Page 12 of Healing Conviction
“Yeah,” Snake responded. “We’ve got Henry on here, too.”
“Who’s Henry?”
The man in a cop uniform raised his hand and spoke with a heavy Southern accent. “Officer Henry Brown here, at your service.”
Draco tipped his head in response while Snake cursed. “That’s right, sorry, Draco. I forgot you haven’t met him. Henry’s been helping us out a lot lately, especially since Phoenix…”
He trailed off as an awful screeching echoed through the speakers. Jaybird grimaced from his quadrant.
“Sorry, guys. Katie-Belle is refusing to nap.”
Jules appeared on the screen with their infant daughter and waved. “Hey, y’all! Don’t mind us. We’re running on two hours of sleep. Oh, hey, Nora!”
Another scream blasted over the TV and Devil winced from the quadrant that showed Hawk’s apartment. Snake chuckled from his position on the cabin sofa.
“Let’s get to it, men. First order of business,” Hawk, their team lead, kicked the meeting off. “Draco, it’s good to have you back. We’ve lost too many teammates as it is.”
His words were a stark reminder that they used to be a team of seven. On their final mission together as MF7, their original team lead, Eagle, was shot down by who they’dthoughtwere friendlies. And the rest of the teammates were convinced that Phoenix had turned on them. Draco’s reservations didn’t change the fact that the unit that was once a covert team consisting of seven of the most talented special ops soldiers in the country was now whittled down to four men and a cripple.
At Hawk’s welcome, Draco popped a minty toothpick from his pocket and nodded once at his team before settling into the leather couch beside Nora. There were only a few feet between them, but it felt like a canyon, with the serious air between them now that the meeting had started.
He desperately wanted to close the space, and also know why she was privy to meetings like this. They’d talked about BlackStone, but the dynamic was mostly light and fun and they hadn’t gone into too much detail in the unprotected hospital setting. Other than an overview of everyone, they hadn’t covered what her place was for the team.
“Yeah, we missed you, man.” Jaybird’s voice was slightly off due to the video feed. “You were out for a year and I had to depend on fucking Devil to train my baby sister in self-defense, and now the asshole’s dating her.”
Across from Hawk, Devil leaned against the wall with a threat of a smile touching his lips.
From how Nora told it,datingwas putting it lightly. The guy was head over heels for Jaybird’s sister. It looked good on him as long as he kept his head on straight. Draco knew exactly what could happen if they got distracted at the wrong moment.
“Yeah, sorry I wasn’t able to visit much.” Snake massaged his nose underneath his glasses. “I’ve been fortifying this cabin, making sure security for the facility is top notch again, ensuring Naomi and her daughter’s safety, and gathering more intel on those four women.”
Draco felt his brow furrow slightly, but before he could ask a question about the women, Hawk began to speak again.
“What’s our status with them?”
Snake nodded and began to type. “Aguilar gave me all the files he could since he convinced his bosses to allow us to investigate as liaisons to the department…”
Aguilar… files… he’s the prosecutor they’ve been working with.
“…we’ve gone over the list of women who are logged as attending the Ashland County elite scholarship fundraiser”—where Jaybird’s sister was kidnapped last year—“and their whereabouts during the months after the party. Everyone’s been accounted for over the years, except for these four women.”
Four pictures took over the center of the screen, partially covering the quadrants. “From what I can tell, these women attended a party the year before Yemen, although none of them seem to be from Ashland County. This one” —the picture of a dark-blonde woman grew in size— “is a mystery. All we know is her name: H. Smith. Other than that, we can’t find shit out about her for some reason…”
What the fuck is going on?Draco was desperately trying to keep up, but it was becoming impossible. He’d missed so goddamn much, and it’d never been more apparent.
“…and as for the other three women: Shanna Jacobs, Jasmine Thornton, and Calianne Castellanos. We already have them in the database, but our information is very limited. They apparently all had plans to go to college since they went to the Ashland Elite Scholarship Party, except that none of them did. In fact, each of them went totally off the radar after that. Almost like they disappeared or were scrubbed from any records. I think I’ve gained headway, but we might have to resort to a more grassroots approach.”
“Right, then,” Hawk replied. “We’ll need to get a man out there to ask questions—”
Draco cleared his throat and moved his toothpick to the side of his mouth. “I’ve got a question. Who are these women and why do we need to find them?”
There was a beat of silence before Hawk scrubbed his hand over his face. “Sorry, Draco… We’ve been on this case for so long, I forg—I mean… shit. The short of it is, we’re trying to figure out the identities of the players in the human trafficking ring, particularly the ringleader.”
Hawk had tried to stop himself, but Draco got the gist. They’d forgotten about him, plain and simple. He’d been out of commission for a year, so being out of the loop was to be expected. Reason it however he could, being useless still felt shitty.
And none of it fucking mattered compared to the subject of conversation.
“We’re basically looking for the people who kidnapped Ellie—”