She’d changed since then, as violence often changed those it touched. Not that the Romeros were pacifists or innocent, but after her fiancé was murdered, the rules of the game changed for them. Kane understood far too well.
Kane hadn’t told Sean that he was on the Flores cartel radar because Sean would have sent him away. And Kane could hardly leave now. The cartel wanted Kane’s head on a platter, and he was going to give it to them. He just had to convince Gabriella Romero that it would benefit her-and her brother-to take revenge in a different way, and perhaps sooner than she’d planned.
Not him. Gabriella wouldn’t listen to him. But there was one person she would listen to.
Jack Kincaid.
Jack rarely took jobs south of the border since he was now married to a fed, but he had a unique skill set and the near two decades he’d spent in the Army came in handy.
And he knew Gabriella very well.
Kane called him from a secure sat phone once he was out of Sean’s earshot.
“Kincaid.”
“It’s Kane. How fast can you get to Guadalajara?”
“Six and a half hours.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“They all are. You have a plan.”
“Working on it.”
Jack didn’t say anything for a long minute. “Who else do you have down there?”
“No one. Blitz, Ranger, and their team are in Honduras. They can’t be reached.”
“Is this about the kid?”
“Yes. Sean sent everything he uncovered to Jaye-read it on the fly.”
“And he’s worth risking your lives?”
That was always the question-was an operation worth the risk, because every time they engaged, they could be killed or captured.
“Yes,” Kane said without hesitation. “Look at the file. You’ll know why.” He wasn’t going to spill Sean’s secret about Jesse, but Jack had to understand the emotional component.
“We need a team.”
Kane didn’t want more than he’d counted on, but Jack would do what he felt best, always. And Kane trusted his instincts. “Small and elite. Gabriella is here.”
“Well, fuck.”
“I’m going to talk to her, but you know what she has planned.”
“Ten years. Ten fucking years, Kane.”
He didn’t say anything. Ten years wasn’t that long when someone killed the person you loved.
Siobhan had told him three months ago that she loved him. He replayed that moment every night, every time he closed his eyes. She thought he’d shut her out because he didn’t want his life to taint her. That wasn’t it.
He could never love her, never call her his own, because when she got killed-and in his line of work, that was almost a certainty-he would become Gabriella. He would hunt down those responsible and slaughter them. Without hesitation. Without remorse.
In fact, he admired Gabriella as much as he was frustrated with her. She’d waited ten years for her revenge. Patience. Kane would slash and burn until he was gunned down, and then he would thank the God he didn’t believe in that it was finally over.
Kane said, “I will talk to her, but I may need you to convince her.”
“Understood. Are you camped at our primary airstrip?”
“Yes.”
“Six and a half hours.” Jack disconnected.
Of course Jack knew Gabriella. It had been his soldier who’d fallen in love with her, his soldier who had proposed to her, and his soldier who’d been tortured and killed by Samuel Flores, one of the psycho brothers. Jack had talked her down once before, but after this long, Kane didn’t think Gabriella would listen to anyone. He didn’t blame her-but when his nephew and his brother both had their lives at stake, he had to make her listen.
Unless, of course, she got exactly what she wanted: Samuel Flores’s head on a platter.
And Kane had to figure out a way to do it without Gabriella taking the credit… and no RCK fingerprints. RCK didn’t do assassinations, it’s what kept them off the cartel’s most wanted list. Certainly they had caused enough problems over the years that the cartels would kill anyone affiliated if they had an opportunity, but until Tobias Hunt had put a price tag on his head, Kane had been able to work relatively anonymously over the years.
Kane reached the jeep he’d hidden far on the edge of the airstrip. He pushed off the fallen branches and drove into town.
His cell phone rang. It was Gabriella. He’d ignored her first three calls last night.
“The audacity,” Gabriella said in her exotic accent.
“Meet me in thirty minutes. You know where.”
“No.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Do I care?”
“Your brother will.”
“Dante understands.”
“I can get you what you want and you can walk away.”
“I will see this through. Why are you even here? What do you want with Jesse Spade? None of this is your concern.”
“I will tell you why when you meet with me. You owe me.”
“I owe you nothing, Rogan.”
He didn’t say anything. She knew exactly what she owed him.
“No promises.” She hung up.
Before Kane left that morning, he’d told Sean to write a letter to Jesse-a short note that explained everything. Sean did it, but it hardly seemed adequate. Kane was standing over him. What could he say? How could he say it? Why write it? It was like trying to tell Lucy over the phone that Jesse was his kid… he couldn’t.
But he did it because Kane said Jesse needed to be on board with them or they would all be killed. Sean understood, but that didn’t make it much better.
Now that he was alone-for how long, he didn’t know-Sean booted up his computer and started digging through everything Jaye at RCK had found on Carson Spade, his law firm, and his connections to the Flores cartel. Jaye was good-very methodical. Sean worked more intuitively, and had several questions, namely, Why now? What happened to bring Spade to Mexico now?
Laundering money was both easy and complex. The hard part was setting up the process-layers of bank accounts, shell corporations, moving money from legitimate businesses into shady accounts and finally into the hands of the bad guys. Cartels employed some of the best accountants and lawyers in the business-those with a serious lack of morals-to build the network. Once established, a good network would run seamlessly.
It seemed that Carson Spade had been the lawyer who set up the entire network for the Flores cartel several years ago-based on the dates of the corporations Jaye had identified. His bank and travel records showed only one trip to Mexico a year-likely required by Flores to ensure that Spade was still in his back pocket. Perhaps to handle new business or incorporate a new illegal activity. But this was Spade’s third trip to Mexico this year-definitely out of character.
A message from Jaye popped up on his computer.
Jaye: You there?
Sean: Yep.
Jaye: Something weird just happened.
Sean: You’re up at dawn?
Jaye: Ha ha. I sent a worm out to gather real-time info on each of the identified corps and three were shut down at the end of business yesterday.
Sean: Shut down how? Money transferred?
Jaye: No money transfers, all shell corps. Closed. The info was posted at midnight ET.
Sean: Influx of cash to Spade?
Jaye: None yet. I’m going to expand the worm, but I suspect they’re all being axed. Just closed.
Sean: Why? Did it happen yesterday?
Jaye: No idea why, and they could have been shut down anytime in the last few days. Not more than a week. They get posted pretty quick. I’ll send you what I learn.
Sean: You’re an angel.
Sean logged off and wondered what had happened to cause Spade to shut down his shell corps. The most logical reason would be money. These were hollow companies, though-they could let the companies ride and, if they were compromised, just start new ones. On and on. The only way to shut them down would be to completely sever them from the new enterprise. Or maybe there was something there that they wanted to hide.