With one final glance, Carlos stood and left the room. The door slammed shut and I heard the lock on the door being slid back into place.
Reality settled in on me like a weighted blanket, only it did little to comfort me. Its weight was suffocating as something warm prickled my scalp. I should have felt something, anything. Being trapped in a room alone with Mother’s body should have been horrifying. She didn’t deserve death yet no emotion rose to the surface. Not even disgust when I realized it was her blood running out of her body and underneath mine. A numbness cloaked my mind.
Alone.
Trapped.
Suffocating.
I stopped begging for the end that I feared was never going to come, and stared blankly at the brick wall, my vision unfocusing as time seemed to stop completely.
I liked being numb.
Forty-Eight
August 22, Saturday
Enoch
Agent Tom Granger was the epitome of calm, cool and collected as I paced for the umpteenth time from the closed-curtained window to the door in the cramped hotel room.
Nine steps. The pacing was muscle memory at this point as my eyes never strayed from the computer screen set up on the desk. It wasn’t showing anything new, just the team in a van, driving to location, but I knew that any moment now they’d be arriving. And I would get my first glimpse at Shiloh. At least that was the lie I was forcing myself to believe.
It'd been a whirlwind twenty-four hours since Bradley contacted the FBI, more specifically, the agent now in charge of investigating Los Siete. Apparently, the previous agent had been reassigned following the last disaster of a takedown, and Agent Tom Granger was leading the team that had been tracking Los Siete’s movements for the last three years.
A knock on the door had me freezing mid-step and I spun on my heel to find Agent Granger checking the peephole in the door before stepping back and opening it.
I let out a sigh, my feet already taking me toward the person standing in the doorway. Jae clapped his arms around my back with a thump and I felt a sense of calm I hadn’t felt in over a week.
“The guys breach yet?” he asked, pulling me back to look at me. I shook my head. “Cheese and fucking rice, you look like absolute shit. They haven’t been force feeding you Benadryl like I said, have they?”
I shook my head again and Jae pursed his lips unhappily. He pushed forward into the room, letting Agent Granger close the door.
“Hi,” he said greeting the rest of the room. Dad, Bradley and Agent Granger gave Jae a nod of acknowledgement, and my eyes automatically landed back on the screen. The agents were moving now, getting out of the vehicle. It was dark, the camera wasn’t picking up much, but I thought I could make out some trees from one of the little squares on the screen.
“So, tell me again what happens next?” Jae asked.
I heard Agent Granger sigh. “The Hostage Rescue Team, HRT, just arrived at the property. They’ll cut the electricity, breach the property, detain anyone they come across, and search it top to bottom for the missing woman, your friend.”
“Family,” Jae corrected.
My stomach tensed as a radio communication went off in the room.
“In position. Blue team?”
“In position.”
I fisted my hands against my side, and Jae and my dad boxed me in, stopping me from pacing as we all vigilantly stared at the screen.
“I hope those free-lancing shits don’t fuck up this raid.”
“It’s not a raid,” Bradley scoffed. “It’s supposed to be a rescue mission.”
“Right, well, we’ll see what she says after we’re done talking.”
Rage simmered in my chest. I didn’t tear my eyes away as I ground out through clenched teeth, “She’s not saying shit to you. I already told you greedy fucking bastards that she’s not going to testify for you again. She doesn’t owe you anything this time around and if I find out that you tried to speak to her without me, there will be a problem here, Agent Granger.”
Granger sighed again, and he wisely kept his mouth shut. I didn’t have the patience to restrain myself from lashing out, possibly with violence if he opened his mouth about it again.
