“Is it bad?” I asked as I stood from my chair, leaving my coffee behind.
“They wouldn’t say. They wanted to talk about Matías.”
I growled slightly as I followed Thomas to the conference room at the end of the hallway. We were only hired to find the man. After that was done, we should’ve been finished. Being at ALFA a little after eight in the morning on a Monday didn’t sit well with me.
“We’re both here,” Thomas said as I walked in behind him and closed the door.
I sat down across from a female agent in a pressed black pinstripe suit and looking nothing like the sexy ones in the movies. I still hadn’t found a single one who looked like Jennifer Garner or Angelina Jolie, but it didn’t stop me from hoping.
“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Caldo.”
“You showed up unannounced, and I own this company along with Mr. Gallo. You’re lucky I’m here at all.”
I don’t know what it was about her statement, but it didn’t sound like she was giving me a compliment. I hated fuckers who acted like you owed them something just because they carried a badge.
“What can we help you with?” Thomas asked, giving me the side-eye.
“We wanted to fill you in on Matías and hand-deliver the reward.”
“Is something wrong with Matías?”
She shook her head and cracked a smile. “Amazingly, he’s spilling his guts.”
I laughed. The fucker said he’d never talk. “Interesting.”
“We found out he isn’t really the head of the operation. He’s only the face, and there’s someone more important that we need to catch.”
“Need help?”
They weren’t able to do what we did with Matías because they had to get warrants and wait for bureaucratic red tape; whereas we could follow a lead and use any means necessary to find the man.
“We may. We’ll see how far we get with him in custody. Hopefully, he’ll give us everything we need to find the real culprit and put him behind bars.”
“You’re not going to let him off, are you?” Thomas asked the first thing that popped into my mind as she finished speaking.
“No. Matías will spend the rest of his life in prison. His cooperation will determine if he’s given a posh facility or goes to supermax.”
He shouldn’t even have that option. The man deserved to be ass-raped every day, repeatedly, by a group of men that made him call them “Daddy.” The government always did bullshit things like this to get people to cooperate. While I understood it, I didn’t like it.
The agent slid an envelope across the table and tapped on it with her fingernail. “As promised. There’s a check for one million dollars made out to ALFA to cover your expenses and as a reward.”
“Thank you.” I smiled and pulled the small, nondescript white envelope in front of me. “We appreciated the chance to serve our country again.”
It was nice to work on something other than cheating wives or business partners who stole money from each other. But I didn’t think I wanted to get involved in another case like Matías’s. The government should learn to handle their own shit without looking to outsiders to help.
“We won’t keep you. I’m sure you have important things to do today.”
“We do, but we appreciate you delivering the check personally,” Thomas said, standing to shake the hand of the agents.
“The pleasure was mine.” The woman nodded, releasing his hand and expecting the same from me.
“Thanks for this,” I said, waving the check in the air, but not bothering to stand and thank her for it.
I was in a pissy mood, and she was taking the brunt of it. I didn’t know if it was because it was Monday or that I had to leave Izzy after such a clusterfuck of a weekend.
After Angel escorted the agents out, Thomas closed the door and smiled. An emotion he didn’t always do so easily. “Open the fucker.”
I tore open the envelope, pulling out the million-dollar check. “It looks real.”
