Blade (The Alpha Elite #11)

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Blade

F ive hours later, I touched down on the private airstrip, and my burner rang.

Taxiing the Conquest, I glanced at the screen. No caller ID.

I didn’t answer.

Thirty seconds later, it rang again.

Fucking pissed, I swiped. “Busy.”

Instead of Phoenix, or whoever the fuck had been calling me, it was Alpha’s voice that filled the line. “We need to talk.”

“Taxiing. Why the fuck are you calling my burner?”

“You wouldn’t have answered if you knew it was me, and I know where you are. We have you on our radar.”

I didn’t deny his first comment. “I told November to make this a ghost flight.”

“As far as ATC and all other flight tracking systems are concerned, you are. We have our own satellite feeds. How much do you know about the woman?”

“Call a spade a spade. You have Ghost’s satellites.” And fuck Alpha’s bullshit interrogation tactic. “I’m handling my own shit.”

“I have new intel on the woman, and you shouldn’t be going in solo.”

Parking the Conquest next to an open barn with a crop duster inside, I fought for patience. “Not having this conversation.”

“The Culiacán Cartel has a hit out on her.”

I shut down the engines and fucking sat there a beat.

That was the missing link in all of this. Her piece-of-shit husband moved volume for the cartel. No doubt he had some local law enforcement on the take. But to have enough reach to have been watching for any hits on her, then track where they came from wasn’t drug-runner deep. It was fucking cartel deep. Besides taking off on the abusive drug runner—which the Culiacán fucks wouldn’t hunt down the brunette for—I hadn’t found the connection between her and the cartel.

Now Alpha had.

“How much do they think she stole?” Fucking money. The one thing the cartel assholes gave a damn about. I should’ve clocked this, but the woman was homeless. Her car was on its last leg, and she hadn’t fled the country.

“She didn’t. But her husband did. Henry Ashland was skimming for years. They were about to come down on him four years ago when his wife disappeared. Ashland blamed her, the hit was put out, and they’ve been looking for her ever since.”

I asked again. “How much?”

“Two-fifty.”

I knew next to nothing about the woman, but I knew she’d never lift a quarter mil from the fucking cartel. “Take it out of my account.”

“Already paid them, with an added incentive to drop the hit.”

“Status?” I’d argue with him later about taking the funds from my account so she wasn’t indebted to anyone.

“Pending.”

My guilt over the facial rec search fucking compounded. “I’m not playing into their bullshit, Alpha.” I’d go hunting before I let this stand. I owed the woman nothing less, and picking off those cartel assholes would be a walk in the park compared to looking for answers on Church.

“It’s only pending until we get Ashland’s replacement in position.”

“We,” I echoed dryly.

“Runner named Rawley,” Alpha stated, ignoring my shit mood. “He’s already boots on the ground. We handle Ashland and his crew. Rawley steps in without incident. The hit gets retracted.”

Fucking enraged, the fear in the brunette’s expression when I’d walked out still playing in my head on repeat, I thought about every damn misstep I’d taken.

Except one.

Fucking her two years ago. That was no misstep.

Different circumstances, maybe I would’ve kept fucking her. It’d never been my MO. Never even considered it. But that woman had been in my head for two goddamn years, and for once, I understood that last phone call with Church.

If the situation had been reversed, I wouldn’t have given Church a damn thing on a five-foot-nothing brunette with haunted eyes except to say she was a fucking survivor.

“Blade,” Alpha clipped.

“Copy.” If replacing one goddamn drug dealer with another set her free, then I was gonna make it happen. “I’ll fucking handle it. Make sure the cartel assholes know the woman gets her house back.”

“Good copy. I can have Victor at your location in two hours.”

Fuck Victor. “I said I’ll handle it.”

Alpha didn’t reply.

I got out of the cockpit. “What?”

“When was the last time you slept?”

Two fucking years ago. “Ask me that bullshit again, and you’re off my short list.”

“Of?”

“Tolerably untrustworthy assholes.” I hung up and powered down the burner so he didn’t call back.

Then I headed to a waiting rental.