3. August 20, 2024
Steel
He was bone-weary as he coded his entry into the apartment building that housed his crash pad.
The apartment was in a rough part of Los Angeles, but he’d chosen it on purpose.
He didn’t think anyone at Tribe knew about it, which had also been his intention.
Their handler might. She knew things no one else knew.
His team leader probably suspected he had a place, since their medic had one as well, but it was doubtful any of them knew where.
Normally, after a project, he would have gone back to his apartment at Tribe, but this trip had been their fourth trip in as many months, responding to intel on Ka-Bar’s location. Lately, they seemed to be chasing their tails regarding him, almost to the exclusion of all else.
Frustration on that front aside, he needed to be alone.
He needed to not see the women and happy families welcoming his teammates home from the long stint away.
He was truly thrilled for his friends. Things had changed so drastically for all of them in the last two years, and while there had been danger and heartbreak at times, his five teammates had all come out of their trials with strong women by their sides, and some of them now had instant families.
Waters, his team leader, had met an amazing woman nicknamed Kubrick, who was a Hollywood film director. Together, they had recently adopted twin six-year-old girls from Spain, Liliana and Catalina.
TB, their interrogator, had collared his submissive, a romance novelist they’d named Flame. Together, the couple had a baby boy who had just turned one, and they’d adopted a baby, a little Egyptian girl named Paris.
Nemo, a former teammate who now worked for an organization called Mythos, had reunited with a jewel thief from his past, a woman they called Gem, who also worked for the same group.
Demon, their medic, and Cherry, their handler, had finally come to their senses and committed to one another.
And Midas, their cyber-tech geek, along with a recent rescue victim, Mouse, had adopted Shakira and Ona, two Syrian sisters.
Tribe had gone from six reclusive, nothing-to-lose individuals who hunted down bad guys and rescued victims from all sorts of plots to five happily committed people who somehow managed to keep doing what they’d done for years before their other halves came into their lives… and him.
Steel was still alone. He’d always be alone. There was no happy ending coming for him. He had his and lost it.
Sunset rays streaming through the doors of the balcony.
Heavy sighs and moans. Whispered praise and commands.
Soft skin beneath his fingertips. A rabbiting pulse beneath his grip.
Wide eyes glazed with passion. Stars exploding when they came together, then the quiet intimacy of returning to reality.
He slumped against the elevator wall. Not the time to get caught up in memories.
Being boxed in wasn’t a safe place to lose his sense of who and what was around him.
Not only that, the elevator broke on a regular basis, so he normally didn’t trust the box, but tonight he’d been too exhausted to climb four flights of stairs.
After exiting the elevator and arriving at his door, he checked his handmade security features to make sure no one had disturbed them.
Mierda! He looked left, then right, then walked down the hall to the wall sconces on his left.
The hallway was far too bright, and he needed shadows to enter his apartment in case whoever had tripped his warning signals was still inside.
At each one, he reached inside and unscrewed the light bulb.
He did the same all the way down the right-hand side of the hall.
Only then did he open the apartment door, closing it quickly and quietly behind him.
Without turning on the lights, he silently put his bag on the floor, then slid his gun out of the holster at the back of his pants as he made his way into the living room.
When he arrived two steps out of the short hallway, he stopped, his gun aimed at the far wall. The scrape of a match was deafening in the silence. A flame flared to life, providing minimal sight to the man lighting a thin cigar. Steel didn’t lower his gun.
“Ildefanso.” The voice was raspy. Not friendly. But for right now, it was nonthreatening. The floor lamp turned on. “Is this any way to greet your tío?”
“I have no uncles. My family is dead to me.”
“About as dead to you as you are to them. For a long time, we believed you’d met your maker. Imagine our surprise when we found out you were still alive.”
“How did you know?”
The other man tsked his displeasure. “It matters not. The important thing is that we know, and we are not simply going to allow you to run around doing good deeds under the guise of this… Tribe Corporation. Enough is enough, Ildefanso. It is time to return home to your legacy, where you belong.”
How the hell did they know about Tribe? A reason tried to push forward in his brain, but he shoved it back. He couldn’t afford to be distracted right now.
“It’s not my legacy. I never wanted anything to do with that life. I made no secret of that.”
His Uncle Maico sighed, then sat down in the chair beside the floor lamp. “I’m not going anywhere, Ildefanso, so you’re either going to have to put up with me, or you’re going to have to shoot me.”
Steel popped the safety on his gun. “I don’t mind the latter.”
“Even if it’s in regard to Livia?” the intruder asked.
Steel put the safety back on and lowered his weapon, though he didn’t put it away. Inside, his stomach was twisting in on itself, but outside, he knew it wouldn’t show. “She’s dead. How could this possibly have anything to do with my mother?”
His unwanted visitor made a clucking sound with his tongue. “Sobrino, you may be able to lie to most of the world, but you could never lie to your family.”
“I told you. My family is dead.”
“You are very wrong. We are very much alive, and we very much want you to come home.”
“You are not my family. This is my home now.”
The older man tsked again. “Ildefanso, you must learn to leave the past in the past. Your father is getting old. He wants to see his son again before he dies. Do you understand just how long it has taken us to track you down?”
“Not long enough. I’m not going back. He’ll just have to be disappointed.”
Maico frowned. “Don’t make me do this the hard way, sobrino. I know where she is. I know who is with her. I do not want to use them against you.”
It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t know where they were.
“If their freedom won’t sway you, I have something else you want. Something you have been looking for.”
“There’s nothing you could possibly have that I want.”
“Even if it is your friend, Kent Leech? The one they call Ka-Bar?”
Steel sucked in a breath.
A boy crying. Gunfire. The boy’s tears cut off, then immediate silence. A woman screaming the boy’s name, then calling out his name.
“Where is he?”
“More concern for your friend than your madre? Interesting. Somehow, I think it’s more the surprise that I know his whereabouts than worry over the woman’s safety.”
Fuck this man. He owed him no explanation.
“You’re out of time, Ildefanso. Come home. If you don’t, your friend will never return home to his sister.”
His jaw ground down harder. He didn’t have a choice.
If his family knew where his mother was—correction, had been—he needed to move quickly.
The fact that they didn’t know Livia had been moved told him two things.
One, Cherry’d managed to get his mother out safely, and two, she wasn’t really that important to the equation.
They thought she could be used as leverage, but it was leverage they no longer had. Or at least, half of it.
What could his father want after all these years?
It wasn’t as if he’d worked for the man willingly when he was younger, so Hector couldn’t honestly believe he’d willingly work for him now.
The only reason he could think of was that his father wanted revenge for his leaving the family.
No one left the Colonel Cartel and lived.
Not even blood relatives, bastard blood or not.