Wicked as Lies (Wicked & Devoted 3)

Fuck it. He was done. What had his brother always said? Bros before hos. Yeah. Trees would never betray him.

But Trees worried about him. He was a caring motherfucker and he’d just keep badgering until Zy spilled. “Tessa and her ex are back together. Apparently, she let him move in with her a couple weeks ago.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Zy tugged the keys from his pocket as they headed out the double doors and toward the parking lot. “I went to your place and grabbed your truck. I didn’t know if you’d be in any shape to ride on the back of my bike, so—”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Give you a ride home.”

Trees waved him away. “Fuck that. I mean about Tessa?”

“There’s nothing to do.”

“You love that woman. Fight for her.”

“I can’t be the only one willing to fight.”

Trees’s face softened. “I think she loves you, too.”

“Well, shacking up with her ex isn’t the way to show me. I get that I acted like a douche when she signed her contract, but—”

“Yeah, you did. You arranged a hookup with another woman.”

“I didn’t follow through.”

“Does Tessa know that? No, you let her think you spent all weekend fucking Madison. You screwed the pooch by hurting her first.”

Leave it to Trees to shove the truth down his throat. “This is why, even when I’m old and wizened, I’ll be with you, surrounded by your wife, your half-dozen kids, and all your grandbabies.”

“I wish.”

“Seriously. Once you fall, it will last forever.” While Zy knew he’d still be thinking about that one time he’d almost gotten his shit together enough to deserve the woman he loved.

Zy unlocked the truck, then snatched the duffel from Trees’s hand and hoisted it into the bed. “Want to grab a bite on the way back to your place?”

“I still can’t eat much and I can’t go back to the ranch. Take me to the office.”

“Did you leave something there?” But Zy knew better. The noble bastard wanted to help Walker.

“Don’t play dumb. If I went home, I’d just pace the fucking floor and try to come up with a rescue plan.”

True, but Zy hated to take his buddy back to the same office where they suspected he might be a mole. He didn’t mention that, though. Trees didn’t need more shit right now. If he knew, he’d only decide to prove the Edgington-Muñoz gang wrong by hauling ass to Mexico alone. And he’d get himself killed trying to rescue One-Mile.

The truth was, the bosses were so frantic and fried that they were grasping at straws. Trees was just one of them, and they’d soon figure out they were wrong.

Right?

“Okay, but I’m starving. And if I’m stopping for me, you have to eat something.”

“If you’ll quit nagging me to death, I’ll choke down a few bites, Mommy.”

Zy shot him a middle finger as he slid behind the wheel of Trees’s beat-up truck and rolled out of the parking lot. As they stopped at the first light, he turned to his buddy. “So what happened out there?”

“Shortly after we landed in Acapulco, we decided to grab an early dinner before we headed to our hotel. Along the way, we found a seafood place on the shore. There were a few tourists there. It seemed fine.” Trees paused and frowned. “Where did the bosses tell you Walker and I were going?”

“After you’d gone, Logan pulled me aside and said you two were scheduled to be in Petalán for a little reconnaissance tomorrow night.”

Trees breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s not you, then. Not that I thought it was, but—”

“Did one of them tell you they thought I was a mole?”

“Not in so many words, but they definitely think we have one in the office.”

“Joaquin told me that today.”

“Did he have any theories who?”

From that question, Zy got the idea the bosses were playing one against the other, trying to get to the bottom of this mess. And Zy didn’t want anything to do with that shit. “Nope.”

Trees shrugged. “I don’t think this mission to Mexico told them anything valuable, either. You, Josiah, and Cutter were all supposed to hear that Emilo Montilla’s wife, Valeria, the one the colonel and his former team smuggled out a while back, had given us information so we could rescue her sister, who’s still trapped. Each of you were supposed to get a different story. Wherever the shit went down, that would help pinpoint the guilty party. But we didn’t get jumped in any of the locations at the pre-scheduled times. So I don’t know what to think.”

“Let’s get real. You know it’s not me.”

“Never thought that for an instant. I told Hunter that.”

And Zy would have to figure out later why they’d sent Trees on this mission if they thought he might be the leak. “And now it doesn’t seem like either Cutter or Josiah. Neither of them is the type anyway. Cutter is totally the Boy Scout Walker always sneers at him for being. And Josiah, despite being former CIA, seems like a solid teammate all the way around.”