“I definitely smell a woman’s scent, but I can’t tell if it’s Triana,” Max said. “Since you know her a whole hell of a lot better than we do, I’ll assume you’re right. But why would she be here? More important, where is she now?”
Remy didn’t get a chance to answer because Lorenzo chose that moment to come in. The narcotics detective’s eyes widened.
“Shit!” Lorenzo dropped to his knees beside Roth and checked his pulse. “Dammit, Chad. I warned you not to take any chances, but you just had to keep pushing it, didn’t you?”
“This is the informant?” Zane asked in surprise. “One of Lee’s lieutenants? How the hell did you make that happen?”
“Chad’s a cop,” Lorenzo said. “He’s been undercover in the New Orleans crime scene for the better part of six years. He was able to develop a reputation that gave him the chance to slip into Lee’s organization about three years ago. It was risky as shit, but he knew this would be our best chance to put Aaron Lee away.”
Remy suddenly realized why he’d gotten such a closed-off vibe from the guy when he’d seen him a couple of days ago. Chad had been living undercover for six years. The only way cops survived that long in the criminal underworld was by closing themselves off.
“The ambulance is on the way,” Max said, crouching beside Lorenzo. “It’s bad, but he just has to hang on until the EMTs get here.”
Lorenzo nodded but didn’t look hopeful. “In this weather? That could take a while.”
Max and Zane nodded, but Remy couldn’t listen anymore. Triana’s scent was driving him insane, but not nearly as much as not knowing what the hell had happened to her. Why had she been here? Where was she now? Who had her? Was she in danger? The stress of not knowing the answers to those questions, and about a thousand other ones, was enough to make his fangs and claws start to come out.
Not knowing what else to do, he yanked out his cell phone to call her and saw that she’d called him forty minutes ago but hadn’t left a message. Growling in frustration, he dialed her number.
“What the hell, Remy?” Lorenzo demanded, frowning up at him.
Remy didn’t answer. Calling your girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—in the middle of a raid wasn’t exactly standard protocol.
“Don’t ask how he knows,” Max said, “but someone very important to him was in this warehouse right before we got here.”
Lorenzo asked Max how he could possibly know that, but Remy tuned them out. He couldn’t deal with that right then.
Not surprisingly, Triana didn’t pick up. Instead, it went to voice mail. He considered leaving a message, but his gut told him it would be a waste of time.
“She’s not answering,” he growled, shoving his phone away as his stomach did flips and barrel rolls. “Something is wrong. I can feel it in my gut. Triana was right here at the same time your guy was getting shot.”
Remy had no idea how he knew it was true, but he did. That was the only thing that mattered.
“I need to know what the hell happened in this warehouse,” he said, turning toward the front of the building.
Lorenzo got up to follow. “Good luck with that. Those guys we arrested are all professional criminals. They’re going to lawyer up and not say a word to anyone.”
Remy growled as he headed in that direction. “Who said I was going to give them an option?”
Zane stayed with the injured undercover cop, while Lorenzo and Max hurried to catch up with Remy.
He passed between the last of the Mardi Gras floats and found himself in a large open area at the front of the warehouse. Long folding tables had been set up along either side, with a third row running right down the center. From all the tools, paints, stacks of Styrofoam, and craft paper scattered around, this was probably the place new floats were made and old ones repaired. But now all the art supplies had been shoved to the side and the tables cleared. In their place were scales, boxes of plastic baggies, and lots of crystal meth. The crap looked like big shards of rock candy, so clear you could see through it.
But Remy ignored all of that and instead turned his attention to the ten men lined up near the partial wall that divided this area from the entryway and front door. They were all cuffed and seemed to be waiting patiently for someone to come and take them in for booking.
Lorenzo got around in front of him and put a hand on his chest in an attempt to slow him down. “Remy, you need to stop.”
“Get out of my way, Lorenzo,” Remy said in a low voice.
He was damn close to losing control, and he didn’t need some by-the-book detective telling him to back off. He’d done everything he could to push Triana away, even though it had pained her and him, so she wouldn’t get hurt. After all that, it looked like it had been a waste. Somehow, she’d gotten wrapped up with a bunch of scary people anyway. He had no idea what was going on, but she was in danger. He knew that deep down in his soul. He’d do whatever it took to find her and make sure she was safe—even if that meant going through the middle of a NOPD narcotics detective.
He shoved Lorenzo’s hand away and moved to step around the man, but the idiot got in front of him again.
“Damn it, Remy,” Lorenzo said. “One of my very best friends put himself undercover for six years to get Aaron Lee and now it looks like it might cost him his life. I’m not going to let you waste his sacrifice. All the people we arrested work for Lee, and by catching them with all these drugs, we finally have something to pin on him. This is going to get us warrants for his home and every business he’s associated with. We finally have this guy by the balls and I’m not going to let you do something stupid that will get this arrest thrown out of court.”
Remy locked eyes with the narcotics detective, his fingertips and gums tingling as his shift came on. Gage would be pissed as hell, but Remy didn’t care. He was going to get his questions answered one way or another.
“I need to find out what the hell Triana was doing in this warehouse and where she is now, and one of these men is going to tell me,” he said softly, not bothering to keep the rumbling growl out of his voice. “So unless you plan on shooting me, you need to move.”
