Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
No matter how much I beat my muscles into grits, I can’t stop thinking about Delia under me. Preferably in her own bed, defiling her right under our oblivious parents’ noses.
Demented?
Yeah.
Or maybe I just can’t get over my horseshit luck.
Something needs to go right after that raid on Warzach, doesn’t it?
The universe fucking owes me.
If there’s a God, he knows I’m due for good karma after pulling those kids out of the devil’s clutches.
He owes me big for watching two good men nearly slaughtered too. I wore their blood for hours while we were pinned down, trying like hell to prevent my buddy Bao from bleeding out.
I close my eyes for a second and flatten my back against the wall.
I still see it, hear it, smell it like it was only yesterday.
The screams, the explosions, the poor girls chained up in that storage closet of a room when Warzach had an entire fucking palace. To him, they were lower than dogs.
And that other monstrous fuck with the dead eyes, the soulless purveyor of flesh who escaped...
Goddamn.
I wish we weren’t under orders to capture either of those freaks alive. If Mr. Strauss said differently, I wouldn’t have batted an eye at putting hot lead through their skulls.
I certainly would have made sure Joaquin never slithered back to whatever hole he’s gone back to.
“Look alive, Triton,” a gravelly voice says, clapping my shoulder.
“Sex? Didn’t know you were here today. I thought you had the whole week in Utah with your granddaughter.”
If Sexton Jones ever rolled his eyes, he would the minute I call him that stupid nickname we all use for our tactical lead.
He’s greying and grizzled, a former SEAL just like me, only he was in for twenty years. He’s been through two wars in the Persian Gulf and more classified ops than anyone I’ve met.
Aside from that wicked scar that curls up his neck to his temple like a snake, his experience got him a job as Enguard’s mobile tactical boss and the respect of damn near everyone who meets him.
“Party’s been cut short. I promised Callie I’d be back as soon as possible for a week on the AVTs.”
I swear, the only time this man ever smiles is when he mentions his grand-munchkin.
“Yeah? Mr. Strauss got you doing overtime again?”
“Nah. Strauss is trying to save my ass this time—and yours.”
My eyebrows dart up.
If the big boss is this personally involved, some devious fuckery is up for sure.
“Don’t tell me. They finished translating those black books we found in the penthouse?” I try not to grit my teeth at the memory, remembering the stacks of thick black leather notebooks stuffed in a compartment under Satan’s bed.
A compartment that doubled as a cage too small for any grown woman.
The books were written in symbols nobody had ever seen, so off to FBI forensics they went.
“Not just translated. Decrypted. Turns out, Warzach had a heap of friends in high places with off-the-radar accounts. Plus, his own shipping fleet was under a shell company. The Feds were halfway through sorting it when the rest was destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” I huff out a breath. “What? You’re telling me somebody shredded the evidence in Federal custody?”
I can’t believe it.
Those places are guarded as tight as the Pentagon.
“Inside job,” he clips. “And is it any surprise? Warzach had congressmen and CEOs on his client list.”
I shake my head, this sickly feeling sweeping over me.
“Anyhow, you’re damn lucky you showed up when you did. If you hadn’t, I’d have paid you a visit myself. Word came down from Skylar this morning in operations. I already caught up with the rest of the team, and you were the odd man out. Told the guys with families to take the day off and hoof it, whatever works best with their families.”
“Sex, what’s going on?” I ask, my dread compounding.
His face is set like a stone when he says, “While our evidence was being incinerated at a Federal safe site overnight, Gering had a break-in at his place. Happened right as he was coming out of the shower—two sneaky bastards, armed and waiting for him. He was grazed by a bullet in the left thigh before he put them out of commission. His family was unharmed, thank Christ, and Gering himself should be back up and running in a few days.”
“Fuck!” I snarl.
Besides having a wife and kids who were caught in the middle, Brad Gering barely survived his last brush with death during the raid.
He needed a few pints of blood and bed rest for weeks after taking a slug in the shoulder.
“Sex, who?” I demand.
“Both men were identified by their tattoos. A local street group, low on the chain, but probably on the cartel’s payroll. No doubts about it. Looks like the boys from Baja Sur were in thick with Warzach, working security and securing him new girls—and they are pissed as a goddamned diamondback missing its rattler.”