Blade (The Alpha Elite #11)

Chapter Fifty-Three

Blade

I ’d followed her Jeep for five miles before I had to fucking call it.

Driving like her six was on fire, weaving in and out of traffic, she’d either spotted me or assumed I was tailing her.

Either way, I backed off before she killed herself or someone else.

Worst case, I’d find her through traffic cams again.

But now I had her picture.

Itching to run her through facial rec, I drove back to my place and powered up my desktop.

Fifteen minutes later, I was staring at a seven-year-old picture of a very different woman.

Not a woman—a seventeen-year-old child.

Eyes dead, cheeks sunken, hair fucked up, the entire left side of her face bruised, the sealed police report image was dated a day after a marriage license had been issued.

Rage hit.

Then got exponentially worse with every fucking keystroke I made.

The scars under her breasts I’d assumed were from surgery—weren’t. The small, inked script over one of those scars I hadn’t bothered to read when I’d had her naked, I was now kicking myself over. The scars on her arm and abdomen, the one around her right ankle—she was a walking roadmap of abuse.

But I’d been so head-fucked over her cunt and the shit with my brother two years ago that I’d missed all of it.

Her fear of cops—legitimate.

How fucking broken she’d looked that night after she’d fallen asleep—accurate.

That shit she’d texted about dub con and non con, telling me she liked it rough—not kinks.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck .

Hours later, the day gone, I was calling November.

The hacker answered on the first ring. “Did you find the woman?”

Ignoring his question, I ran another search. “Who’s behind the drug traffic in Detroit, Michigan?” I knew the answer, but I wanted to be wrong.

“Culiacán Cartel.” November typed. “Whatever you’ve been looking into, I’m wiping your machine now.”

I wasn’t fucking wrong. “Copy.” The most violent Mexican drug cartel in history.

And she was married to one of their top runners.

Jesus fucking Christ.

My desktop went dark, and November said something.

“What?” No wonder she’d fucking panicked when I’d asked if she was in Florida. Her digital footprint fell off the grind years ago. She’d probably been on the run ever since.

“I said I killed your hard drive. Someone backdoored your facial rec search.”

“Your shit’s supposed to be unhackable, November.” Goddamn it . “Shut it down.”

“Nothing’s one hundred percent secure, and already working on it. Pick up a new machine. But don’t run searches on the Culiacán Cartel again unless you do it from here,” November warned.

I knew the fucking drill. “Copy.” If I foresaw this shit, I would’ve run it all down from HQ. Alpha didn’t fuck around when it came to the cartel. They made the famiglias look like child’s play. If we went after cartel members, Alpha had backup behind the scenes in case shit went FUBAR, and usually a political path cleared before we stepped in it.

“I took a look at your history before I wiped it. I’ll rerun it from here. Any specific details you’re looking for?”

Rage hit again, this time irrational. “Leave it.” I didn’t want him seeing the pictures of her I’d found. I didn’t want a fucking soul to see them.

“Blade—”

“I’m fucking warning you, Rhys.”

He didn’t say shit.

“Correct response is copy .”

Fucker fed me a SEAL tenet. “Don’t run to your death.” Then he hung up without promising to leave it alone.

Shoving my dead desktop aside, I grabbed my laptop and booted up. Before I could log into AES to run another traffic cam search on her plates, the burner rang.

I glanced at the screen.

No Caller ID.

Motherfucker.

Typing on the laptop, I answered. “Not in the mood for bullshit.”

“I see you found her,” the asshole replied.

My hands froze, and I took a stab at a connection. “You buy her that cell phone?”

“I have a job for you.”

“Fuck off. Where is she?” This wasn’t about Church right now or finding out who the fuck this asshole was. This was about a brunette.

“If I tell you, you’ll owe me.”

Not a deal I was going to make. “Fuck you.” I hung up and finished logging into AES’s servers.

The burner rang again.

I answered but didn’t say shit.

The asshole gave me a name. The same damn biker bar from the other night. “You owe me.” He hung up.

I grabbed my keys and was out the door in thirty seconds.

Fifteen minutes later, I walked past her parked Jeep, saw the clothes and camping shit, and was striding into the bar as some motherfucker in a cut was dragging her down the back hall. Seeing fucking red, I walked back out and aimed for the side of the building where there was a dead-end alley.

The second I rounded the corner, I saw them.

The motherfucker had her pinned to the wall with her face shoved against the concrete.

Her raspy voice cried out in a strangled whisper. “ Stop .”

I fucking moved.