Wicked and True (Wicked & Devoted 4)

Before he could toss anything else, Joaquin stepped in. “We don’t have time for this.”

“I know. I fucking know. Goddamn son of a bitch!”

Hunter and Joaquin jogged out the door, quietly strategizing ways to keep all the others in their family safe. Logan fumed, trying to gather himself, his lungs working like a bellows.

“I’ll come with you,” Zy offered. “I’ll devote all my energy—”

“No. This shit is centered around Valeria Montilla,” he said of the deceased drug lord’s estranged wife, whom Caleb Edgington and his sons had rescued from her husband almost two years ago. “Now that her safe house has been breached, Trees and Kane are going to relocate her and her family pronto—and we’ll be monitoring every step. But none of that will mean shit if you can’t nail our mole.”

In other words, prove Tessa was guilty and stop her.

Zy bit back an argument. Logan didn’t have time for it with his sister in the clutches of a cartel demanding information the team couldn’t afford to give. Giving up a client would ruin their professional reputation.

In short, they were utterly screwed between a rock and a hard place.

“I’m leaving,” the former SEAL barked. “You’re in charge until one of my brothers or I come back.”

“Me?”

“Josiah and Cutter have quit, Trees will be on the road to Florida, taking Kane, who just started his first day on the job. That leaves you and One-Mile, and he’s too unpredictable to be in charge.”

Good point.

“I’ll handle things.”

With a nod, Logan tore out of the conference room, slamming the door behind him. After some shouting in the hall and more door slamming in the distance, the office fell silent.

Kimber being abducted was a curve ball he hadn’t seen coming. No one had.

Zy marched out of the conference room. The rest of the team stood in the middle of the reception area, looking as shocked as he felt. Tessa was clearly more shaken than anyone to learn that her friend had been abducted.

She grabbed his arm. “Do you know anything beyond the fact Kimber has been taken?”

“No. No one does.”

“I can’t believe this is happening…”

“The bosses will do everything they can to find her.” Especially since their case had seemingly put Kimber in the crosshairs.

“What if they can’t?”

Her death wouldn’t be pretty, but he didn’t say that.

Zy was so used to playing dangerous games with dangerous criminals that he sometimes forgot that people like Tessa weren’t. And despite the bosses’ suspicions, he doubted she had any experience dealing with a cartel.

He just had to prove that…somehow.

“Don’t think that way.” He wanted to comfort her but wouldn’t take her in his arms here. Neither of them needed to give the office any fodder. Despite the fact he worked with well-trained operatives, they gossiped like a gaggle of hens. “The colonel, Hunter, Logan, and Joaquin are the very best at what they do. And I don’t know Deke, but—”

“He’s scary.”

That didn’t surprise Zy. As co-owner of their sister organization, Oracle Security, along with the infamous Jack Cole, he figured Kimber’s husband had a fearsome motherfucker side. “Then they’ll leave no stone unturned to bring her back. Have faith.”

“I’m trying.” But Tessa was clearly distressed.

He wasn’t surprised; she was sweet. She had a practical streak and could have a spine of steel when she needed to. But women weren’t typically good at compartmentalizing their feelings. That wasn’t a sexist comment, just a general observation. And because Tessa had a tender heart, she’d find it more difficult than most.

“We’ll get through this. In the meantime, Trees and Kane are heading out soon. Did the bosses give you any information on that?”

“No.”

Of course they hadn’t. They thought she was a spy, so why tell her they were sending two operatives to the Sunshine State to secure Valeria Montilla and her son, along with her sister, Laila?

“Let me check with Trees and Kane, see what’s up. As soon as I’m done, we’ll make their travel arrangements while they go home to pack.”

“A-are they going to help find Kimber?”

“No. They’ve got another gig.” Zy hated not telling her what it was, but if he kept quiet and their mission still went south, he could say with total honesty that Tessa hadn’t been aware of a single detail.

“What about One-Mile?”

Zy wasn’t sure what kind of task to give their resident smart-ass sniper, but he’d dream up something. If ever the quote about idle hands being the devil’s playthings applied to someone, it was Pierce Walker—who only tolerated his fiancée, Brea, using his given name.

“I’ll talk to him, too. For now, stay near the phone in case the bosses need anything.” He stepped closer, resisting the urge to touch her, and dropped his voice. “But I’m here if you need me.”

“I know.” She lifted her stare to him, and he almost fucking lost himself in her verdant eyes. “Thank you.”