“You all get the feeling that we are missing more than half the damn book on this one?” Castello frowned.
“Yup.” Rock kicked Cade’s toe with his boot, “You can do some more digging?”
“Yeah,” Cade agreed, “I have some feelers out, but unless it’s written down or recorded somehow, I may not find much.”
“Steele?” Kalon pressed pause on the security footage he had been watching, “Is this her?”
“Press Control, Alt, and G to put it on the screen.”
At Cade’s instruction, all the people in the room turned to look at the screenshot from Kalon’s computer.
“Yeah,” Castello studied the woman’s face for a second, but it was the little boy holding her hand that made his breath catch in his chest. Zeke’s
DNA didn’t get a look in, mother nature had determined Mikey was a Shaw, from the shape of his jaw to the way his head was thrown back laughing. This was Axel in mini form. “It’s her.”
“Agreed,” Zeke confirmed. “She had red hair when I met her too, although it was lighter than it is in that shot.”
“Where was that taken?”
At Rock’s question, Kalon highlighted the timestamp on the screen, fifteen hundred hours, yesterday in Villa Purificación.
“We are not fucking driving in there.” Rock scrunched up his face,
“Those mountain roads are perfect for ambushes. Even helos aren’t entirely safe. In May 2015, El Mencho's men shot down a Mexican Army helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, killing nine soldiers. The battle extended throughout several municipalities in Jalisco.”
As Rock spoke Cade pulled up some newspaper reports and put them on the screens.
“El Mencho's men blockaded several roads across the Guadalajara area to slow down the mobilization of law enforcement and facilitate their leader's escape. The CJNG set thirty-nine buses, eleven banks, and sixteen gas stations on fire. The attack spread through twenty different towns and in three neighboring states.”
“Be just like old times in the ‘Stans.” Grif grinned at Rock, “We were bitching that we were bored, waiting for the brass to decide we could go active again.”
Castello listened to the banter back and forth between Ghosts and Panthers. His own team stood off to one side, watching for his reactions, waiting to see what his decision was. “Zeke?”
“Yeah?” The man in question shrugged at his guy’s raised eyebrow in query and walked over to Castello.
“You have as big, if not a bigger stake in this than I do.” Castello wanted to hear what Zeke Givens had to say.
“If I was back in Miami working for my father,” Zeke laced his fingers together on the back on his head and paced back and forth between the work stations, “I would already have the streets of that town burning in flames.” He paused and stood directly in front of Castello to look him in the eye. “There is a very slim chance that kid is mine. We all know it only takes one time to produce one.”
Oh yeah, Castello was an expert in that field. He could see echoes of
himself in Zeke. In the position he now found himself in.
“Cartels on my streets are one thing. Cartels on their home turf? Whole different ball game. But if he is my son,” he pointed to the screen, to the image of the small boy blowing bubbles in the park, “Then I want him safe, and I want to be part of his life.” He looked over Castello’s shoulder, stared past him, “Then I swear I will be a better father than either of ours ever was.”
“Okay.”
Castello spun around. “Hey.” When the fuck had Axel gotten down here? How the hell had he not heard him. “I—uh—.”
“It’s good.” Axel moved to stand next to Castello, their shoulders just touching. “I’m good.” he promised. “If you try to take him from her, I will kill you.”
“It’s for me and Krystal to work out.” Zeke felt the weight of a hand against his lower back and immediately the tension that had started to fire his defenses drained away. He fucking loved that Malik could do that. Loved it so fucking hard. “You or Steele, even Malik don’t get a say. If Mikey is my son, then Krystal and I will work that shit out.” He nodded to the screen, “If she is in—” he read the name from the screen, “Villa Purificación, then that’s where I am going.”
“Me too,” Axel confirmed.
“Nope.” Castello shook his head, “First we confirm that is where she is.
Then we plan the mission.”
