Page 9 of Jonas

Of course.

“I might be a little late. I picked up a tail.”

“Do you need backup?”

That question didn’t make my stomach flutter—it made it clutch tight. Or maybe it was more the deep rumble of his voice that made my belly feel funny.

Traffic in front of me was still at a crawl. Unless the Mercedes opened fire, I wasn’t in danger.

“No. But if I send you a picture of a car and the passenger can you run it for me?”

“Send it.”

I loathed texting and driving, but desperate times…

As quickly as I could, I sent Jonas the picture.

“Got it. Where was this taken?”

“In front of Delcon. My co-worker Seth Hackett is the man in the blue chinos. That black Merc was at the curb waiting for him and now it’s two cars behind me.”

“I’ll send it to Kira and call you back.”

No further questions. No pointing out I was on a busy Virginia highway and there was a chance the Mercedes was simply taking the same route I was.

I don’t know what I was expecting Jonas to say, but readily agreeing without grilling me wasn’t it.

“Thanks.”

Jonas disconnected and I concentrated on driving.

Instead of feeling fear, excitement infused.

This just might be the break I needed.

CHAPTER THREE

After narrowly avoiding death on the highway seventy-two times in the last hour and a half, I did not welcome a call from Derrika telling me she was being followed.

The fuck of it was, she’d almost sounded excited.

“The license plate’s fake,” Kira said through the Escalade’s speakers. Beside me, Cash gripped the steering wheel harder.

“Fake?” I asked.

“Yep. Stolen, or it’s a fake. I can’t tell from the picture if it’s a reprint or not. Either way, that plate number belongs to a black Honda Civic.”

“Reprint?” Cash asked.

“Dude, where have you been?” Kira shot back. “Do you not peruse The Zon? Replica plates are readily available.”

“Some of us spent the last ten years dead, KK. A decade ago, you couldn’t one-click a fake plate.”

I didn’t miss my friend’s wistful tone. I wondered if, like me, he missed being a ghost. Ten years ago, when Cash, Smith, Easton, Theo, and I signed our lives away to Patheon, none of us knew if we’d be coming home. And that was more than alright with me. It wasn’t that I’d had a death wish. It was more that my job was my life. I had no blood family. Cash, Smith, Easton, and Garrett were my brothers. Then Garrett bailed—he had his reasons, but that didn’t mean his shit wasn’t a blow to the gut. Then Layla brought on Theo and he became a brother.

None of us knew how long we’d be dark. We had no set area of operation. Patheon’s only mission was to follow the money and stop terrorists. Warlords, drug cartels, human and gun traffickers. The longer we were dead, the deeper we submerged into the underbelly of civilization until civility was nonexistent and all that was left was the dregs. The place where evil reigned. There were no rules of engagement. There was no oversight. Patheon had been the definition of black ops. A team of men who took out the worst of the worst, who if caught would not have the support of the United States.

“Just on paper, Cash,” she reminded him.