring in Orton Taggart from the other room. “And I want you to meet your new fake boss.”
Combined FBI/ DEA drug ops. Had to love them.
THE FEDS had a lot of cars at their disposal, and Ian finally decided on a 2012 Cadillac Escalade ESV because, as muscle, we needed room to carry lots of people in a little higher-end car to make the story stick. It seemed like a good choice to me.
“Latham hates you both,” Kage told us over the phone on the way to the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa. “And I trust Calhoun. It sounds like a simple op in cooperation with the DEA, undercover on a drug dealer as bodyguards. You’re basically just following the front man in.”
“We met him,” I replied. “Taggart. He seemed okay.”
He was young, was what he was, but he was supposed to be playing flashy, punk, from big money, used to dealing with the Mexican cartels bringing drugs across the border into Texas. The background was put in place, but it didn’t need to be too deep; it wasn’t a two-year or five-year deep-cover op. It was set up as a quick bust because DEA had caught the real drug trafficker, Chris Bello, and to skip jail time, he rolled on all his friends. So now they were introducing Brock Huber—Taggart—as a new player on the scene with a solid reputation because he had people the Feds had leaned on to vouch for him. More importantly, his bank account was huge.
“It’s a straightforward op,” my boss continued. “Calhoun just needs new faces to go along with his agent. You guys fit the bill.”
“Yessir,” I agreed for both Ian and me.
“I told Calhoun that you could start tomorrow. I can’t imagine you’ve slept yet.”
God bless him, sometimes he was actually human.
“And you can’t run in the heat, Jones.”
Of course they’d told him about that. “No sir.”
“Pull your head out of your ass and hydrate. You’re in Arizona, gentlemen.”
I took it back—he was the devil.
“Touch base with Calhoun when you get to the hotel so he knows you’re there, get some food, sleep tonight, be ready to go in the morning.”
He didn’t wait for me to acknowledge him or agree, he simply hung up. I turned to look at Ian. “His communication skills are seriously fucked up.”
He snickered. “So are yours, M.”
“Mine?”
Ian stopped the car on Lincoln Drive, pulling off the road into the dirt under the shade of several trees. He turned and cupped my cheek in his hand. “I want to be alone with you so badly my skin hurts.”
There was a time when he would have never admitted to that. I was so pleased it had passed. Being told I was needed and wanted was so much better. “Me too.”
He grinned. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
I squinted. “Besides feeling like my life is on fast forward and that we’re stuck in an oven on broil because a psychopath is after me?”
“Yeah.”
I took a breath. “Can I wait until I sleep a little?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Because whatever it is, is making you weird and I don’t like it.”
I was hesitant to say.
“I know you want to get married,” he said, defaulting to what the issue had been for months. “But I’m just—”
“It’s not that,” I sighed.
“Oh?”
“No,” I said, my voice rising in panic. Ian never got to think that I didn’t want him. “I mean, clearly I want that, but that’s not what’s eating at me.”
“Then speak.”
“It’s not that big a deal.”
“Fine, if it’s not important, then just tell me,” he whispered, moving his hand, stroking the nape of my neck.
“Okay,” I said on an exhale. “A long time ago, I fucked Wojno.”
He made a face. “Yeah, I know that.”
I was surprised. “You did?”
His shrug with the accompanying curl of lip made my stomach clench as I took hold of the front of his shirt. “Sure.”