Page 8 of Storm and Tempest (Brand of Justice #13)

Chapter Six

J ax left Ramon to his file and went after Amara and Zeyla, catching up to Kenna’s mom and sister—or aunt and cousin—just outside the door.

“We didn’t want to disturb your meal,” Amara said.

As she had inside, Zeyla stood by her like a bodyguard.

“I didn’t come here to eat,” Jax said. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

Amara was almost five ten, just an inch or so shorter than him. Zeyla had a similar build to Kenna, but curvier, and was maybe only five six. Her short haircut and thick bangs framed her face, whereas Kenna’s hair was long down to the middle of her back.

The matriarch said, “As you know, the men who took her have completely disappeared. Totally off the grid. We did manage to track them down to a municipal airport to the northwest of Phoenix, but that’s where the trail goes cold.”

“That’s farther than I’ve managed to get,” Jax said.

Amara nodded. “If they left on a plane, we can’t find it. Which in this age is next to impossible.”

“Unless you have someone in the FAA and the NTSB. Agents embedded in the government and air traffic control, and cops on your payroll.”

“And more money than God,” Zeyla added.

Jax didn’t like the sound of any of it. This whole thing seemed almost impossible. He needed to lean on the God who did impossible things and worked in the lives of people who trusted in Him. The believers who yielded to His way and followed it.

But Jax didn’t want to be all-in only for what he could get out of it—namely, having Kenna back. That would mean his heart was all wrong. He didn’t want to acknowledge that God might be testing him. Asking him to trust, even if he didn’t get what he wanted.

Which made him want to rage all over again. Get in another shoving match—and more—with Ramon. He needed to take his frustration out on someone. Or a heavy bag at the gym.

Otherwise, he was going to ruin his sobriety with the wrong choice.

Right now, he didn’t want to be a better person, or a better Christian. He just wanted Kenna back.

Zeyla shifted. “The only shot you have of finding her is if she can escape and contact you. The chance of that is slim to none.”

“We would have a better chance of rescuing her if we knew an area where she’s likely being held. Or a facility.”

That was a gross assumption—first that she was still alive. Something he refused to give up hope on. He wasn’t going to say he’d be able to “feel” it if she died. That was just hokey. But he wasn’t even considering she was really gone until he knew for sure.

The other assumption he was making was that she had been taken somewhere, rather than kept on the move. Or that it was somewhere that was even accessible.

The odds were more than stacked against him.

Didn’t mean he planned to give up.

Amara’s expression shifted while she thought about that, and after a few seconds she said, “There are facilities all over the world. We don’t even know if she’s still in the continental US. She could be anywhere.”

“Can we get a list of facilities, places we can start looking?” Jax asked.

Zeyla shook her head. “By the time you have data, it’s obsolete. No one knows the full extent of Dominatus except the Imperatoris.”

He tried to remember that word from Latin class. “Isn’t that like an emperor?”

“He’s over the whole thing, commanding the grand masters like he’s the Pope and they’re Cardinals.”

And Jax had thought the grand masters were the ones in charge. “Who is it? Who is the current Imperatoris?”

Zeyla said, “I doubt you’ll find someone alive who can tell you.”

“Like a grand master?” He could find one, surely. Question them.

The man with the senator in Colorado who’d captured Kenna had been one. He’d died around the same time, so Jax would have to look up him and all his known associates. “What about when one is replaced because they die? Does a son take over, or is there a vote?”

Zeyla shook her head again, looking upset.

Amara said, “Another would be installed, but there’s no way to know who it is. Each part of Dominatus operates independently like a splinter terror cell. Instead of taking their orders and going out there to cause as much destruction as possible, it’s a piece of a larger puzzle. The grand plan.”

“But if we identify him, we can take them down from the top.” He glanced between the two women. “Right?”

“Or at least severely cripple the organization,” Zeyla said. “But if I knew how to find the Imperatoris, I’d have put a bullet in his head already.”

“We need to guarantee we can find Kenna, and we need to cripple the Dominatus as much as we can. This is about more than killing one person.” He folded his arms across his chest, ignoring the burn in his shoulder.

Amara said, “That’s an impossible task. Which is why I brought you a case file much closer to home.” She lifted her chin. “Find that agent. Rooting out corruption in the FBI will go a long way to you getting your standing back within the Bureau.”

“I wasn’t aware I’d lost it.”

“Then you should open your eyes.” Amara turned and walked away, Zeyla beside her. They went to a black Nissan with some damage on the front right quarter panel. Like they’d been in a scrape of some sort with a red car that had transferred paint onto their vehicle.

Jax went back inside, returned to the table, and sat. “Anything in the file?”

“Anything we should know that they couldn’t tell all of us?” Ramon echoed.

Jax wasn’t going to get mad that the guy had an irritated tone. He just had to remind himself they had the same goal. Jax told them about the Imperatoris and the rest of it, hitting the highlights. “What do we know about this case, other than that someone in the FBI is working for Dominatus?”

Bruce shifted in his chair, wiping his scruffy face on a napkin that caught in the stubble on his chin. “The agent’s identity was scrubbed from the system.”

“I’ll pull the official report for the silo operation again,” Jax said. “See if anything sticks out.”

“This file is pretty thin.” Ramon waved it. “Doesn’t say who assigned the task to this agent and doesn’t say he disappeared. It’s just a personnel file for an agent who we can’t even prove exists.”

Jax didn’t like that. He looked at Maizie. “And someone thinks you put a worm in the computer network at my office.”

Maizie winced.

He couldn’t help wondering about what Amara had just said.

That he was on thin ice with the federal agency he worked for.

He’d thought he was doing all right, balancing it all.

But giving up the fight to find Kenna just to get his career back on more solid footing didn’t sound like a great idea.

In fact, it sounded like the last thing he wanted to do.

Maizie said, “I wasn’t the first to put a worm in the network. I can’t trace who did the existing one I found, but mine mirrors it, and everything they copy from the network is also sent to me. I also programmed it to tell me if they change or delete anything.”

“And?”

“It’s only been running since yesterday.”

Bruce said, “Means Dominatus found it, and this is their way of shutting you down.”

Maizie frowned. “But their worm will be disabled at the same time.”

“Scorched earth.”

Even if that was true, Jax didn’t like the sound of it. “You’re walking a fine line between freedom and winding up in jail, Maze.”

Ramon said, “Can’t put her in jail if you can’t find her.”

Maizie gasped.

Jax glanced at him, disapproval probably plain on his face. “Maybe don’t say stuff like that.”

“I agree with Jax,” Maizie said, her voice shaky.

“Sorry.” Ramon mostly looked at Maizie.

Jax turned to Bruce. “Can you find out who the coroner and funeral director were who interacted with Marcus Buzard’s body?”

The older man snapped a salute. “Yes, Boss.”

Jax figured he likely did that with Kenna, too. “Ramon and I will go find this agent. Maizie, get on the computer and look for anything left behind when those files and the existence of an agent were scrubbed from the system.”

“What are Amara and Zeyla going to do?” Ramon asked, one brow raised. “Just disappear again and come back later with some vaguely helpful information?”

“They didn’t tell me, so I guess we don’t get to know.”

“Sounds about right,” Ramon grumbled.

Bruce straightened in his chair. “I’ll touch base with Amara. See if I can find out.”

“Good. So we all have work to do.” Jax whipped around to Maizie, who had her head ducked and was trying to make a clean getaway. “Not so fast, young lady. We still need to talk about Sean.”

She didn’t look at him but busied herself pushing her chair in and slipping her little crossbody bag over her head.

“Maizie.”

She lifted her gaze, her eyes full of unshed tears. “I don’t want to talk about Sean.”

“Have you contacted him? Are you guys talking?”

She scrunched up her nose. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Maizie,” Jax repeated, leaning forward.

He wasn’t going to stand and tower over her.

He wanted her to feel like she had the high ground, and not like he was trying to use masculinity to overpower her.

She didn’t need that in her life. She needed people who treated her with empathy and respect for the things she had to carry from her past. “I need to know if you’ve contacted him. ”

“I haven’t! Okay?” She swiped at her cheeks, the tears running freely now. Her yell drew some attention, but there was nothing he could do about it. She had to feel free to express her emotions. “You think I don’t want to talk about it with someone?”

“So tell us. You know you’re safe with us.”

“I can’t talk about it with…” She waved her hand.

“Men,” Ramon said quietly. “You have girl stuff you need to work through, Hermana ?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, her breaths coming sharply. On the verge of having an anxiety attack. “She’s not here. She’s just…she’s not here!”

“Elizabeth will make time for you if you call her, right?” Jax hadn’t taken girl stuff into account when Stairns and his wife had dropped Maizie off with him and gone to California to watch out for Laney and her family. “I’m sorry she’s not nearby.”

“I’m talking about Kenna!” Maizie blurted, mascara now smeared on her cheeks. She looked…broken. “I need to talk to her. I need her here , but she’s… gone. ”

The server entered the periphery. “Is everything okay?” She glanced at them, then back at Maizie. “Are these men bothering you?”

Maizie stiffened, each inhale still sharp as if she was on the verge of breaking down and sobbing. “They aren’t bothering me.” She looked at Jax then, and he stood. She slammed into him, wrapping her arms around him.

Jax gave her a second to get used to it just in case she changed her mind. Then he hugged her back. “We’re going to find her.”

She shifted her head. “What if we don’t?”

“We will.” He angled his head and kissed her forehead. “We’re going to find her. We have to.”

Tears gathered in his eyes as she cried in his arms. Jax dipped his head and rubbed her back, hearing Ramon and Bruce talking to the server. In a way, he’d been waiting for this to happen. He was a wreck, but focusing on work helped.

Now he had a few days to “get his head together”—whatever that meant.

He wasn’t going to stop looking for his wife.

More than likely, the ADIC was making a play to take over the office and get rid of Jax.

Maybe he didn’t like his current role and wanted to go back to bossing around everyone that worked under him rather than being the middleman between Jax and the director of the FBI.

Part of him barely cared about his job, but he did need it. The Bureau had kept him in check for years, and if he was going to survive this, he needed to lean in on that. Procedure. Rules. No matter how long it took, he wasn’t going to give up the search.

“We have to,” she whispered. “Before it’s too late.”

He gave her a squeeze and stepped back.

Even Ramon looked like he had unshed tears in his eyes. Bruce cleared his throat, wiping his nose on a napkin he dumped on his empty plate.

“We all have work to do,” Jax said. “And we should get to it.”

Ramon eyed him but nodded and got up. He said something to Maizie in Spanish, and she nodded.

“Welp,” Bruce said, tucking his chair in. “Not the way I thought lunch would go, but I’ll take it.”

Jax found a smile, but it took effort.

He turned to follow Maizie and the two men out of the restaurant.

Strategically ignoring the fact they’d drawn attention to themselves just now.

He didn’t know what people thought of their group of four misfits, and he didn’t care.

People could think what they wanted. He was going to find Kenna, and her friends would help.

Outside, car tires squealed. A second later, the glass all down one side shattered as automatic weapon fire from more than one source cracked across the open space.

A split second later, Maizie yelped.

Ramon hit Jax at a full tackle and slammed him against the floor. Bruce covered Maizie with his body, using himself as a human shield.

Jax looked over and saw Ramon hunkered down beside him on the tile.

Again and again, shots cracked off like fireworks, exploding across the room. Wood splintered into the air. Dust rained down on everything. Someone screamed. Car tires squealed again, and the automatic weapons fire continued.

Jax slid out his phone and dialed 911.

Ramon grabbed the phone and ended the call. “We need to run.”

“I need to call this in!”

People could be hurt. They needed police, FBI, and ambulances. Minimum. He prayed they wouldn’t need the coroner as well.

Ramon grabbed his shoulder. “No, we need to get out of here before we get someone killed.” He looked at Bruce. “Let’s go!”