“It was because I loved him that I could do it,” Danica said. “I was wrong for him at the time and didn’t want him getting hurt because of me. I don’t know Jayson very well, and while your situation isn’t anything like ours, I’m guessing he has similar reasons for pushing you away.”
Even though Layla didn’t want to admit it, on some level, she knew Danica was right. “He feels like he’s not worthy of me because he’s disabled. I mean, I hadn’t even met him until after he was injured. I told him that’s crap and that I don’t care about it, but nothing I say gets through to him.”
It didn’t help that she was a shifter. It was hard enough for people who weren’t physically challenged to accept someone who could do the things she could. In Jayson’s eyes, she must seem superhuman. She’d always embraced her inner animal and dreamed of sharing that part of herself with someone who would love her in spite of it. She’d been so sure Jayson was that person. But instead, her shifter half was coming between them. Not because it disgusted him or freaked him out, but because it made him feel like he wasn’t good enough for her. For the first time ever, she wished she were simply a regular person.
Danica went back to watching the monitors. “He’s a man. For most of his life, his whole world was wrapped up in what he could do physically. In his eyes, that’s all gone now. If you want him to get his head right, you’re going to have to help him get to a place where he can stand on his own two feet again.”
“I’ve been trying to get him back on his feet for months, but it’s not working.” She growled in frustration. “I helped him get his own place, so he’d see that he could still be self-sufficient. Then I helped him get a job at the DCO so he could still use his tactical skills. Heck, I even tried to get him a service dog to take care of, thinking that would help him, but Jayson refused to even go look at the cute little fur ball, saying he could barely take care of himself much less a pet. Nothing I do seems to help, and he’s drifting further away every day.”
Danica offered her a small smile. “I wish I could give you some magical piece of advice, but I can’t. It’s going to take more than getting him a dog—or a job. You need to give him a purpose, a reason to keep going and get out of bed every day.”
“How the hell do I do that?” Layla demanded, especially when Dick was waiting in the wings with a syringe full of drugs that promised a shortcut back to everything Jayson used to be.
“You’re going to have to prove to him that he’s still the same man he used to be, injured or not.”
That was easier said than done.
Layla was still pondering that impossible task when the radio on top of the monitors crackled to life and Clayne’s rough voice filled the back of the ops van. “Everybody get ready. Our buyers are three minutes out and our target is probably in the area already. Layla, fire up the drone camera and find him.”
Danica swiveled her chair around. “That’s my cue. See you later.”
As Danica hopped out of the van to meet up with Clayne, Layla grabbed the controls for the drone. She guided it off the roof, letting it hover above the building, so she could see the streets below. A few minutes later, two dark blue SUVs pulled into the warehouse. A little while after that, a van came down the street.
“There’s a white van coming toward the warehouse from the East End side,” she said softly into the radio as the vehicle moved slowly through the alley and entered the building. “The van doesn’t have windows on the side or in back, so I can’t see what’s inside, but it’s low on its shocks so they’re carrying something heavy, whatever it is.”
“Can you see the driver or tell how many other people are in the vehicle with him?” Danica asked.
Danica and the rest of the team were hidden in the warehouse, ready to make their move as soon as they verified this really was a weapons deal. Clayne and Danica would focus on the man they hoped was Kojot, while Foley and Hightower apprehended the locals who were there to buy the weapons. Foley and Hightower had gotten the short end of the stick in Layla’s opinion. There were six buyers, all of them armed.
“Negative,” she said. “All of the front windows are tinted.”
“Understood,” Clayne replied in a low, gruff voice that always made it sound like he was pissed at something—which he usually was. “Let us know the second you confirm we’re dealing with weapons here and not some drug deal or a truck full of stolen computers. If that’s the case, we abort without response. It might be Kojot setting a trap to see if we’re on his trail. We don’t break cover unless we’re sure it’s him.”
Layla followed the van on the monitors as it moved into the warehouse, then pulled up next to the two SUVs and stopped. The buyers looked nervous as heck as they moved to form a semicircle around the front of the van. She supposed she couldn’t blame them. If the intel on Kojot was right, he was one hell of a scary dude.
A minute later, the driver’s side door opened and a man in jeans and a T-shirt stepped out. He wasn’t a big guy, but he was in good shape and definitely moved like a person who wasn’t concerned with all the armed men standing around him. He didn’t necessarily look like a cold-blooded killer, but Layla supposed he could be Kojot. It would have been much easier if she’d had audio as well as cameras.
One of the buyers moved over to the back door of the closest SUV and took out an iPad. He moved his fingers over the screen for a moment, then held it up so Kojot could see. Kojot must have liked what he saw because he nodded and tossed the keys for the van to one of the other buyers. The buyer and one of his buddies headed for the back of the van while their friends continued to keep a tense eye on the arms dealer.
“The deal is going down,” she reported over the radio.
“What’s in the van?” Clayne growled.
Layla glanced at the other monitor showing the inside of the warehouse. Crap, it wasn’t positioned right. When the doors of the van swung open, she couldn’t see inside.
“I don’t know,” she said. “The camera is at the wrong angle.”
“We need to know what’s in that van before we blow our cover,” Clayne said tersely. “Figure out a way to ID what’s in there.”
Layla wanted to ask him how the hell she was going to do that since he was the one who’d been so adamant about her staying in the operations truck, but pointing out the obvious would probably only piss him off. She was half a second from jumping out and hauling ass for the warehouse when she remembered the camera drone.
“I’m moving the drone in for a look,” she said, grabbing the controller.
The image on the monitor feeding from the drone immediately jumped all over the place as she put it in motion. Clearly it didn’t like the idea of diving near ground level to look through windows like a Peeping Tom.
“Hurry up before they close the doors and leave,” Danica urged.
Layla darted a glance over at the stationary camera monitor. Kojot was tapping something into the iPad, no doubt transferring funds to some account that even the DCO would have a hard time tracking. Another few minutes and they’d be out of there.
