Blade (The Alpha Elite #11)

Chapter Forty

Blade

A gainst my better judgment, I initiated a live trace, then fucking dialed.

The call was picked up, but the crazy chick didn’t say shit.

Christ . “Blade. Who the fuck are you?”

Her inhale carried through the line. Then her voice hit me like a fucking detonation. “Blade? Your name is Blade ?”

Jesus .

Fucking .

Christ .

It was the brunette from the drive-by. I was fucking sure of it, but she either didn’t recognize my voice or was the best liar I knew.

Throaty, raspy, and sexy as hell, she gave me that voice that was embedded in my brain. “For real?”

“Did I stutter?” Fuck me , it was her.

“Nope.”

What the hell was going on? “Name,” I demanded, glancing at the trace that was pinging all over the fucking place.

“Seems like you already named me. What was it? Oh yeah.” Her voice went a register lower. “Crazy as shit.”

My dick came to life. “Crazy Chick,” I corrected before going straight for recon because I didn’t know how long this call would last if she figured out who the fuck I was. “Who the hell is Reena?” I tried to recall those texts of hers I’d read two years ago.

“You call me Crazy Chick?”

“You got a better name?” Not that I’d change the contact name on my burner. This chick had been a serial texter two years ago. Didn’t seem like shit had changed. But that fucking text about dub con and non con had me even more pissed off now. Irrationally fucking pissed.

“Nope.” The voice was the same, but the attitude had been dialed up.

I kept mission focused. “Reena?” The trace stalled out.

Her tone hit defensive. “What about her?”

“Who is she?” Instinct was telling me that piece of intel would tie this whole shit show together.

“Why do you care?”

“Who says I do?” All I had was a fucking hunch and, until this morning, two years of dead ends. I didn’t know what the trigger was today, but this shit wasn’t random. Not if she was the brunette I’d saved in the drive-by, which I was ninety-nine percent certain she was.

I was also betting the asshole who called me was behind this.

For what purpose, I didn’t fucking know. Not unless that blonde with the brunette two years ago had been Church’s woman and this whole cluster—Phoenix, Alpha’s intel, Ghost’s warning, hell, Church himself—was all part of it. The brunette I couldn’t factor, though. I didn’t see her as anything other than a pawn.

Which meant I was more fucked than Ghost let on.

Recruitment, not courting, fucked.

Because this raspy-voiced, head-fucked, tits-and-ass smokeshow was the last woman I’d fucked—intel I didn’t think anyone knew except me.

“You’re asking about Reena more than you want to know my name.”

“You got a name already.” One she’d fucking earned regardless of what was going down. I hadn’t forgotten those texts she’d sent.

“Right.” She sighed like she wasn’t just put out with me and this whole damn conversation, but with the same resignation that’d come through in her texts. “Crazy Chick. Let me guess, that’s how you have me listed in your contacts?”

“Affirmative.” I reinitiated the trace.

“Cute.”

“Nothing cute about me, woman.”

“Oh, I’ve graduated to ‘woman’ now. How charming. Has anyone ever told you that your phone skills suck?”

The woman didn’t give me an inch to slide in an answer.

“Which means you’re either hot or have BDE, and trust me—” She used that sexy rasp to give a snort of disdain. “—no one is that hot. So yeah, a giant cock to go with your giant attitude. Unless you have a micro penis and you’re just compensating for not being preternaturally endowed. Or being an asshole just comes naturally to you. Actually? Based on all your texts, that’s definitely a possibility. I think I’m sticking with that. Natural asshole.”

“Think whatever the fuck you want.” Free country.

“That’s not an answer.”

The trace continued to ping all over the fucking place. “You didn’t ask shit.” She’d run her mouth, and now my dick irrationally wanted to fuck her.

“I made comments,” she argued.

No shit. “I refrained from engaging.” I didn’t feed crazy—not on or off the battlefield.

“Is this how you always speak?”

Here we go. “How do you think I speak?” And how fucking drunk had she been that night two years ago that she didn’t recognize my voice?

“Like an angry person.”

She had no idea. “We gonna talk about those texts?”

“Nope.”

“Fucking great.” Not fucking great. “We done here?” The trace was going nowhere. I didn’t need my head spun up over her or those texts. I had recon to do.

“Yep.” She hung up.

Two seconds later, a text came through.

Crazy Chick: You’re an asshole.

My thumbs flew across the screen before I could check my control.

Me: Compliment noted.

Crazy Chick: Wasn’t a compliment, micro dick.

Yes, it was. If she was my brunette, the woman got off on assholes. Rough assholes. Something I didn’t want to fucking think about.

Me: Not micro .

Crazy Chick: Are you a monster?

Not answering the bullshit she was trying to flank, I gave her the fucking truth instead.

Me: Like you wouldn’t believe.

Crazy Chick: Ha!

No point in responding, I typed the GPS coordinates that asshole had texted me into a secure server. Fuck. Twenty-four hours to infil and exfil without AES resources would be tight. But the job could net me intel. Undecided, I exited out of the server, and my burner vibrated with another text.

Crazy Chick: You’re not texting back.

No shit.

Crazy Chick: That means you’re not kidding.

I didn’t kid.

Me: Congratulations.

Crazy Chick: Thanks. I think. Wait. Are you insulting me? Congratulations for what?

Me: You lasted thirty seconds.

Crazy Chick: Thirty seconds …

I waited.

It hit her.

Crazy Chick: Ah. Thirty seconds between texts. Thank you timestamps for showcasing my enormous restraint and deep-seated insecurities all in one tiny display of numbers. Awesome.

Crazy Chick: And for the record, if you’re a monster, you wouldn’t be texting me back .

I both fucked with her and threw her a clue.

Me: Maybe I’m a serial killer .

Crazy Chick: Hmm. Maybe. Or maybe you lied and your dick really is small and you can’t get any action and this is the best you can do on a Thursday night.

Out of my fucking head, I responded.

Me: Glad you got me figured out. What’s your excuse?

Crazy Chick: I don’t need one. I’m not the one who stays home on a Thursday night .

Motherfucker. She’d said she wasn’t going to a bar.

Me: Where are you?

Crazy Chick: Why? So you can come join me?

Me: No .

So I could get her the fuck out of there.

Crazy Chick: Oh, that’s right. You’re the asshole monster. “Joining” isn’t in your repertoire. You just stalk.

I read between the lines.

Me: Who’s stalking you?

Crazy Chick: At the moment, only you and your attempted tracking of my cell .

Filing away the first part of her response, I aimed at the attempted comment.

Me: You’re the one deliberately scrambling your geo tracking?

She didn’t fit the fucking profile for it, but I hadn’t bothered asking either. Not that I expected an honest answer, but everything this woman said had transparency.

Crazy Chick: Wait. What?

I didn’t think so.

Me: Tell me where you are, and it won’t be stalking.

It’d be retrieval.

Crazy Chick: Why don’t you use your geo tracking or whatever and find out?

Me: Already tried that.

A text came in on my AES cell.

November: You ran a live trace.

Christ. I texted him back.

Me: Is that a question?

November: Do you want me to bypass the relays?

Fucking tired of texting, I called him.

He picked up before the first ring. “Already running it.”

“You can bypass the scrambled tracking?”

A text came in on the burner.

Crazy Chick: Well, I guess you failed, then.

“Are you asking how to do it, if it can be done, or if I can do it?”

Something was up. November wasn’t obtuse. “Did you read Alpha in on this?”

I put the call on speaker, then quickly texted her back.

Me: I don’t fucking fail. Where are you?

“On this trace?” November asked.

“On any of my movements today.” Not that I thought Alpha was involved, but anything was possible at this point.

“No,” November answered. “Thirty more seconds.”

Crazy Chick: Nice try.

“How are you tracking this now when we couldn’t earlier? You got some new shit I don’t know about?”

“Not shit, software,” November corrected. “And not new. It’s easier to grab the trace on a live call or right after.”

“Fucking great,” I muttered, texting her back to keep her phone on.

Me: That wasn’t me trying.

“Who is she?” November asked.

Crazy Chick: Toh-may-toe, toh-mah-toe. I say failing, you say… whatever. Enjoy your evening, MP.

“Don’t know.” My thumbs almost as big as the damn screen, I fucking hated texting. “Location yet?”

Me: MP?

“Almost,” November replied. “Do you know what you’re getting into?”

Crazy Chick: Micro Penis.

I typed as I answered November. “Don’t need a fucking handler, Rhys. You got shit to say, say it.”

Me: Macro.

“I just did.”

Crazy Chick: You have a “worldwide” penis? It must get tired, what with all the “traveling” it does. Have a nice traveling penis life.

“You being cagey on purpose?” Pissed at November, at the entire fucking world, I sent a reply to a woman I should’ve fucking pushed harder for intel two years ago.

Me: Type penis one more time.

November ignored my question. “Got it.” He gave me a name and address in South Miami.

A fucking biker bar. “Copy.”

Crazy Chick: No thanks.

A string of face emojis followed.

“Good luck,” November stated.

Fuck luck. “Not in my vocabulary.” I hung up and grabbed my keys.