Page 21

Chapter twenty

Hawk

I woke up Monday morning wrapped around a very warm, very naked Mika. I thought about waking him up, but he didn’t have to go to work, so there was no reason he couldn’t sleep in. I, however, did have work to do, so I carefully slipped my arm out from under him and got out of bed.

“Where are you going?” he mumbled.

“I have to go to work, baby boy.”

He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and threw the covers back. “I guess it’s that time, isn’t it?”

“Go back to sleep. You don’t have to get up.”

“I do, too, because you need to eat breakfast, Daddy. You get in the shower, and I’ll have something ready for you when you get out.”

“You know, I managed to feed myself before you were staying here, baby boy.”

He gave me a look that told me he wasn’t impressed at all. “Just take a shower while I fix you a real breakfast.” He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that food was his love language, and believe me when I tell you I didn’t mind at all, so I happily took my ass off to the shower.

By the time I cleaned up and got dressed for the day, Mika had put together a full breakfast of bacon, eggs, and home fries. I was going to have to talk to Gator about adding a couple extra sparring sessions each week to work off the added calories. Not that I was complaining. Eating Mika’s food every day was totally worth a little extra time in the gym.

“So, what are you going to do today?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of tired of sitting around crocheting. Maybe I’ll binge-watch some television or download a book to read.”

I went to him and pulled him into my arms. “I’m so sorry, sweet boy. I’m gonna find him and put an end to this for you. You won’t have to stay cooped up in here much longer.”

“I wasn’t complaining, Hawk. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. And of all the places in the world for me to be holed up in”—he motioned around the condo—“this is a pretty nice option.”

“I know. But what I want is for you to be free to live your life. Speaking of which, I need to get to work so I can find this guy.” I kissed him goodbye and headed down to my office to get to work on tracking Butch down.

Maddox and Axel had gone out late Saturday night and asked around. They’d managed to find a couple leads for me, but I couldn’t follow up on those until tonight. I spent about half an hour checking my email and touching base with a few sources to see if they’d heard anything over the weekend—to no avail. At that point, I’d had enough of sitting around and decided to revisit some of the motorcycle repair shops and see if they could tell me anything new.

I walked over to the safe on my wall, took out my Glock 19 , checked the mag, and holstered it at my hip before grabbing my keys. I turned to leave when there was a light tap on my door, and Wolfe’s assistant pushed it open.

“Hey, Hawk. Chance Kelly is here to see you.”

“He came here?” I’d expected him to get back to us with any useful information, not make the drive from Austin to Vesper. I didn’t know if that was good or bad news.

“Yeah, he’s in Wolfe’s office waiting for you.”

“All right then. I guess I’ll go see what he has to say.”

I went down the hall to Wolfe’s office. I gave a little knock so they’d know I was there, then pushed the door open. The grim expressions on both men’s faces told me I wasn’t going to be happy about whatever Chance had learned.

Chance stood up and held out his hand. “Hey, Hawk. It’s good to see you again.”

I shook hands with him, but I wasn’t in the mood for small talk. “Did you find out anything that can help us?”

“I found out a lot, but you’re not gonna like it. Have a seat, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

I looked at Wolfe, and he nodded reassuringly. Whatever Chance knew, he’d already briefed Wolfe. I took my seat and drew a deep breath, steeling myself for the news.

“So, the Iron Jackals are neck-deep in all kinds of illegal business. They weren’t exactly clean, but it was pretty minor stuff up until about a year and a half ago. Some drugs, prostitution, guns. Typical biker gang shit.”

That tracked with what Mika had told me. “Until a year and a half ago. So what changed?”

“The gang’s leader, Razor Jack, died. A new guy took over, and he was more ambitious. He immediately started looking for new opportunities to make money.”

“And now?”

“Now, you name it, and they’ve got a hand in it. Running guns, and I don’t just mean selling a one-off to some street thug who needs a piece. I’m talking large gun shipments being trafficked through Mexico. Hardcore drugs, as well. But worst of all, they’ve gotten mixed up in a trafficking ring. They busted up the ring in New Mexico, but it’s like a Hydra. You cut off one head, and two more grow in its place.”

“Kat was able to find out about the ring in New Mexico, but she couldn’t find any evidence they were involved.”

“I’d be worried if she did. The task force has the investigation shut down tight. I had to call in some favors to find it myself. They knew the Iron Jackals were involved in something bigger than what was going on in New Mexico, so they let them go so they could find out what. What they didn’t expect was for them to fall completely off the radar. My inquiries were the first time anyone’s reported seeing them in months.”

“Why all the secrecy?” I asked.

“They know the sheriff there was involved, but they don’t know how deep the corruption runs, so they sealed that shit up tight. The last thing they wanted was for someone to tip them off that we were looking for them.”

“Okay, so what’s the plan now? Are they going to arrest the assholes or leave them out in society so they can harass Mika and any other people they decide to target?” I growled. I understood that there were choices that had to be made to build a case, but leaving a gang that was involved in gun running and selling humans was never okay with me.

Chance held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I wasn’t involved in that decision. But to answer your question, they’re ready to arrest them at this point. The plan was to use them, not lose them, so they don’t intend to let them slip away again. That’s if we can find them.”

“Great.” Wolfe leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin as he stared at Chance. “So what do we do now to end this?”

“This really isn’t your problem, Wolfe. This is a federal investigation.”

I started to give Chance a piece of my mind, but Wolfe beat me to it.

“Like hell it isn’t. Mika is Hawk’s. That makes him one of us. If y’all had arrested them, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with, so yeah, it’s our problem now.”

His eyes flicked to mine, and I gave him a nod of thanks. It was one thing for Wolfe to support me when this seemed as simple as an abusive ex, but this was something else entirely, and wanting him to help with this was a big ask. It was good to know that Three Bears still had my back. Not that I really doubted they would.

“Listen, this guy seems pretty fixated on Mika, and that’s a problem for me. So we can either work together to get him off the streets, or I’ll do it on my own. It’s up to you.” I made eye contact with Chance and held it, making sure he knew I was serious.

“Hold up. What do you mean he’s fixated on Mika? I knew he’d harassed him and that you were protecting him, but fixated?”

I glared at him. I’d always liked Chance, but he was about to get on my nerves if he didn’t get with the program. “Butch found out where he lived and showed up there and threatened him. Then he had one of his guys following him around town, and that asshole tried to grab him off the street the other day. So yeah, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he’s fixated.”

“That’s a good thing, though,” he said.

“And just exactly how is it good that some asshole who’s involved in human trafficking is fixated on my boy? Because let me tell you, it doesn’t feel so good to me.”

“Just hear me out. Naturally, it’s not good that he’s fixated on him, but right now, we have no idea where he’s holed up or what he’s doing in Vesper. If he wants Mika bad enough to risk coming out of hiding, we can catch him, and then Mika will be safe for good.”

“No,” I said firmly. He didn’t have to say another word. I knew exactly what he was thinking, and we were not using Mika as bait to lure Butch out of hiding.

“Hawk—”

“Absolutely not,” I growled and then looked to Wolfe.

“Chance.” Wolfe nodded toward the door. “Why don’t you go check in with Kat? Make sure we’re all working with the same information.”

Chance looked between us, and I could tell there was more he wanted to say, but the look on Wolfe’s face made it clear he needed to leave the room. As soon as the door shut behind him, I looked at Wolfe.

“We are not sending Mika out there as bait. If they’re running a human trafficking ring, they could snatch him up, and I’d never see him again.” I shook my head. “No. No way.”

“Hawk, just listen to me. You’ve been looking for this guy for a couple of weeks, and you haven’t found him. Chance isn’t wrong. This is an opportunity for us to draw him out and get rid of him for good. Mika can’t stay cooped up in here forever. It isn’t fair to him.”

I thought about what Mika said this morning, about not even wanting to crochet at this point, and I knew Wolfe was right, but there had to be another way.

“I don’t need Chance to get rid of him for good,” I grumbled, and Wolfe gave me one of his don’t be an idiot looks.

“A way for us to get rid of him for good without you going to prison. That’s not what Mika would want, and you know it.” He wasn’t wrong, but I rolled my eyes anyway. “I want to ask you something, and I want you to think about it and answer me honestly.”

“Fine.”

“If this was one of our clients… not Mika… what would you say to them?”

I knew what he was getting at, but this was Mika, and I didn’t want to lose him. Finally, I begrudgingly answered. “I’d tell him that we’re good at our job and that we’d keep him safe. That this was the very best chance we have of putting an end to this and that he could trust us.”

“Right. So, Hawk, we’re really good at our job, and this is the best chance we have of putting an end to this. You can trust us to keep Mika safe.”

“I’ll ask him. But I won’t make him do it.”

Mika

I was lying on the couch in a pair of sleep pants and a t-shirt, watching television and eating junk food, when Hawk came in. The look on his face told me that not only had he learned something big, but that he didn’t like it one bit—which meant I probably wasn’t going to either. I sat up and put the bag of cookies I’d been munching on to the side.

“What is it?”

“Remember the FBI agent I told you about?”

“The one that’s friends with Wolfe?” I knew he’d asked Kat to send the information we had to a friend of Wolfe’s who was in the FBI, but last I’d heard, they hadn’t heard back from him.

“That’s the one. His name is Chance Kelly. He came by today to let us know that the FBI was already looking into the Iron Jackals.”

“But I thought Kat didn’t find anything?”

“She didn’t, but that was by design. The federal task force that’s looking into their involvement with human trafficking had everything locked down tight.”

“Well, that’s good then, right?” I would’ve thought he’d be thrilled to find out that there was an investigation already in motion.

“It would be, if the federal task force had any idea where the Iron Jackals were located. Until we started asking questions, they didn’t even know they were in Texas.”

“Okay, but now that they know, they’ll do something about them, right? They must be up to something bad, or the FBI wouldn’t be interested in them.”

He came over and sat down beside me, taking my hand in his. He ran his thumb in a soothing circle on the back of my hand.

“It’s a human trafficking task force, mouse.”

My shoulders fell. “So they really are involved in human trafficking then.”

“It looks like it.”

“So that comment that Snake made about putting me with the others… they really do have people being held captive here in Vesper.”

“Well, we don’t know that for sure.”

I knew he was trying to make me feel better, but I knew what I heard.

“We have to find them, Hawk.” I couldn’t imagine what that would be like. For someone to grab you off the street and not let you go. “There has to be some way.”

“That’s what I came up here to talk to you about. I’ve been looking for them for a while now and haven’t found them. The FBI doesn’t know where they are. Hell, like I told you, until we contacted Chance, they didn’t even know they were in the state of Texas.”

“We don’t even know if they’re still in town. They might’ve taken the others and moved on. What if me getting away spooked them, and now we’ll never find those poor people?”

“That’s possible, but odds are that’s not the case. We believe the Iron Jackals are providing the muscle and the security, not that they’re actually running things or that they have any say in how long they stay around. The problem is, if they’re still here, we have no idea where they’re holed up, and they seem to be really good at staying under the radar.” He paused and let out a small sigh. “With one exception.”

I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I had a suspicion. “Me. I’m the exception.”

“Yeah.” He sounded just about as thrilled with the situation as I was.

“Okay, so…”

“So, Chance wants to use you to see if we can draw Butch out.”

“And you think that’s a bad idea?” I didn’t like the idea, but if there was something I could do to save the others, I had to.

He thought about it for a second before answering. “If we’re right and they’re still in town, I think it could work. And if it was anybody but you, I’d say it was a good plan. But it is you, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Would you be with me?”

“I wouldn’t be with you-with you because Butch wouldn’t approach you if I was there. But the only way this would happen is if my whole team was watching you. We wouldn’t let you out of our sight.”

“Okay. I trust you to do everything possible to keep me safe.”

“We would, but that’s the problem. We’d do everything possible, but there are no guarantees.”

I swallowed down a lump in my throat. Putting myself out there so Butch could find me was almost the last thing I wanted to do, but leaving people to suffer because I was too scared to help actually was last so I didn’t see any other choice.

“There are no guarantees in life, Daddy. But I believe in you, and I believe in your team. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t try to stop what they’re doing, so I think we should do it. So when do we start?”

“I don’t know. Chance is downstairs waiting for an answer. So how about if we go down there and find out?”

“Okay, but I should probably put on some clothes first.” There was no way I was going down to the ops center in my pajamas to meet with an FBI agent to plan whatever this was. A sting, I guess. I didn’t know. I’d never done anything like this before.

A few minutes later, I was dressed and ready to go downstairs. But before we got on the elevator, Hawk pulled me into a hug.

“You don’t have to do this. If at any point you change your mind, all you have to do is tell me.”

“Thank you for that, but if they really are holding people hostage, I have to try my best to help.”

“Okay. Let’s go down there then.”