Page 4 of Storm and Tempest (Brand of Justice #13)

Chapter Three

J ax slammed the driver’s door shut, completely unapologetic of his bad mood.

The sound echoed against the concrete under the overpass like a gunshot.

He needed a flashlight so he didn’t trip over something, but Ramon didn’t offer him one.

Before he could ask where the others were and why this meeting was happening under a bridge, a car turned the corner across the asphalt expanse and headed for them.

Maizie. Another car pulled in behind it.

He leaned against the car and probably came across as relaxed. Or at least ready.

Instead, on the inside, he was roiling. Everything in him had burned hotter and hotter as he drove here, not listening to whatever Ramon had been saying. Not when all he could think about was Kenna showing up at a bar to purchase a person. As if life could be bought or sold.

It was though, far too much in this world, but that didn’t mean it should be.

His fingers curled into fists by his sides.

No way would Kenna ever get involved with something like that.

At least not voluntarily. It was entirely possible she’d been brainwashed.

They’d seen it before with people captured by Dominatus , and he’d read about it from the reports his agents had written after the silo operation.

There had been people down there—in that decommissioned missile silo turned into a research center—who had been under the influence of a drug that made them compliant.

By all accounts, they’d been little more than zombies who had to be woken up as it were, and then they’d snapped out of it.

Could that be what had happened?

His mind spun with the implication. With questions he had no answers to, followed by even more questions. Like how on earth he was going to get her back.

Moisture gathered in his eyes, and he turned his head. They’d probably believe he was scanning to make sure this clandestine meeting at an out-of-the-way place wasn’t under surveillance, and not that he had to blink away the tears in his eyes.

Multiple car doors slammed, and he turned to watch Maizie and Bruce wander over.

Maizie said, “Jax?”

He knew that tone, even if the dim light obscured the expression on her face. The young woman sounded nervous, but that didn’t mean there was a problem. He’d become pretty good at reading her over the past few weeks, but it was too soon to find the good in this situation.

Gratitude could come after they found Kenna.

“I’m good.” He pushed off the side of the car and went to sit on the front quarter panel, his entire body heavy with exhaustion, wanting to avoid the heat under the hood. “What’s going on?”

Ramon stood to his left.

Bruce approached, causing Maizie to turn slightly so he wasn’t in her blind spot. He said, “Amara and Zeyla got tied up doing something.”

Jax didn’t even want to talk about Kenna’s mom and sister—or her aunt and cousin. Whatever those two women were to Kenna, they were the closest thing she had to extended family.

Kenna and Zeyla had never even had a conversation, since they’d only met when Zeyla had been unconscious. The young woman was recovered now, and rebuilding a life. The mom, Amara, was more of a wildcard than anyone Jax had ever met. The woman made Bruce look normal.

Jax didn’t want to need their help finding Kenna, but what other options did he have? “Why are we here?”

He’d just been given some of the worst news of his life, and he was expected to make nice with Kenna’s team? He needed to hit the gym, lift something heavy, and push all the thoughts and questions out of his mind. Then he would eat something and fall into bed.

Tomorrow he would do it all over again. Every day looking for a break in this case.

How did Kenna do it?

Maizie said, “Ramon has this friend. She’s a reporter.”

Jax glanced at Ramon. “A friend ?”

“From my short stint at the FBI.” He shifted his stance, shoving his hands in his pockets. Drew out his phone and checked the screen. “She received an anonymous email, untraceable.”

Jax looked at Maizie.

“I tried from my laptop at home. I didn’t want to use the Bureau’s network in case someone discovered it, or there was a virus embedded in the video.”

“Let me guess, Kenna is on it. Trafficking young girls for Dominatus. ”

Maizie stared at him. “She would never do that. And she would never do this. I’m going to prove the video is fake.” Her voice thickened, and she cleared her throat. “It’s a deep fake.”

Ramon shifted closer to Maizie but didn’t touch her.

“Maybe it isn’t,” Jax countered. What the bar owner had seen was real. “What was on the video?”

He didn’t want to ask, but he had to.

Maizie looked at Ramon.

“A dead man,” he said. “That’s how we know it’s fake.”

Jax waited a couple of seconds. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”

“We don’t know where they were,” Maizie replied. “I’m running the buildings around them through a program that looks at those street view maps online, and it’s comparing the image to see if it can find them.” She took a breath. “It was Kenna and Doctor Buzard.”

“He’s dead,” Jax pointed out. “Definitely fake. Or old.”

Ramon said, “Kenna is the one who killed him.”

“The video is date and time stamped in the metadata, and it’s from a month ago.” Maizie sucked in a sharp breath.

Ramon turned to Jax. “They were making out. Whoever set it up did a great job of making it look like she’s in a romance with him.

Definitely not under duress this time at least, so don’t bother asking about that.

” He waved a hand. “Doctor Buzard and Kenna. Looks like they ran off together and now they’re in cahoots. ”

“His body is in the ground.”

Bruce snorted. “As if no one ever faked their death.”

“That doesn’t explain why she’d do that.”

The two men shifted. Jax didn’t want to think what that meant—aside from that they pitied him because his wife had evidently run off with a dead man and was living the high life with her new romance and a thriving business.

He crossed his arms. “We all know Kenna would never switch sides and suddenly start working for Dominatus .”

He hated that he even had to say it. But the truth had to be spoken aloud so others could hear it.

Even if no one ever uttered it, the truth was still truth.

And yet, declaring it out loud strengthened the person doing the declaring.

It enabled them to believe in it even more.

“She would never do that. Not even if they forced her.”

“She wouldn’t,” Maizie said, her voice a little shaky, but she nodded.

“Not even before she got to know you would she ever have done something like that.” Jax said it for his benefit, and hers. “Those guys from the retirement home pretended to be FBI, they took her and gave her to our enemy, and then they disappeared.”

Jax had been trying to find them for weeks.

Dominatus had gone unchecked for decades. Was it any surprise he hadn’t found a trace of those men? Their cover stories, impersonating FBI higher-ups, had been impeccable.

“Now they want to destroy her reputation,” Jax said. “They want the FBI to shut down my investigation, so I have no way to find her.”

His credibility would take a hit. Jax might even lose his job if he pushed it.

He needed the job to keep himself together, because without the boundaries of a day job and the strictures that came with being a Special Agent in Charge, he would have nothing to keep him in check.

He might even turn out like Ramon, a guy who skirted the edge and had a limited skillset.

Thankfully, Kenna had kept Ramon in the fold, working together so that she could keep an eye on him and help him get out of trouble if it turned out he needed that.

It was the kind of person his wife was that she seemed to collect strays.

Ramon. Maizie. Bruce even. People with no family who had a reason to destroy their life trying to right a wrong.

She helped them pull themselves together and live on the right side of the law—with enough leeway they could still be who they were.

He wasn’t sure what that said about him and didn’t much care.

He just wanted his wife back.

“My people are working the intel we got from the bar. Maybe we’ll find something in their network that can lead us back to Dominatus. ”

“ Maybe ?” Ramon shifted, aggression in his stance even if he didn’t necessarily mean to display that. “You’re banking Kenna’s survival on a maybe?”

“It’s all I’ve got.” Jax thumped his chest. “I’m FBI. That means I run this like the FBI does. It’s how we get results.”

Ramon huffed. “Your way is taking too long. She’s still out there. We have no idea what’s happening to her!”

“That sentiment has been shared.” Jax wasn’t going to take the bait, even if Ramon didn’t need to get mad at him. They were all doing the best they could to find her. If this guy wasn’t happy with how long it was taking, then he could join the queue to register a complaint.

“You’re still thinking like a fed,” Ramon said. “Now you’ve got Maizie tied up working there, doing other cases for you. She needs to be helping us find Kenna.” He motioned at Bruce. “We’re the ones out there gathering information.”

“Yeah? What information have you found?” Jax shot back. The video they’d just told him about had been sent to a reporter. “Friend of yours at a news outlet—is she gonna leak the video? Tell the world that Kenna Banbury has gone dark side?”

“She wouldn’t be able to run with it if I had Maizie working with me!

We’d have deployed a virus in their computer network by now, and the whole thing would be squashed.

” Ramon sucked in a breath. “But no . You’ve got her wanting to follow the law so she can live up to your perfect Bureau standards. ”

Jax pushed off the car. “You’re mad that Maizie shouldn’t want to break the law? Do you want her to go to jail?”

“No one is going to jail,” Ramon argued.

“Right. Because you’re going to find a legal way to squash this news story, right? Dominatus wants to undermine us. They want to wreck our chances of finding her, which means they believe we might actually do it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be trying to stop us like we’re a threat.”

“We aren’t a threat. We have no idea where she is, no idea how to find her, and…that’s it—we have nothing!” Ramon yelled. “But you want to go to your office every day and pretend it’s fine that we’re nowhere.”

“I’m not pretending.”

Ramon shifted closer to him. “No? Going to that Bible study. Telling them you’re trying to find her. That won’t happen while you’re waiting for warrants. Or processing evidence. Or telling everyone your sob story.”

“You know how the Bureau works.”

“I know I won’t go back. Kenna will be dead before you find her.”

Jax faced off with Kenna’s colleague. “Because you’re making so much progress working outside the law? You haven’t found anything either.”

“At least I’m looking. I’m not sitting behind a desk.” Ramon’s body shifted again toward Jax, aggression in the movement. “I’m finding her.”

“Then find her.”

“It’s gonna happen faster than what you’re doing.” Ramon scoffed. “Wasting your time with reports and evidence.”

They were nearly chest to chest now. Jax heard Maizie sniffle, but everything sounded like a buzz in his ears. “You think I’m not doing my job?” He pointed at Ramon. “You wish you were the one married to her.”

“If I was, she wouldn’t be missing.”

“You’re the one who let them take her. If you cared about her, you wouldn’t have let that happen.

” Jax shoved Ramon with both hands because he hadn’t denied what Jax said.

“You’d have kept her safe, right? No matter what.

So tell me, Ramon , is it you that’s working for Dominatus ? Is that why I can’t find my wife?”

Maizie gasped, and it sounded like a sob.

“You’re looking for anyone to blame.” Ramon shoved him back. “Because you can’t face yourself when you’re not in control of everything. You don’t even realize you’re already spinning out.”

Bruce shoved them apart.

Jax stumbled back and sat on the hood of his car. Ramon turned and paced away, running his hands through his hair.

Maizie wiped her face. “You guys shouldn’t fight. We need to work together.”

Jax pushed off the car to go to her.

She held up a hand. “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you aren’t. You want to fight Ramon because you think it will make you feel better.” Maizie sniffed. “Elizabeth said he’s an easy target because you know he won’t quit looking for Kenna. But that means you shouldn’t fight because you’re both on the same side.”

“We’re not fighting, Hermana. ” Ramon rolled his shoulders.

She shot him a look. “Bruce?”

“I got you, Trouble.” The former CIA agent folded his arms across the front of his Hawaiian shirt.

“Kenna wasn’t at the bar. That means everyone goes home and gets some sleep.

We won’t find her if we’re all burned out.

We’ll miss something important. Like the fact that Buzard is dead, and yet he’s on video walking around… ”

“No one missed that,” Jax said. “It’s a lead.”

“Exactly.” Bruce nodded.

Jax shook his head. “Is this pep talk going to have a point?”

If he was going to be honest, he still wanted to go a few rounds with Ramon. Not for the reason Elizabeth had told Maizie, though. Jax had his own reasons. But he was still going to rely on the guy to help find Kenna.

As long as they all knew it was Jax who was going to be the one to find her.

“We have work to do. Leads to follow. If we work together, we’ll get her back,” Bruce sounded sure, but all of their hope had waned in the last month.

Right now, it was hard not to hear it as empty sentiment.

“We need to find her,” Bruce added. “For all our sakes.”