Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
She shook her head even as she prayed Josh managed to make it up the stairs. He wobbled once, but held on to the railing.
He cursed and bent over. “I still feel that kick to my gut, asshole. If I do stay around, one of my demands is that you teach me how you move like that.”
“He can’t teach you what’s built into his DNA,” Shane replied. “No one moves like Dec. But we can both teach you a lot about how to fight. We’ll start daily training sessions when you’re ready.”
Without glancing back, Josh nodded. “I’ll look forward to it.”
He kept moving until he hit the landing and shuffled on.
She rounded on the bodyguards. “I do not understand men. He’s friends with you two now?”
Dec sent her a grim look. “I wouldn’t say friends, but he does need us. He gets that. He can’t go down there on his own. And quite frankly, he’s going to need someone to beat on for the next couple of weeks. It’s a male thing.”
“Is it? You think because I don’t have a dick I don’t want to punch something right now? Because you would be wrong.” She wanted to kill someone and his name was Tyler Williams. “What do we know about the DEA agent who busted our op?”
“We know he was a DEA agent. He passed our trace,” Shane explained. “You can’t go after the guy for doing his job.”
“He’s retired,” she pointed out, frustration welling.
“Yeah, well, I think we all have that case we would come out of retirement to deal with,” Dec continued. “I know I’ve got a couple. And the DEA guy has no idea the Agency’s got its nose up Morales’s butt. He’s trying to protect Josh the same way we are. When we get down to Mexico, I’ll see if I can talk to him, maybe get a feel for the guy.”
“I want to meet him.” She didn’t trust that this was coincidence.
Shane’s mouth turned down. “I don’t know that he’s going to change his mind about letting you go.”
“I’m the only one who can go. Any change at this point will likely make Morales suspicious. You could go with Josh, but you won’t have the same freedom I will. You’re a bodyguard. You’ll be expected to stay close to Josh. I can move around and get lost and act like a ditzy chick and no one will question it.”
“I get that, but Josh is angry and he’s not being reasonable,” Dec pointed out. “You need to get up there and make sure he doesn’t say anything that will bring the Agency down on all our heads. I assume we’re not calling Green or Fain to let them know we’ve told the target that he’s actually the target?”
“That could put Josh in a bad position,” Kay said. She’d thought of nothing but how to handle this since that terrible moment she’d blown the op wide open. “Right now I don’t know who all has listened to the tape from last night. Josh told me some things he wouldn’t want out in the world.”
“Riley’s listening in,” Shane replied. “The whole twenty-four seven listening thing takes up a lot of man hours. For some reason Green wants contractors on this one so Riley’s listening and summarizing for him every few days. Mostly Riley is listening for information about Hunt’s movements and to see if he mentions Morales at all.”
Then they might have a chance. “Call him and ask him to redact my conversation with Josh in the bedroom last night. He’ll know what I’m talking about. If that conversation ever got out in public…well, I think it simply makes Josh more heroic, but he would find it embarrassing. He’s spent years and millions of dollars to protect his past.”
“That bad, huh?” Shane asked.
“Nothing that was his fault. He’s overcome a lot,” she replied. “He deserves some peace. There’s something I didn’t tell him. I think Morales might be the man behind what was done to him as a child.”
Dec whistled. “Don’t tell him unless you want a half-cocked, walking bomb to go off down there. You’ve got to deal with that yourself. I don’t know how he would handle killing someone in cold blood. For some people that’s an edge you can’t come back from.”
She knew Josh had already killed, but that had been pure self-defense. This would be vengeance and it was different. That was her world and she didn’t want Josh tainted with her sins. It was the one gift she could still give him. “I’m going up to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid.”
She’d done enough of that for both of them. She should have regrouped and taken the problem to Damon, but she’d lost it. For the first time in years, she’d panicked.
“Hey, everything’s okay with base?” Shane asked.