need his information or we can’t do shit to help Sean or find Donnelly.”
Jack hoped that Kane was right. He trusted him, even though he thought this was a fifty-fifty proposition.
Kane looked at Ranger. “What do we have?”
“Us, a bag of weapons, standard equipment. There’s at least a dozen men at the compound.”
“Seventeen. Four factions trying to come to terms on territory. Blair is leading it, and he’ll get what he wants. He didn’t tell anyone that we rescued the girls, nor did he tell anyone about me—just his core group. Which tells me my capture was a separate job from this excursion. I’ve been tracking him since I slipped out. I heard him tell someone that the girls were en route to El Paso as planned.”
Ranger shook his head. “I’ve been in contact with the Sisters. They’ve already moved the girls to a safe haven in Monterrey, and they’ll be reunited with their families as soon as possible—Siobhan and Dyson are leading the effort.”
“His lie tells me that he either doesn’t care or is buying time. But we need more information about Sean’s situation; Blair has it.”
“And you expected to do it alone?” Jack said.
“If I had to, but I trusted Ranger would find me. You’re a bonus, which puts us in the driver’s seat.”
“Three against seventeen,” Jack muttered. Sometimes, Kane’s idea that they had the upper hand made Jack nervous.
“I have a plan.”
Jack didn’t doubt it, but he was getting too old for this shit. So was Kane, but he’d never admit it.
“So all your talk about retirement was just bullshit,” Jack said.
“Not at the time,” Kane said with surprising seriousness. “I get it. You and JT think I need to walk away. And I thought I could. But when the Sisters called Siobhan about the girls, I realized there was no one else they could call. There’s others that do what we do, but not many and not in the same way. They rescue these girls after they’ve already been abused. There’s not enough of us, and there’s too many of them, and damn if I’m going to let these girls be repeatedly raped and drugged until they die before they hit twenty-five. I’m in the unique position to act quickly to certain situations. I’m not going to say no when I can say yes.”
Jack used to be the same way. What changed?
Family. Commitments. Age.
Kane was going to have to come to the same realization himself, though Jack accepted that Kane might never get there. Maybe because Siobhan had a big heart, maybe because Kane didn’t know any other way to live.
Jack couldn’t fault him for it. Hell, he admired him even more. How did Kane turn it around? Jack had been ready to throttle him for chasing after Peter Blair and breaking all RCK protocols, yet was now ready to join his dangerous crusade?
“You have a plan?” Jack said. “Hope it’s a good one.”
One side of his mouth twitched up. His blue eyes practically sparkled. “It is.”
Kane went over the plan and Jack thought it was fucking crazy.
But it was so crazy and so smart that Jack thought that it just might work.
Chapter Twenty-six
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
Lucy woke up Jesse before sunrise to say good-bye. She didn’t want to keep him out of the loop. Nate and Aggie were there, and if they had to leave, Leo Proctor would fill in.
Jesse understood. But he’d grown up far too fast in the last twenty-four hours. Why did he have to go through this? His stepfather had worked for the cartels, his mother was murdered last year, now his father is in jail? The kid wasn’t even fourteen yet. She wished she could give him a real childhood filled with soccer and friends and simple pleasures. Instead, his life had been defined by danger and risk and worry. She didn’t want that for her son.
It had been sudden, she realized, thinking about Jesse as her son instead of just Sean’s son. She loved him as her own, and loved him because he was part of Sean. Not being able to have her own children had been a dark spot on her soul, and that would never completely disappear. But it had grown smaller because she had Jesse in her life. Accepting Jesse as her son had opened her heart up more to consider adoption. She and Sean had always planned to at some point—but she’d always envisioned it in the distant future. It had only been recently that she’d