Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
Enoch
Agent Tom Granger was the epitome of calm, cool and collected as I paced for the umpteenth time from the closed-curtained window to the door in the cramped hotel room.
Nine steps. The pacing was muscle memory at this point as my eyes never strayed from the computer screen set up on the desk.
It wasn’t showing anything new, just the team in a van, driving to location, but I knew that any moment now they’d be arriving.
And I would get my first glimpse at Shiloh.
At least that was the lie I was forcing myself to believe.
It'd been a whirlwind twenty-four hours since Bradley contacted the FBI, more specifically, the agent now in charge of investigating Los Siete. Apparently, the previous agent had been reassigned following the last disaster of a takedown, and Agent Tom Granger was leading the team that had been tracking Los Siete’s movements for the last three years.
A knock on the door had me freezing mid-step and I spun on my heel to find Agent Granger checking the peephole in the door before stepping back and opening it.
I let out a sigh, my feet already taking me toward the person standing in the doorway. Jae clapped his arms around my back with a thump and I felt a sense of calm I hadn’t felt in over a week.
“The guys breach yet?” he asked, pulling me back to look at me. I shook my head. “Cheese and fucking rice, you look like absolute shit. They haven’t been force feeding you Benadryl like I said, have they?”
I shook my head again and Jae pursed his lips unhappily. He pushed forward into the room, letting Agent Granger close the door.
“Hi,” he said greeting the rest of the room.
Dad, Bradley and Agent Granger gave Jae a nod of acknowledgement, and my eyes automatically landed back on the screen.
The agents were moving now, getting out of the vehicle.
It was dark, the camera wasn’t picking up much, but I thought I could make out some trees from one of the little squares on the screen.
“So, tell me again what happens next?” Jae asked.
I heard Agent Granger sigh. “The Hostage Rescue Team, HRT, just arrived at the property. They’ll cut the electricity, breach the property, detain anyone they come across, and search it top to bottom for the missing woman, your friend.”
“Family,” Jae corrected.
My stomach tensed as a radio communication went off in the room.
“In position. Blue team?”
“In position.”
I fisted my hands against my side, and Jae and my dad boxed me in, stopping me from pacing as we all vigilantly stared at the screen.
“I hope those free-lancing shits don’t fuck up this raid.”
“It’s not a raid,” Bradley scoffed. “It’s supposed to be a rescue mission.”
“Right, well, we’ll see what she says after we’re done talking.”
Rage simmered in my chest. I didn’t tear my eyes away as I ground out through clenched teeth, “She’s not saying shit to you.
I already told you greedy fucking bastards that she’s not going to testify for you again.
She doesn’t owe you anything this time around and if I find out that you tried to speak to her without me, there will be a problem here, Agent Granger. ”
Granger sighed again, and he wisely kept his mouth shut. I didn’t have the patience to restrain myself from lashing out, possibly with violence if he opened his mouth about it again.
Because Jae was right. I looked like shit, felt like shit, and was treating everyone like shit around me.
“Three.” My stomach tensed. “Two.” Jae grabbed my hand and squeezed. “One. Go, go, go!”
The movement was so fast and shaky that I couldn’t make out much, but then suddenly there was shouting and gunshots, and every grainy, black and white face I searched wasn’t hers.
“Christ,” Granger growled. “What the hell is he doing?”
My eyes bounced through the various camera angles on the screen, trying to find out what Granger was seeing that I wasn’t.
“Oh my God!” Granger said with awe, leaning closer to one of the computer screens. “We were ri—Fuck!” Granger threw his headset across the room and I jumped back to avoid his swinging arm. He picked up a radio.
“Who the fuck just killed Carlos Solis?!” He roared.
The radio response was white noise as I watched a man with his hands in the air get shot in the head.
The Blue Team, the guys we hired, were killing everyone on sight.
“STAND THE FUCK DOWN, BLUE TEAM!”
Carlos was alive? Carlos Solis was alive?
God, no. Please, no. If he was alive…did he…
I didn’t have a chance to finish that thought when my eyes landed on the body illuminated by a flashlight.
It was nausea inducing, even in the grainy pixelated video footage I was receiving. But even more still when the person standing in front of the HRT member stepped aside to reveal their face.
My knees nearly gave out, and my dad wrapped an arm around my waist to hold me up.
“Shiloh.” It was a silent plea. For her to be alive. For this to all be a nightmare.
My body leaned forward, as if getting closer to the screen would get me closer to the lifeless looking body of the only woman I’d ever loved.
Granger managed to calm down enough to magnify the small square tile so it was taking up the whole screen and unmuted the audio coming from the body cam the HRT member was wearing.
The flashlight switched to another body in the corner of the room, revealing a slumped female figure that didn’t look to be alive.
“Crow to all. I’ve got eyes on target.”
“Alive?” Granger asked via radio, the anger practically vibrating off of him.
Crow dropped to a kneel and his hand dug into the pulse point on her neck. “Alive. You seeing this?”
“Yes. Get her out and get the rest of your team gone. I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re playing at, but I swear to God if you’re still there by the time I reach the compound, I’ll put every single one of you in a cell in Guantanamo for the rest of your sorry lives.”
“Fuck me. Wilco.”
I watched Crow fiddle with what I realized was a chain around her ankle before he put his arms under Shiloh’s body, muttering something to her first. Granger was quick to mute the audio when Shiloh’s screams of agony rang through, but not fast enough to prevent my heart from breaking in two.
Granger swiped the computers off the table in a flash of rage.
Everything was a blur of people pushing me around the room, out the door and into a van. I knew we were going to meet them at the hospital, but I hadn’t prepared myself for the fact that Shiloh was going to be in the state that she was.
I thought I would have felt more relieved, but the tension hadn’t left my body since my eyes left sight of her on the screen. What had they done to her? Her back looked like someone had tried to dissect her skin and muscles from her bones.
I couldn’t help the guilt from resurfacing, but I tried to push it down, tried to focus on the now, on how much Shiloh needed me and how soon I’d be by her side and never leave it again.