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I couldn't let that happen.
"I don't know," I mutter to Finn, scrubbing a hand down my face. It's been an hour since Guerrero agreed to my trade, and I haven't heard a word since. Brady, Selena, and I are driving aimlessly in the direction of Sacramento, but I don't know where Guerrero's taking my girls. I'm losing my mind. "I don't fucking know, okay? I'm making this shit up as I go."
Finn is completely silent. So are Brady and Selena. The silence is oppressive, weighing on me like an anvil on my chest. Taking a breath through the weight is painful, but I have to keep fucking breathing. Until Mila and Tahani are safe, I have to keep moving forward.
"Are you pinging his phone?" I ask, praying like hell that Finn's still willing to give me that much help.
"Yeah. Shit." He huffs out a breath. "He's been moving for the last forty-five minutes. Our best guess is that he's taking them to Santa Cruz."
"What the fuck?" I growl, my brow furrowing. How the fuck does Guerrero know about Santa Cruz? Hell, how the fuck does he know any of the shit he's managed to find out about my life?
"We're going to Santa Cruz," I mutter to Brady.
One dark brow rises above his sunglasses, his lips set in a grim line. "We have a mole," he says, loud enough for Finn to hear.
"Damn sure seems that way, doesn't it?" Finn asks.
I don't even want to consider the possibility, but I'm careful…really fucking careful about what I say and to whom. No one outside of our team knows enough about my life to have passed anything useful to Guerrero. Not about Santa Cruz. Not about Tahani. Certainly not about Mila. But he knew about them anyway, knew exactly where to find them.
"Agent Gregory," Selena says softly.
I glance in the rearview mirror to find her eyeing me, one side of her mouth quirked down into a frown. She's been quiet since we left Los Angeles, barely saying more than two words. If she's afraid we really are going to hurt her or hand her over to Guerrero, she's not showing it. I don't know if she wants out from under Guerrero or not. I can't figure her out. I don't really have the time or energy to try right now.
"Yeah?" I ask her instead.
"I know nothing about a mole," she says, holding my gaze in the mirror, "but he's known about you since you killed Javier Lopez." Her gaze flits to Brady and then back to me, making it clear she knows why I killed Javier, the gangbanger who went after Brady's family. "Javier wasn't alone that night. Jesus de Silva was waiting down the block."
"Jesus Christ," I whisper, suddenly wishing we had killed de Silva when we had the chance.
"Motherfucker," Brady swears, his body going rigid at the realization that we both missed him out there that night.
"When Jesus told Jose what happened, Jose was going to send someone for you, but you disappeared," Selena continues quietly. "I think he had someone bug your house while you were away." Her lips twist, disgust and sympathy chasing one another across her face. "I heard him talking about it."
I take several deep breaths, fighting back the rage crawling up my spine. My grip on the phone tightens until my knuckles ache. Guerrero was in my house, invading every aspect of my life before I even brought Mila home. He gleaned anything he knows about her and Tahani from me, from my home. Everything I said, everything I did… he's known for weeks.
Every moan and whimper Mila gave me…every word I said to her…that motherfucker heard them all. When we catch up to him, I'm going to break his jaw for that alone.
How much of our plans did he overhear?
"We have to assume he knows everything," I mutter, though I'm not sure if I'm talking to Finn and Brady or to myself. The thought of Guerrero knowing everything we've been doing has a haze of red tinging the edges of my vision. I never suspected that they'd been inside my house even before they burned it down or that they were listening to every word I said there.
"Not for long," Brady growls from beside me, clutching the steering wheel so tight his knuckles are white. That has to hurt like hell because his hand is definitely fucking broken, but he doesn't even flinch. "This shit ends today."
"I'll get Santa Cruz to put a team on your condo," Finn says. "If he takes them there, we'll know about it."
Jesus Christ. How did this shit get so out of control?
When dealing with criminals, things rarely go precisely as planned. Despite our best efforts, our intel isn't always accurate. Cases get fucked up. Shit goes wrong. But in ten years, it's never gone this wrong before. The fact that it has this time is worrisome. Not just because Guerrero has Mila and Tahani, which is reason enough to worry, but because Guerrero isn't known for being a criminal mastermind.
He's smart, but he isn't fucking smart enough to have planned all of this. Pedro Francisco is pulling the strings, exactly like we feared weeks ago. And I'm not so sure Guerrero will hand Mila and Tahani over, not even to save his girl and kid. Not if he's under orders from Francisco.
That thought terrifies me.
"At least we know where the fucking guns are," Finn says. He pauses for a second and then blows out a breath. "We need to know what Ortega knows, Roman."
"I hear you," I tell him, not making any promises. Finn can order me to bring her in all he wants, but he won't because he knows as well as I do that until Mila and Tahani are safe, I'll do whatever I have to do.
My gaze drifts to Selena in the rearview mirror again. She's staring out the window, one hand held protectively over her stomach. Her lips are turned down at the corners, but she looks sad more than anything. Dressed in jeans and a simple t-shirt with her hair tossed up in a ponytail and no makeup on, she looks vulnerable. She's also much younger than I first thought, barely older than Tahani and Mila. I can't help but wonder, yet again, how someone like her ended up with someone like Guerrero.
