Page 2 of Storm and Tempest (Brand of Justice #13)

Chapter Two

J ax parked at the bank and crossed the street to Twisted Sugar, the late-night spot with bars on the windows and potholes in the parking lot. The team hunkered behind SUVs for a second, and before he’d even reached the sidewalk on that side, someone had given the “go” order and they moved in.

A team of tactical agents with rifles breached the doors and entered.

Special agents with a vest over their suit shirt like he’d done, and pistols in hand, followed them in.

As yelling erupted inside, Jax went to stand with a couple of agents assigned to catch whoever might make a break for it and run to the door.

“SAC Jaxton, are you taking over command?” Special Agent Farlan was African American, and a recent transfer from Florida.

Jax shook his head. “I’m not here to take over.”

Now that he was in charge of the FBI office in Phoenix, he’d had to learn not to act like the other special agents.

He was the boss, and it was more of a manager role.

He liked being out of the sometimes frustrating work of solving cases, but tonight he needed to be here so he could see for himself who was inside.

Special Agent Herron came out, spotted him, and motioned with a wave.

Guess she already figured it out.

They all knew his wife was missing, and that a lot of what they were working on currently involved that situation.

He’d tried to explain about Dominatus a couple of times, but the people he worked with shut down when it started to sound less like local federal crimes and more like a grand conspiracy.

Those weren’t so popular these days, even if most of them turned out to be true.

He’d learned quickly to keep the bigger picture to himself, along with the fact he regularly looped in the president about what was going on. The taskforce he’d been brought into that was trying to take down Dominatus seemed to have stalled out, though.

Jax jogged over to Herron, his gun holstered on his hip. “All clear?”

She nodded. “We have everyone secured. I figured you’d want to be here to ask questions.”

“Give me the highlights.”

She stepped into the dimly lit alcove entryway, toward a skinny Caucasian woman wearing six-inch heels, a tiny skirt, and even more tiny top. An agent standing guard. But that wasn’t why Herron had brought him in here.

She was just the first employee he spotted.

“Fourteen employees ,” Agent Herron said. “I use that term loosely. Six are men—the boss and five guys who are muscle. Eight women—the youngest looks like she’s fifteen, but we’ll run IDs. They have rooms in the back for paying customers, and the menu is whatever you’ve got the money for.”

Jax had been aware of what they would find. But when theory became reality, things were different. These women were someone’s daughter, maybe someone’s sister. Had they chosen this, either out of desperation or for some other reason, or had they been coerced?

“We have twenty-three customers all over in the lounge,” Herron added. “We’re running them, too.”

What she hadn’t done was tell him that his wife was here. Which meant she wasn’t.

Jax nodded. “I want Kenna’s picture shown to everyone here.”

“Already in the works.”

“And I want a word with the boss.”

She glanced at him, but said nothing, then led him through a set of swinging doors into the main room of the club.

A stage wrapped around from two bars—one to the right and another to the left—in a roped off area.

Slim catwalks cut through the tables, providing the customers with a nearly 360-degree view of what was on offer.

“He’s in his office. Guy was deleting files off his computer, but maybe they can be restored. The whiz kid can do that, right?”

“This doesn’t go to Maizie,” Jax cut in. “You keep her out of it.” He needed a good reason, though. “She has enough to work on.”

Agent Herron didn’t argue, but she clearly also didn’t buy his slapshot reasoning.

Didn’t matter, though. Just as long as Maizie was kept out of this.

No need for her to be reminded that what she’d gone through for years happened every day.

That the world was a sick place with so many evil people, which sometimes felt overwhelming.

They all had to remember that good overcame evil every day.

That God was sovereign and ultimately justice would be done.

He could still stand on the truth even if his prayers didn’t feel like they were being answered.

The jobs they had both chosen meant they were a force for good in the world. They had the means to save people, and that was always what they tried to do. It was who his wife was, looking for victims who had been lost. Saving the innocent and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

Even after they had married a few months ago, that hadn’t changed.

Until their enemy had targeted Kenna and he hadn’t been around to save her.

“You good, Boss?”

He glanced at her and nodded. “I’m good.”

“This way.” She led him to a back hall, past agents putting zip ties on a couple of guys in black slacks and muscle shirts, and a woman yelling profanity at them wearing an FBI windbreaker to cover her bare skin.

One agent stood at the open door, another inside the small office. The manager was the only one wearing sunglasses. The agent had cuffed him, and the man now sat in a wooden chair in the center of the room.

Jax stopped. “We need to get Forensics in here.”

Herron turned to him, and the other agents looked over. “Why’s that?”

He backed up and turned up the dial on the overhead light so he could get a better look at the faux wood panels under the chair.

“Someone cleaned up this floor. Might’ve been blood.

” He drew out his phone and thumbed through to a photo of Kenna.

He turned it to the bar owner. “Have you seen this woman?”

“What’s this—a missing person case?” The guy snorted, and Jax spotted a couple of broken teeth.

“Just answer the question. Maybe you’ll help yourself.”

The guy sneered. “Whatever.”

Jax waited. Criminals weren’t usually reasonable, let alone logical and cooperative. But he needed a second of this guy’s attention so he could find out if Kenna had ever been here.

The guy’s gaze flicked to the phone screen again.

“Take a good look.”

“ Her .”

Jax’s stomach clenched. “You’ve seen this woman?”

The guy shrugged. “Not for a few weeks. She was in here. Picked up one of the…” He cleared his throat.

Jax shifted closer. “She did what now?”

The guy shifted on the seat.

Herron touched his arm. “We can finish this conversation. You don’t need to be here.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I have the whole story.”

“I want immunity.” The guy lifted his chin. “A guarantee I go free. Then I’ll tell ya.”

Jax twisted his upper body and punched the guy in the face. The chair tipped over backward, and he crashed to the floor along with it.

Other agents grabbed his arms and pulled him back, dragging him out into the hall.

He gritted his teeth. He shouldn’t struggle, but what else could he do? It was instinct. “He’s seen her.”

Agent Herron shoved him against the wall, her forearm across his chest. “You’re right. Now we know he’s seen her. But if he uses this information to barter with us, then there’s nothing you can do to get it out of him without getting fired.” Thankfully, she kept her voice low.

“You think I care about that?”

“In the heat of the moment, no. But you’d regret it later. In the cold light of day.”

Jax wasn’t so sure. Beating the information out of the guy sounded like it would be satisfying. But he got her warning, and she wasn’t wrong. “I’m good.”

She didn’t back off.

“I’ve got a handle on it.”

“I’ll find out what he knows.” She let go of him and went into the room.

Andrette Herron had three grown kids and a grandbaby on the way, and as far as he could see, she’d been an excellent agent since day one. Her father had been in the Bureau, making her as much of a legacy agent as Kenna. The kind of fed who had the job, and this life, in their blood.

Which made agents like Jax, for whom being a Special Agent had been a kind of Hail Mary play in his life, feel like the odd guy out. They didn’t mean it, given it was nothing more than who they were. But for Jax? This job was a whole lot about proving who he was.

Who he could be.

Which meant getting a handle on his tendency to fly off the handle. He needed to keep himself tight. Buttoned up. Straightlaced. Following rules, adhering to procedure, doing things by the book—that was the way to get Kenna back.

Please, Lord.

Jax felt like a bit of a hypocrite talking to God just because they now had an actual lead.

He hadn’t intended to, but during the past few weeks of silence, he’d sort of given up.

He’d ignored the Lord, hadn’t prayed much, barely cracked open the pages of his Bible, and just focused on moving forward instead.

Searching for leads. Running down avenues of investigation.

Anything and everything that would give him the chance to get her back.

He ducked his head and squeezed his eyes shut, but no words came. God knew what he needed without him asking for anything, but that would start with repentance and getting back on the right footing.

But if he did that, would there be answers when he asked?

Or more silence?

He was just about done gathering his thoughts when his phone rang in his pocket. He silenced it, not wanting to talk to his sister right now. She insisted on checking in regularly, but he’d have to call her back tomorrow.

“You good?” The question came from down the hall.

He lifted his chin and looked at the agent on approach.

One of the people who worked for him. Jax didn’t know them all super well.

He’d never been friends with the people he worked for or who worked for him.

At least not until Stairns, and that was only after the guy quit the FBI to go work for Kenna. “Did we get what we came for?”