“Oops. My bad,” Tyler said with nothing apologetic on his face. Beef smirked and gave him a fist bump under the table. Blair tried to keep a straight face.
She tapped the photo. “Check storage unit 17B. The gravel matches the exterior lot. This was staged.”
“How do you know?” Jaffe asked, grudging respect in his tone.
She leveled a stare at him. “I trust evidence. Observation is key. Always question everything.”
A few quiet snickers went around the table. Jaffe flushed.
Blair didn’t apologize.
Through the window, she saw Darrow ushering in two suits. They stopped outside the door. American accents…The Drug Enforcement Agency? What was going on now? Of course Darrow would keep her out of the loop. Didn’t want her showing him up.
She gathered the photos, sliding them back into the folder with precise, practiced movements.
“Re-run those prints,” she added, already heading for the door. “Preferably before I lose faith in humanity entirely.”
Behind her, she heard a muttered, “She’s scary.”
Blair didn’t smile. Not even internally. She had too much work to do. Too many lies to cut through. Too many men above her keeping too many secrets.
Two hours later, Jaffe and Bessel had a suspect in custody, and Darrow walked into the break room. “Did you hear?” he crowed. “Jaffe and Bessel got a collar. They did a great job.” She clenched her teeth.
“Who are our suited visitors?”
Darrow cleared his throat. “DEA.”
Blair paused, her suspicions confirmed. “Why wasn’t I briefed on the case?”
Darrow didn’t meet her gaze. “It’s sensitive.”
She closed her eyes for patience. Darrow held her career in his hands, but the tiniest flare of heat flared under her ribs.
Sensitive. Code for not for you. Code for you won’t show me up. Code for stay in your lane.
She could taste the familiar bitterness on her tongue.
But she nodded once. Controlled. Professional.
“Understood,” she said. “But if you need consultation or fresh eyes.”
He turned away before she finished talking. This was the division under his leadership. Incompetence, fractured working relationships, withholding, and shutting her out. He would most likely find some way to blame her to the upper level. She couldn’t leave, knowing that people would suffer, but damn it was tempting.
Breakneck drifted in and out of the pain, torso throbbing from the punches, ribs screaming, the burn of the Taser still radiating through his groin like fire stitched into his nerves. He stayed limp, head bowed, breath shallow, every inch of him aching, but he kept the lie intact. He was Dylan Cross. Nobody else.
“We’re wasting time,” Ryker said, pacing somewhere behind him. “Take him out to the back country, dig a hole, and bury him.”
Breakneck’s mind sharpened through the fog, cutting clean through fatigue. Ice was going to be pissed. Not at the torture. At the stupidity. At how fast Break’s career would circle the drain if he slaughtered two DEA agents because they were too incompetent to keep their hands off a Tier 1 operator embedded in a cartel hive.
His wrists burned where the cuffs bit into raw skin. The cold crawled across his body, but he clenched his teeth. This wasn’t cold. This was brisk. Hell Week had taught him the difference.
Footsteps.
Someone entered the barn.
A low, hushed voice spilled out, sharp and panicked. “What the fuck are you doing? Do you know who you have in there?”
Ryker didn’t even look up. “I don’t give a shit.”
