Chapter 26

Angelo paced the conference room,fear dogging his every step.

Teresa was missing.

He’d come out of a meeting with Ox and the others, where they’d discussed a rescue mission for the Steff and Cynthia. He’d seen Teresa’s note on his desk right away.

Angelo didn’t know how long she’d been gone, but when Cass had called him, he figured it had to have been a while.

The only thing keeping his fear under control was the fact that they were tracking her. Thank goodness he’d given her those earrings.

“They’ve stopped,” Cass called.

He raced to her seat. “Where are they?” he demanded, staring at the screen where a red light flashed in the same spot.

“On the I-5,” Cass murmured. “They were moving steadily since I started tracking her, but now they’ve stopped.”

“It’s the I-5, there’s probably been an accident and they’ve caught up to it, which will work in our favor,” Angelo said.

“Traffic is flowing. There’s no reason for them to have stopped.” The computer genius pressed a few buttons and footage of the I-5 popped up on the large TV screen they had in the conference room.

A second later, the screen was split into four squares. The one next to the traffic footage showed the flashing red light of the tracker.

It disappeared from the screen. “What the fuck? Where did it go?” Angelo asked, leaning forward as if that would make it reappear.

“It’s been destroyed,” Cass replied. “That’s the only reason for it to go out like that.”

He clenched his fists, needing to hit something or someone.

Where was Teresa? Who had taken her?

Cass had accessed the security feed for the building, and they saw Teresa go out of the building.

He’d watched as she’d seemed to stand still to take in the sun’s rays. Vision of her was obscured when someone people walked past her with large partitions that were being used for a function on another of the floors.

In those brief blackout seconds, she’d disappeared, but they hadn’t worried because they knew she wore the earrings, so they switched to following the tracker.

“Time to get the feed from the cameras around us, Cass,” Ox said quietly. “We should be able to see where she went. Who took her and if they got into a vehicle. You have the timestamp of when the tracker stopped and the approximate location. We can find the vehicle in the feed and then continue tracking it through the traffic camera system.”

Angelo wanted to yell that it would take too long, but he didn’t. He knew the processes, and if there was one thing Alliez and Cass could do, it was find a missing person.

They’d done it for Astrid and Eveline, not to mention all the women from Growler’s former SEAL Team when they’d gone missing. He would have to be patient, but his patience was running thin.

“I know that’s not what you want to hear, Angel, but we’ve got this.” Ox placed a hand on his shoulder. “We won’t rest until we get her back.”

“I know. I just wished we’d done this instead of relying on the tracker alone.” It was no one’s fault. He could’ve suggested the idea to Cass. Like everyone else, he’d believed that Teresa was safe because of the earrings. The question was, how had the person who’d taken her know how important those two pieces of jewelry were?

No way would Teresa have given them that bit of information.

“Got a vehicle,” Eveline called. “Early model white Toyota Camry. Can’t make out who took her as they’d kept their head down, and driver is wearing a ball cap. I’ll run the license plate to see if we can get a name, but I’m guessing it’s probably stolen.”

Angelo was grateful Cass had trained Eveline. While Ox’s fiancée wasn’t the whizz Cass was, Eveline’s skills were impressive and improving with each passing day.

“Searching traffic cams now to place the Camry at the location where Teresa last was,” Cass said.

“We need to get ready,” Angelo said, adrenaline pumping through him. “They’re taking her to Mexico, which means someone involved with Ramirez has her. Did you ever get that information on Teresa’s neighbor, Phillip Groves?”

“Yeah, but everything about him was clean, so I didn’t see any point in letting you know. Which is what I’ve done in the past.” Cass glared, making her point.

If there was anything that raised red flags or was a dead giveaway, Cass always let everyone know.

“Fair enough, but any chance I can look at it?”

“Yep, it’s in the system under the case file.” Cass went back to working the keyboard.

Angelo grabbed one of the tablets off the table, pulling up the file Cass mentioned. He flicked through from screen to screen, agreeing that there was nothing out of the ordinary for Phillip.

There was a series of pictures of the man, which Angelo was going to dismiss when something caught his attention. It was a back view of Phillip, a fairly ordinary picture, but he had something on the back of his neck.

Enlarging the image, he moved it until he was able to look closely at what had piqued his interest.

“What the fuck? This is the cartel mark,” he exclaimed.

The chatter stopped, and all the attention landed on him.

“Show me,” Ox ordered.

“Look.” Angelo held out his tablet. “Her fucking neighbor is a member of the cartel. How the fuck was this missed?” Angelo couldn’t believe that with all of Cass’s skill, this was somehow missed.

It would be so easy to get angry at their computer genius. To rage at her for missing something so obvious, but looking at the information she’d compiled, he could understand why she hadn’t dug deeper.

“I’m so sorry, Angelo, I—I have no excuses,” Cass piped up.

Any anger he was feeling disappeared when he looked up and saw the stricken look on her face. “I don’t blame you, Cass,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile. “There has to be a reason his association to the cartel is hard to find. How many other people do we deal with who are part of Ramirez’s organization?” That was a thought he didn’t want to give too much headspace to. To be able to function, he couldn’t second guess everyone he met.

“Hard to say why, but perhaps watching Teresa was his first assignment for the cartel. All he had to do was report back her movements,” Growler said. “Now we know who put the listening devices in her apartment.”

“One lot,” Angelo said. “We know there were two different types of bugs used. But that’s not important now. What is, is that it’s highly probable that Phillip has taken Teresa. We have to find her. They have to be headed to Mexico, and we need to stop them before they cross the border. Once they get her into Mexico, we’re fucked. We all know how easy it is to make someone disappear there.”

If they got her to Mexico, they also wouldn’t have the manpower to face the cartel. While it was great they had the new guys to boost their numbers, they would still be outnumbered.

“Let’s not borrow trouble until we have to,” Ox said, and Angelo wanted to punch his boss for his casual tone.

Had he forgotten that it wasn’t that long ago that Eveline, his fiancée, had been kidnapped? He’d wanted to burn the earth to get to her.

That was what Angelo wanted to do. Carve a path of destruction until he had Teresa safely in his arms.

“Easier said than done,” Angelo ground out instead of doing what he wanted to do.

“Angel, I’ve been there. I know exactly what you’re feeling. So does Growler. I’m not dismissing anything here, but you know the best way to handle situations like this is to have a solid plan. A plan that will ensure the safe return of Teresa,” Ox said, calm and even. The perfect voice of reason.

Angelo sighed and rolled his neck in an attempt to ease the tension in his shoulders. “I know. It’s just…hard.”

“Preaching to the choir.” His boss turned back to Cass. “Any update on where the car is?”

Conversation buzzed around him, and Angelo watched as Cass flicked from screen to screen, but he wasn’t mentally there. He was lost in his head, imagining the hell Phillip was putting Teresa through.

“Ox, I’m sorry to interrupt, but, Kyle, I have got a Special Agent Owens on the phone for you.” Yolanda dragged Angelo back to the present.

“Who the hell is Special Agent Owens?” he asked, looking at his boss.

Ox shrugged. “No idea, but I’ll take the call here.”

The room fell silent, and Angelo hoped whoever the hell this Special Agent Owens was, that he somehow miraculously knew where Teresa was so he could get her back and hold her tight.

“Special Agent Owens, what can I do for you?” Ox’s tone was all business.

“Am I speaking to Kyle Matthews?”

Angelo resisted the urge to yell out, who the fuck else would it be, but he kept it locked down.

“You are. What agency are you with?” Ox asked.

“DEA, we have a mutual interest.”

Angelo’s blood cooled. The mutual interest could only be the Ramirez Cartel.

“We do?” Ox wasn’t giving much away, and Angelo had seen the Delta solider Ox had been before, but now he was both—solider and security expert.

“Gomez Ramirez. Seems your organization, or people associated with your organization appear to always be in Ramirez’s crosshairs.”

It didn’t make Angelo feel any better knowing he’d been right, but why was the DEA calling them?

Did they want Alliez to work with them on bringing down the cartel? While all the staff at Alliez were military and special forces, not to mention they were doing work with the FBI, it wasn’t as if they carried out missions on a weekly basis.

“Yes.” Ox nodded even though the other guy couldn’t see him. “There’ve been occasions where our paths have crossed. How about you get to the point of this call?”

“We’ve been working for years to bring the cartel down. To stop them from bringing drugs into the country. We don’t want anything or anyone to jeopardize our operation.”

His boss’s brow furrowed.

Was Ox having the same idea that had crossed his mind with Owens’s explanation? Did the DEA have someone in the organization?

It would make sense if they did. To bring down an entity as big as the Ramirez Cartel having someone on the inside feeding them information would be the likely scenario.

“Are you saying that you have someone imbedded?” Ox voiced Angelo’s thoughts.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. He’s doing everything he can to end Ramirez.”

Angelo sat. The image of Phillip on his tablet catching his attention. Was Phillip the undercover DEA Agent?

“How long has he been under?” he blurted. If the guy said a short time, then it would have to be Phillip, but him taking Teresa wouldn’t make sense.

Unless he was doing it as part of his cover and would somehow make sure Teresa wasn’t harmed.

As much as he wanted Phillip to be the DEA’s guy, he didn’t as well.

Phillip didn’t have the edge an undercover agent needed. That hardness and emotional distance that was required to make sure they didn’t get too caught up in everything and eventually lose themselves.

“A long time. Years,” Special Agent Owens said, and if the guy wondered who the hell had spoken, he didn’t say anything.

If he was calling them, he could know that Teresa had been taken. Or not. He was sure Ox would question the guy later.

His answer hadn’t given Angelo the sense of peace he was hoping for. The agent wasn’t Phillip, which meant it was someone else. Someone Alliez’s path hadn’t crossed with.

“What do you want us to do?” Ox asked.

“We’re aware that Ramirez has made moves on investigative journalist Teresa Carter, and we believe she’s been working with you. Is that correct?”

How the fuck did this guy know that?

“It could be,” Ox evaded answering directly, and Angelo appreciated that way his boss was keeping his cards close to his chest.

“We’ve spoken to Monte Dyson. He filled us in on a visit he got from two of your guys, and as he’s a journalist and a smart guy, he put two and two together and worked out that Teresa had to be working with your organization.”

Special Agent Owens’s explanation appeased Angelo, and Ox’s broad shoulders loosened as well.

They didn’t have a leak in their organization. However, it also meant that maybe the DEA had eyes on Teresa and they could work together on getting her out.

“In that case, yes, she is. Do you know where she is?” Again, Ox seemed to have read Angelo’s mind and asked the question that had been on the tip of his tongue.

“We don’t, but if she turns up within the cartel’s walls, we’ll do what we can to ensure her safety.”

“You’ll understand that’s not okay with us, and we’ll do what we need to get one of our own out?” The menace in Ox’s voice said he hadn’t liked what Special Agent Owens insinuated.

“I’d expect nothing less. Just make sure whatever you do, you don’t compromise our guy.”

Huh?

The DEA were okay with them doing their own thing.

That made no sense at all.

“Any way you can give us an idea of who this guy is, so we don’t take him out?” Ox asked.

“For his safety, I’d rather not, but he’s high enough in the organization that he doesn’t do a lot of the grunt work. He does specialized jobs for Ramirez.”

Angelo wasn’t happy not knowing who the guy was, and he imagined Ox felt the same, but he suspected Owens wouldn’t budge.

“Fair enough. I’ve got your number now. If I need anything, or information, I’ll be in touch.”

“Same. The information you have on Arturo and Associates—lose it. Don’t do anything more with it. We’ll handle Ramirez.”

“Why would we do that?” Angelo demanded, unable to hold it in.

This was Teresa’s work they were talking about. Everything she worked hard for.

“Because of what we have planned. I can’t give you details, but just know that you lose it and Teresa Carter, along with Alliez Security, will be safe from the cartel’s scrutiny.”

Angelo looked to Ox for guidance. Could they really do that? Could they really take Alliez off the cartel’s radar? No doubt Ox would want that, but it didn’t seem like it could happen.

His boss lifted one shoulder, and he had his answer.

For the sake of Teresa and the company, he’d agree to those terms.

“Done,” Ox said.

“Good. I’ll make sure it happens. Also, you’ll receive coordinates shortly. You’ll find the two missing reporters. I suggest you get there quick.”

The guy disconnected.

Angelo tapped the table in front of him. “What the fuck was that?”

“Who knows, but we got the green light, in a roundabout sort of way, to proceed with whatever we’re doing in terms of finding Teresa, and we now know where the Steff and Cynthia are.”

“We’ll handle their recovery. Just give us the information,” Fox said.

Ox nodded, and Angelo could see the relief on his boss’s face, knowing they had another team to pick the women up. If they hadn’t, it would’ve split up him, Ox, Growler, and Irish, weakening them. Now they’d be at full strength.

“I wonder,” Growler said after Fox and the others left the room.

“Wonder what?” Angelo asked.

“This DEA guy.” Growler leaned forward. “Could he have been the one to take out Pedro before he could hurt Astrid?”

Angelo considered his friend’s theory. “Perhaps. Astrid never got a look at the guy, but we know Pedro went rogue and that Astrid wasn’t to be touched, so it could’ve been anyone from the organization who got rid of Pedro.”

“It’s something we shouldn’t discount,” Ox said. “We’ll unpack that after we get Teresa back.”

“I’ve got eyes on the Camry,” Cass announced.

Angelo had to stop himself from demanding the information, because she would elaborate.

“They pulled off the interstate about one hundred miles from the border. The area doesn’t have a lot of cameras, but I’m getting into what I can.”

Fuck, it was like they were so close to getting a good read on where Teresa was, only for it to be snatched away from them at the last minute.

“We’ll head down that way, and hopefully by the time we get there, Cass will have locked in on a location for us.” Ox stood, and everyone followed suit.

“I will.” Determination filled Cass’s voice.

Angelo knew guilt was still hitting her because she hadn’t picked up on Phillip being part of the cartel.

“Let’s roll,” he declared as they all headed out. He wasn’t going to rest until he had Teresa back in his arms.

She would be. There was no other alternative.