Page 35 of Stolen Temptation (Irish Kings #3)

Rory

Darren briefs me on the way.

Finn and Cian have begun interrogating foot soldiers present the night of the cop bust—the two who survived—to see if they noticed anything suspicious or out of the ordinary.

In other words, the hunt for the mole continues.

Who else could have tipped off the police about an operation that we planned and executed in near-total secrecy?

Every atom in my body would rather be wrapped around Kiara right now, but I guess I should count my blessings. My friends taking the lead on interrogation leaves me free to space out, and that’s exactly what I’m doing almost the second the library doors close behind me.

The slam of a fist on metal yanks me right out of my mental gymnastics.

Darren and I are standing behind the one-way mirror watching the interrogation.

The observation room is cold gray, lit with bright, headache-inducing fluorescent lights.

Inside Hold Unit 1, two low-level foot soldiers sit shaking in cheap metal folding chairs.

Across the table from them, beneath more fluorescent lighting and an eerily creaking AC unit, sit Cian and Finn.

Cian’s face is impassive as he regards the men—boys, really, they’re barely adults—across from him.

Finn’s fist is on the rickety table. He just got angry. Or he’s pretending to be to scare the kids.

Either way, Finn’s gift for interrogation is starting to pay off.

The foot soldiers—Miles and William, I think—are only around twenty years old, though their haggard appearances age them. Witnessing so many of their fellow soldiers die in that cop bust yesterday has them looking a bit gaunt.

Can’t blame them.

It’s like that the first time you see someone killed in front of you. At least, it was for me, many years ago.

“ When did you fall back?” Finn demands this information from Miles, whose throat bobs as he swallows. Sweat beads on his forehead. His eyes are wide and shifty. Honestly, he seems like he’s about to piss his pants.

“Before the cops opened fire.” William tries to redirect Finn’s fury onto himself. “Like we told you.”

“I’m asking Miles ,” Finn presses, giving the full weight of his pointed glare to the younger of the two.

“I…” Miles clears his throat. “I fell back after we carried the shipment in.”

“Long before the cops got there,” Cian concludes, his head falling to the right.

“Why?” Finn rises and plants his palms on the table between them.

William rocks forward in his chair.“He was probably just fucking scared. It was his first job?—”

Cian throws a punch across the table, nailing William in the nose. The kid yelps and reels back, clutching his face as blood waterfalls from his nostrils.

“If you interrupt us again, you’re going to catch a few staples to the mouth,” Cian promises with a tone more frigid than ice. William glares but wisely keeps his mouth shut, his hands pressed to his nose as he tries unsuccessfully to stop the bleeding.

Miles still can’t meet Finn’s eyes.

“I’m not going to ask you again, kid.” Finn leans over the table, getting in the foot soldier’s face. “Why did you fall back so early?”

“I…I overheard D-Dax take a call when the others weren’t around.” Miles gulps. “The person on the phone said to get out as soon as the product was inside.”

Cian cracks his bloody knuckles. “Did you recognize the voice?”

Miles shakes his head. “But…it sounded official.”

“Official how?” Finn steps away from the table and starts to pace behind his empty chair. “What did you think that phone call meant?”

“I thought that Dax had received an order from one of the higher-ups. I thought…he was going to pass the message onto us, too, but he didn’t.” Miles frowns. “He disappeared. And he took our van with him.”

Beyond the one-way mirror, Darren and I both freeze.

On the other side, Finn and Cian do too.

We’re all thinking the same thing.

The cop bust…the loss of our guys and all that contraband… Leo De Luca claimed responsibility, but the mole is the real culprit.

The one who told Dax to hightail it out of there before the cops showed up.

The one who told Dax to take the van with him, effectively stranding our operatives there so that when the cops arrived, they had no hope of escape.

It devolved into a shoot-out. And Miles and William only survived because they managed to hide.

And now, even that doesn’t look much like a coincidence anymore.

“Where is Dax Moreland?” Darren muses aloud, one millisecond before Finn says, “When was the last time you saw Dax?” Finn’s dark tone rivals the blackest night.

“I overheard the call, went inside to help the others, and when I came back out, Dax was gone and so was our ride…” Miles rushes through the words, his gaze fixed to the tabletop.

“I didn’t know what was going on, but then I saw the shadow of police lights and heard men shouting. I knew something was wrong, so I hid.”

Cian starts furiously typing on his phone.

I know where he’s going with that, so I whip the tablet out of Darren’s hand and start doing some typing of my own.

I toggle through our online organization system, hunting for the drop report that should have been created during the planning of this operation.

I find the operative list showing the people who were assigned to carry out this mission. Eyes scanning the names, I hear but don’t see Cian when he alerts Finn a second later. “According to the hospital records, Dax isn’t among our dead or wounded.”

“Then where the fuck is he?” Darren’s gruff voice sounds even angrier in this tiny, soundproof room.

And then I find what I’m searching for.

I bang my fist on the one-way mirror, causing everyone in the interrogation room to jump. Finn and Cian turn back to look even though they can’t see us through the glass.

A moment after Finn grabs his phone, mine starts to buzz. I pick up.

“Dax Moreland isn’t on the operative list for this drop.” I force the words out in one breath. “He wasn’t even supposed to be there that day.”

I watch through the glass as Finn’s expression goes slack and then pinches in rage.

He storms out of the interrogation unit, Cian on his tail, the door slamming shut behind them. In seconds, they cram into the tiny observation room with us.

Finn gives me a withering glare. “You’re certain?”

“Just checked the records.” I hand over the tablet.

He and Cian investigate for themselves.

Cian folds his thick arms. “If Dax wasn’t authorized to be a part of that drop, how did he weasel his way in?”

“Who orchestrated it?” I wonder aloud.

“Someone who probably has a long history of sabotaging us.” The depth to Finn’s voice drops almost a whole octave.

“We need to find Dax.” Darren steps to the center of our group. “If we find him, we find the mole.”

“I’ll try to locate his phone records—” I start talking at the same moment as Finn and Cian.

Finn clenches a fist. “Won’t he have used a burner?”

“I’ll check footage from the warehouse and see if I can figure out where Dax went.” Cian steps toward the door but stops when Miles calls out from the other room.

“Hey! Is anyone out there? I just remembered something.”

Finn and Cian exchange a glance before returning to the foot soldiers. Finn rattles the table by slapping it with his hand. “We’ve got shit to do, so this better be good.”

Miles’s throat bobs. “I…it could be. During the phone call, Dax mentioned a woman. I was too distracted at the time to make sense of it, but I think he was talking about the one who’s been staying here.”

Frowning, Finn glances at the one-way mirror. “You mean Kiara? The one from the auction?”

Miles nods. “Yeah.”

The hair on my nape prickles, and my gut knots.

I don’t know why, but I have the worst feeling that whatever he says next is going to shatter my world.