Chapter 16
Cross was propped up on the gurney, one arm hooked into a saline IV, the other hand holding a cold compress to his temple.
His leg felt like it was being held over a fire, but that pain was lessening, thanks to the antivenom they’d injected through the IV drip.
The antiseptic-saturated air of the small clinic burned his nostrils more than the swamp ever had, and his whole body ached like it had been trampled by a herd of gators. Probably because it nearly had been.
Stone leaned against the wall, his shoulder wrapped tightly in gauze, looking way too relaxed for a man who’d been shot less than twenty-four hours ago. Frankie stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him, keeping a close eye on him, no doubt.
McGuire stood by the door, arms folded, jaw locked.
“Where is Riven?” Cross asked. It had just occurred to him that she hadn’t been around. She is good at keeping McGuire from getting too intense, and with his sister missing, Cross was sure McGuire could use Riven’s low-key energy.
“She had an appointment,” McGuire said. “Wedding stuff. I made her go. There’s nothing she can do here. She deserves some fun. She’ll be by later.”
“How’s all that stuff going?” Frankie asked.
“Fine.” Judging by his harsh tone, McGuire wasn’t in the mood to chat about his upcoming nuptials, and Cross didn’t blame him. With Drew missing, everything else was secondary.
Tessa was still sitting, perched on the edge of the plastic chair like a coiled spring.
No one said anything for a long beat.
Finally, McGuire broke the silence. “Tessa, you said you had something to tell us. Now’s the time.”
Tessa glanced at Cross, then at the others. Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I do. And it’s not gonna make me popular.”
Cross’s pulse ticked up. “Start talking.”
She took a slow breath. “There was a drug deal, a big one. Rodriguez was stepping up in the cartel and moving more weight. He had a guy in play who was going to take delivery of a tractor-trailer-sized load and sell it up north. Everyone was excited about it. Rodriguez, because he was making moves inside the cartel to go from just being their man in the southeast US to their eastern seaboard manager. The people up north, because they were getting a direct pipeline to the good stuff, and of course, the people south of the border, because the cartel wants to move as much weight as possible.”
“So what happened?” Cross asked. “Did the ATF get the shipment?”
“No,” Tessa shook her head.
“Why the hell not?” Stone demanded.
Tessa bit her lip. “Because I didn’t tell them.”
The room went still.
McGuire narrowed his eyes. “You’re gonna have to do a hell of a lot better than that.”
“I didn’t tell them because I didn’t trust them,” Tessa said flatly. “Over the last six months, I was feeding intel from the inside—small stuff. Test runs, minor drops, anything that wouldn’t blow my cover. And every single time I passed something up the chain, it went sideways.”
Cross frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I mean, we lost the targets. Early warnings. Tipped-off suspects. Things that didn’t make sense if the information had remained inside the Bureau.
” Her eyes locked onto McGuire’s. “Individually, it could’ve been a mistake.
A miscommunication. But together? A pattern emerged. Someone was sabotaging my intel.”
“A mole?” McGuire muttered.
Tessa nodded. “Yeah. That’s the only explanation. Someone inside the ATF—or maybe a joint task force member—is working with Rodriguez’s cartel. I don’t know who. And I couldn’t risk giving them the big one.”
Stone looked skeptical. “So you went rogue?”
“I kept the details to myself. I had a plan. I had some friends—off-grid, reliable. I got them to intercept the shipment. Hide it.” She glanced at each of them.
“I thought I had time to sort out who the mole was. I thought I could bring it to my boss before Rodriguez caught wind of me being undercover. It was risky, but a helluva lot better than letting all those drugs hit the streets.”
McGuire crossed his arms. “Clearly, you miscalculated.”
“No shit,” she snapped. “Rodriguez found out way faster than he should’ve. That’s when I knew someone on our side fed him my name. He went from not suspecting me at all to suddenly screaming that I was an undercover bitch cop.” She let out a breath. “I barely got out.”
Cross stared at Tessa. She’d gone pale. He had no doubt she was finally telling the truth, but it was far uglier than he’d imagined. “What did he think when all those deals went slightly awry on his side? That he was just damned lucky?” Cross asked, his voice low.
“That’s the weird part,” Tessa said, and her expression darkened.
“He knew that someone was feeding intel to the ATF, but he never suspected it was me. I kept waiting for the ax to fall, for him to make me. But he never did. He started getting paranoid. Kept his inner circle close. But he never acted like he knew who I was.”
“That makes no sense,” Stone said. “A mole inside the ATF would’ve known your name.”
“Exactly.” Tessa leaned forward. “Which means the mole doesn’t know who I am. You see, I’ve been working under deep cover because they’ve lost people before in Rodriguez’s organization. No one had gotten as close to him as me. They were made way earlier and killed.
“This time, it was decided that only my direct boss and his boss would know my identity. Everyone else just knows we had someone embedded. No name. No photos. I don’t even file reports through normal channels. Rodriguez’s guy couldn’t out me, because he didn’t know who to out.”
“Jesus,” Cross muttered. “That’s why you’re still breathing.”
She gave a grim smile. “My luck won’t last forever. Especially now that the drugs are missing and their bosses are breathing down Rodriguez’s neck.”
McGuire paced the room. “So what was your plan? Steal the drugs and then what?”
Tessa frowned. “Okay, I admit I didn’t think it through, but I couldn’t let all those drugs hit the streets, and I didn’t trust my people to stop it.
So, I did the next best thing under the circumstances.
I reached out to a couple of retired agents, guys that I had trained with.
They grabbed the truck before it got to the meet and stashed it away.
Then they went to ground in the Bahamas. I thought I had time to figure it out.”
“So, you didn’t have a plan?” McGuire pushed.
Cross didn’t blame him. Drew had been kidnapped by this monster because Tessa took matters into her own hands. He was struggling not to leap off the bed and shake the information out of her.
Tessa shook her head. “I had sort of a plan. There are only a handful of people on the team at the ATF. By now, they all know who I am. Once I went missing, it would’ve been all hands on deck.
I’m surprised agents didn’t show up in the bayou looking for me.
I guess you guys really are as good as Dane always said.
” Her chest hitched as she mentioned her dead brother.
“Anyway, my original plan was to figure out who had access to the intel I had delivered to my boss. The list was limited to only a few people, and I know all of them. I thought I would reach out to each of them with a story about how I can’t reach my boss, so I needed to tell them about the drugs.
Then I would give each one a different location.
The mole would then tell Rodriguez, and whatever location he showed up at would tell me which individual on my team was the mole.
” She sighed. “I know it was stupid, but what choice did I have? If I told my boss and he told the team about the trucks, then I would’ve lost the opportunity to find out who the bent cop is. ”
“So, instead, you let everyone think you were the bent cop until you could work something out,” Savvy stated. She let out a long sigh. “Not ideal, to be sure.”
“And now that Drew has been taken, are you gonna try and finish the op?” Stone asked.
“I don’t have a choice,” Tessa said. “But I can’t do it alone. I need help. And we still have a problem—I don’t know who the mole is, and until I do, every move we make could be fed right back to Rodriguez.”
Cross leaned back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling, his ribs aching from the fight, his arm burning from the bullet graze. But all he could see was Drew—bound, scared, possibly hurt. And now, caught in the crossfire of all this corruption.
“We need to find Drew,” he said quietly. “She comes first. I don’t give a fuck about the drugs. I care about her. That’s assuming Rodriguez hasn’t killed her already.” Just saying those words made bile climb up and burn his throat. God, his eyes even prickled.
“Drew’s alive. I guarantee it,” Tessa declared.
“Rodriguez will use her as a bargaining chip. Her life for the drugs. He’ll know that I won’t let her die if I can help it.
My guess is he already knows all about you guys and Dane.
Once he got Cross’s name, the rest would have been easy to track down.
And we’re talking about the cartel. They have endless money and resources to find out anything they want.
He knows you guys will trade the drugs for Drew, no question. ”
“That’s a fact,” McGuire said. “But, we can’t go in blind.”
Tessa met his eyes. “Rodriguez is back in Miami. My guess? Drew’s there too. He’ll want the home turf advantage. And he’s got something to prove. The cartel will be majorly pissed by now. If Rodriguez doesn’t solve the issue soon, they’ll take him out, and he knows it. He’ll be desperate.”
Cross winced as he moved his arm. “We need a plan, and we need it fast.”
Savvy nodded. “I agree. I want to get my sister back in one piece so I can throttle her for getting involved in this mess.” She narrowed her eyes at Tessa. “You think your original plan might still work? How many people are on your team?”
“Three who would have the wherewithal to pull off being the mole.” Tessa hesitated. “The thing is… I think I have to tell my boss. He’s going to have to go along with this to make it work. I thought he would be fine with it originally, but since I did a runner, I’m not so sure.”
Cross picked up the sat phone that was on the bed beside him in case Drew or Rodriguez called. He extended it toward Tessa. “Convince him. Drew’s life depends on it.”