police station. Apparently, his food had been drugged. After twenty-four hours at the hospital in New Orleans, he was returning tonight to Lafayette.
One-Mile hadn’t been so lucky. He’d been beaten, subdued, and taken. And who the fuck knew what the sniper was enduring—or if he was still alive. They couldn’t even undertake a rescue mission because they had no intel about which of the drug lord’s hidden compounds he was being kept in.
The bosses were on edge, as was the rest of the team.
So when Zy got a text late Friday afternoon to present himself before quitting time, he made his way down the hall.
“You wanted to see me?” He poked his head into Joaquin Muñoz’s office, formerly known as the copier room.
Since the trio of new bosses had taken over, he’d had a hard time thinking of this space as a serious office, but now that he stepped into the room with the blinds drawn, the formidable desk in the center, and the big, silent operative sitting behind it, Zy wasn’t laughing.
“Close the door and sit down,” Joaquin said, gesturing him to the corner, as if the guy had shoved the guest chair there because he knew a boss should have one, but he’d rather not bother.
Still, he eased onto the hard plastic with a nod. “What do you need? Got anything new on Walker?”
Joaquin planted his meaty arms on his desk and leaned in. Zy had the impression this was about as personable as the guy got.
“Nothing yet. But I need to talk to you. About Trees.”
Zy froze. “Is he okay?”
Nothing better have happened to him. Forest Scott was the closest thing he had to a brother. His biological sibling had stopped speaking to him a decade ago. His parents had turned their backs when he’d flatly refused to accept the golden ticket to the Ivy League education his father had bought him and he’d joined the army instead.
“Fine.”
Okay… “So what’s up?”
“Does your buddy have any problems?”
Zy shifted in his chair. He couldn’t escape the feeling this had morphed from a chat to an interrogation. “Problems?”
“With money?”
Except what he spent on prepping, Trees had pretty much saved every dime he’d ever made. He was loaded—and then some. “No.”
“With a woman?”
“No.”
In fact, after taking Madison to dinner nearly six weeks ago, they’d become friends. They hung out, and she’d introduced him to a whole circle of locals. They’d even invited him to a concert in the park last weekend. But they weren’t hooking up. And as far as Zy could tell, Trees was okay with that.
“Does he owe anyone anything?”
No, but Zy didn’t like Joaquin’s tone or direction. “What do you really want to know? Because it sounds like you’re accusing him of something.”
Joaquin hesitated, jaw clenched. “We might have a mole.”
“An internal mole?”
“I don’t mean a rodent.”
“And you suspect Trees?”
“We haven’t decided anything,” Joaquin hedged. “But we need to figure out what’s going on. All we know is the score: Emilo Montilla two, our team zero. Both times our ops went south, they knew exactly where and when we’d be. That’s not a coincidence.”
It probably wasn’t, but… “You’re zeroing in on Trees because he made it out of Mexico this week and One-Mile didn’t.”
“It’s one reason, and you’ve got to admit it’s logical.”
“Maybe, but Trees had nothing to do with it. He would never sell us out.”
“You’re probably right. And he’s not the only possibility we’re considering. Hell, possible our communications were hacked. But he’s the one you can answer questions about.”
There was a whole lot Joaquin wasn’t telling him, and it chafed Zy. “I could answer a thousand questions, and Trees still wouldn’t be guilty. Why aren’t you focusing on where to find One-Mile so we can rescue him?”
“We are. Hunter, Logan, and I have had eight hours of sleep between us in the last two days. Since we don’t have any other leads, we finally decided to retrace our steps and see if that could give us any clue where to find him.”
“I want to help.”
Joaquin sighed tiredly. “That mission to Mexico back in March?”
His first one with this team? The one they’d had to abort? “What about it?”
“It’s taken us awhile to break that down because we’ve had our hands full.”
They had. Getting the business transferred to their names and getting the word out to key clients that the team was under new management. They’d had to undergo some construction in the office. Meanwhile, Hunter’s wife had given birth to a son in May. Logan