AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It mightn’t have been the politest thing to say, but I’d had enough.”
“You know, we still kind of need clients to keep this running.”
She made a face, scrunching her nose and shivering, the sole idea of dealing with people bothering her. I wasn’t that far behind.
“You’re not an employee, you know?” she stated after a while.
“I don’t mind the title.”
“But it’s important for me that you know that. You’re a part of this, Danny.” She started to bounce her legs under the table. “These last months have been crazy, and I know it hasn’t been easy for you, yet here you are. Keeping me from getting punched by clients. And keeping me from punching them.” She tried to joke, but I was worried.
As I took her in, I noticed how pale she looked, her skin fairer than usual. Dark circles framed her once big, brown, vivid eyes. As she bounced her legs, she rubbed her left hand. She didn’t only look exhausted. She looked defeated.
I remembered Haley saying something about being worried about her health, and I chastised myself for not questioning her.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure,” she answered, way too quickly.
“Are you still doing physical therapy?” The day Michael and the cartel attacked us—the same day of the explosion that took so much away—Mia was shot several times, thankfully not in vital areas. She also had a concussion, a couple of bruised ribs, and withstood internal bleeding.
After she killed Michael and some of the other cartel men, she and Zach were rushed to the ambulance Aaron had called. As he and Ben rode with Zach, Izzie and I took the ambulance with Mia. I still had the image in my head from when she coded as we were going to the hospital.
Hearing the machine stop beeping as her heart stopped beating in the ambulance on the way to the hospital would forever haunt me. All my training in the Navy couldn’t have prepared me for the despair I felt as I performed CPR on her.
She nodded, then shook her head. “Kind of.”
“How can someonekind ofdo it?”
“I do it when I can or when I feel the need to. Let’s face it, we don’t have that much time anymore.”
“Cariño, we’re talking about your health. You can’t just ignore this.”
“I’m fine, Danny. Really.” I was about to refute it when she stood up. “I think I heard Benny get in. Let’s talk about what we gathered.”
I checked on the kids with Haley again in their room—although we had cameras in our offices for that—before we headed to my office, which was slightly bigger than the others.
Ben greeted us, and I sighed when I noticed the distance between them. Things were still strained from the night before. Even longer, actually.
Mia opened her laptop on my desk to show us what she uncovered and handed us both a folder. “I’ve been working on some of the things from yesterday. There’s a lot of content to peruse, but these caught my attention first.” She pointed to some notes and numbers. “From what I could understand, these are coordinates. I’m still looking at it to see if it’s from more of their bases, or if they’re addresses for meetups, or where they stashed their commodities. I also found what seems to be a list of their contacts, although I’m still working on figuring out who they are. If you see—”
“Wait a second,” Ben interrupted. “Is this all from last night? When did you have the time to do that?”
“Haven’t you slept?” I questioned, with the same confusion.
“Hum, sure. I only started working on this after I rested.” From Ben’s expression, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t believe in that. “What about you, Danny? You said you’d found something.”
I chose to ignore her attempt at moving the focus away from her. I picked up the box I’d found and placed it on my desk, almost too afraid to open it.
“I found Matias’s bedroom last night. At first, it was only a feeling that it belonged to him. ‘Matias S.’ was written on his door.”
“‘Matias S.?’ What does theSstand for?” Mia questioned.
“I don’t know. I’m assuming it’s his surname. After I got in, I found proof that it was indeed his bedroom.”
“Why?” Ben asked.
I sighed. “I found the engagement ring I gave Andrea years ago.” I waited for them to finish their cursing. “That wasn’t the most disturbing thing.” I summoned the courage to open the lid of the box and took out themany photos stashed inside. Even though I predicted what I was about to see, it still felt like a kick in the gut.
