this conversation before. As far as Gabby was concerned, a rabid dog was better than Ortega—she wanted the whole book thrown at him, and to have him rot in jail for an eternity.
“Will you testify against him?” Gabby asked the other woman. “If we get him back?”
“It’s too soon to say if this would even go through the courts,” Garrison interjected.
“What the fuck?” Gabby stared at Declan who was across the room from her. “You think I’m going to stay quiet about this.” She glanced at Kelso for support.
“Thinking,” her partner clipped.
As it was, the coffee table seemed to be the dividing line between the law and the lawless.
Garrison, Levi, Declan, and Bristow were standing across from the long couch where she and Kelso were seated. Migs sat on the arm of the big single couch where Ariana lounged.
“We uphold the law,” Gabby stressed. “Always.”
“Sometimes we have to bend it a little,” Declan said finally.
“You won’t bring your mercenary ways onto my turf, Roarke.” Gabby surged up from her seat. “Your lawlessness has no place in LA—”
“Oh, and you speak for the entire LAPD?” he cut in. “Our son’s life is at stake.”
“I don’t appreciate you making me feel that I’m a mother who’d put her job ahead of her son—”
“I’m not—”
“People! Focus!” Garrison barked. “This is the worst time for infighting. We need to focus on getting Theo and Emma back.”
Everyone turned surprised eyes on the CIA man who’d been known to be ruthless, who had no problem with collateral damage.
“What?” he shrugged. “I watch their show. All their dossiers go through me. I’ve learned enough about them. Good kids. Besides, two dead teenagers won’t look good on the force we’re trying to establish here. This is just the tip of the iceberg, people.”
“We get Ortega. Then what about Andrade?” Migs asked.
“We’re in the long game. For now, Andrade is not our focus, Raul Ortega is,” Garrison said. “He was an annoying splinter before, now he’s literally a malignant disease we need to eliminate. My analysts are combing through his properties and finances. There’s a very good chance he’s keeping the kids in one of them, but we’re looking at all his cronies too.” John’s eyes landed on her. “We’ll get them back.”
Gabby nodded, unable to speak as her walled-up emotions threatened to buckle under Garrison’s kind words. As a cop, she was used to hardening herself when she was told to suck it up. But in the face of having Theo stolen away from her a second time, the trauma that had fallen on her eighteen-year-old self echoed emotions from long ago.
Fear.
Terror.
Agony.
An uncontrolled sob made its way up her throat. She held her breath, trying to control it, but she started shaking.
Her hand flew to her mouth as the ragged sob finally broke free and tears scalded her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks.
Kelso got up beside her and tried to fold her into his arms, but she resisted. He settled by putting a hand on her shoulder, head lowered close to hers. “You heard him, Gabs, we’ll get him back.”
Her ears were ringing as she continued shaking her head, continued fighting back the terror that had seeped deep into her marrow, until finally she heard him.
“I’ve got her.”
History had a way of repeating itself, but Declan wasn’t that insecure boy anymore. Watching Kelso get up to comfort Gabby punched him straight back to the time when he saw Nick escort her to the awards show on TV. It exhumed the pain that still had the power to stab him in the chest.
But circumstances were a helluva lot different now.
For one thing, they were different people. Shaped from the mistakes of the past, but for the better.
His strides were already taking him across the room before it registered in his mind. He saw her stricken face before she attempted to hide it, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap her in a cocoon of reassurance.
Her shoulders rose and fell in her attempt to stay strong.
“I’ve got her.”
Kelso lifted his gaze, their eyes exchanging an understanding that it was Declan’s place to comfort Gabby.
His touch was tentative on her shoulder as he gently eased her into his embrace. “Angel.”
“Declan,” she cried softly and buried her face on his chest, his lungs expelling a breath of relief that what she refused from Kelso, she accepted from him.
One hand cupped the back of her head and the other cleaved her body to his. “Shh … it’ll be all right. We’ll