“I’m not hurting anything.” He set the picture back down. “Just admiring the nice couple.”
Aspen turned to him and dropped her voice. “They’re not a couple anymore. Apparently, he ran out on her a few weeks before their daughter was born.”
What a scumbag. On the one hand, Zy was kind of happy to hear the news. That meant she wasn’t weighed down by a horrible excuse for a man anymore and she was free to date someone else. Like him, for instance. On the other hand, that meant she was a single mom with a newborn and maybe even a broken heart…so probably not ready to date anytime soon.
Just his luck. And the longer he stood at her desk, checking out her random pictures, the more that fact annoyed him.
“Thanks for the FYI, Aspen.” He snatched up the computer. “You know, I think I’ll take it from here.”
“Wait!” She lunged out of her chair. “I really want the chance to fix it.”
“I’ll handle it and give you some pointers later. Log-in credentials?” He held out his hand.
She slid the slip of paper into his palm, looking almost tearful. “Please give me the chance to fix this and learn from my mistakes.”
Maybe if he’d been feeling less agitated, he would have obliged her. “Next time.”
Zy hiked back to his desk and sat with the computer. When he opened the lid, he scowled. “What the hell was she doing?”
Instead of a log-in screen, Aspen had somehow gotten behind the interface and maneuvered herself into the back end, into the terminal itself. “What the fuck was she doing?”
“What?” Trees looked up absently.
Zy flipped the laptop in his direction.
His buddy laughed. “She did that with mine, too. She tries. I think she’s really lost.”
She had to be. Getting here usually took a know-how he doubted she possessed. “She won’t be touching my computer again.”
“Good call.”
Silence fell, and Zy knew he probably shouldn’t stir up trouble, but he didn’t feel like letting this go. “So, um…Aspen told me Tessa’s husband ran out on her?”
“Boyfriend. Yep. His name was Cash.” Trees snorted. “And yeah, he was as douchy as his name implies.”
“How did she take it?”
His friend shrugged. “Tessa is hard to read.”
Zy didn’t know what to say to that. He wanted to know more. Hell, he kind of wanted to know where she lived so he could find out if she was all right. But that was ridiculous. He’d never met the woman, and she likely wouldn’t want a stranger intruding. Besides, they were going to be co-workers. Why start something in the office that, contractually speaking, neither of them could pursue?
It would be better off if he didn’t go after her. Shouldn’t be too hard. This job would be dangerous, and a fair amount of his time would be spent away from Lafayette, gun in hand, kicking bad-guy ass. That’s where he needed to focus, not some hang-up he had for a blonde he’d never met.
“Hmm. So what’s good for lunch around here?”
Monday, March 10, 6 a.m.
Mexico
“What the fuck are we doing here?” Zy hissed at Trees as they trekked around a scrub-dotted desert hill in the chilly pre-dawn. “I know this is a rescue mission, but…”
“I’m in the dark, too. I don’t know much except this is part of an ongoing effort.”
“Rescuing someone related to the head of a drug cartel? Why?”
“Not sure. But if we’re here, I’m guessing someone close to our scumbag, Emilo Montilla, wants to talk, maybe turn evidence over to the feds…who probably don’t want to get their hands dirty by taking a foreign citizen out of their country of origin to further their case. Or maybe us busting in is all for optics, so Montilla doesn’t know one of his own stabbed him in the back.” He shrugged. “But I know that when the feds can’t or won’t green-light missions, we often get the call.”
That made sense, and Zy didn’t need to know why he was shivering in the middle of the damn desert before sunrise, trying to extract a woman he’d never heard of. He’d done clandestine before, and a paycheck was a paycheck. But it helped to understand the players, the lay of the land, and the reason for the mission objective, especially when things went south. “Roger that. How much farther?”
Trees stared at the sat-map device in his hands, then scanned the horizon with a scowl. “Almost there.”
“What’s wrong?”
His scowl deepened. “I don’t know, maybe nothing.”
Maybe, but if something had spooked Trees, that worried Zy. He plucked the radio from his belt and turned the volume up just enough to hear. “Almost in position. Copy?”
“Roger that,” Cutter murmured. “Same.”
The plan was simple…in theory. A few hours ago, Zy had planted explosives around the camp intel said Montilla was currently holed up in, along with their target. In a few minutes, as the sun edged above the horizon, they would launch the first part of their attack. Less than a mile to the east, Cutter was spotting One-Mile on a series of shots that should be a breeze for him, to take out the trio of heavily armed guards watching over the compound overnight. Then, while pandemonium ensued, Zy would detonate the preset explosives to draw out the rest. Trees had come along to scramble the cartel’s devices and make their communications next to impossible. Then Zy was supposed to rendezvous with Cutter just outside the compound, rush in to grab the woman with One-Mile providing cover fire, then get the fuck out and back to the extraction point before eight a.m.