Chapter one #3
It was like a switch had been flipped as Mike’s head simply stopped working.
On some level, he knew Roman was still shouting at him, and that Xander and Carter were tearing into the metal roll-up door with a vengeance.
But he wasn’t paying attention to any of that.
Instead, he was consumed with visions of a beautiful woman standing in the window of their home with an adorable baby in her arms... seconds before everything exploded.
He had no idea how long he stood there, but then a sudden movement on the catwalk caught his attention, and he looked up in time to see Roman glaring down at him.
“My flash drive for your son’s life,” Roman sneered.
Something inside Mike snapped at the words.
The audacity to even mention a son he’d barely gotten to know before he was taken away—because of Roman—broke Mike, and the assault rifle in his hands was coming up and into position, his right index finger tightening on the trigger before he even realized what he was doing.
But as the weapon went off, Roman moved. Not like he took a step or even dodged. One moment, he was standing there, and the next, he was ten feet further down the catwalk in a blur.
That was when Mike realized the odd chemical scent he’d picked up on earlier was coming from Roman.
By then, Xander and Carter had shredded the metal door separating him from them, and they both rushed into the room, their weapons and eyes sweeping the area, looking for whatever he’d been shooting at.
As they swung their weapons in Roman’s direction, the man moved again in another baffling blur. Then, in the blink of an eye, a door slammed open at the far end of the walkway, and Roman was gone.
“What the hell just happened?” Xander asked, his dark eyes tracking from the door swinging closed above them, and then down at the dead men on the floor. “Who was that guy on the walkway? Did he kill these people?”
“And did I hear him say he has your kid?” Carter asked. “I thought you said your fiancée and son had been killed when you were working undercover.”
Mike stared at his friends, not sure what to say.
“That’s what I thought, too,” he finally managed, still trying to come to grips with what Roman’s words implied. “Now, I’m not sure what to think.”
Xander and Carter looked like they had a ton of questions, but at that moment, Trey and Connor hurried into the room, followed by Wayne and his special operations crew, multiple paramedics, and a handful of extremely curious uniformed officers.
Before Mike could say anything, a paramedic ran over to check his injured shoulder.
Not wanting the woman to see that the fresh bullet laceration was already sealed up and well on its way to healing, he told her that he was fine and the blood on his uniform was someone else’s.
She eyed him doubtfully—along with everyone else—but didn’t push.
The moment she walked away, Mike filled everyone else in on what had happened.
Well, not the part about Roman being able to travel at the speed of light—or the mention of his son—but the rest of it.
Most of the younger officers in the room didn’t recognize Roman’s name, but Wayne knew exactly who he was talking about.
They were just discussing the possibility that Roman was the one running the new cartel trying to take over the city, when Wayne wandered over to the dead man who’d already been in the room when Mike had gotten there.
“This guy looks familiar,” Wayne said, dropping to one knee beside the body.
Curious, Mike joined him. Now that Wayne mentioned it, Mike had the feeling he’d seen the guy before, too. It was hard to know for sure with the bruises on the man’s face, though. Hopefully, the medical examiner’s office could get an ID on him.
Mike started to get to his feet when he spotted a tattoo under the man’s tattered shirt. He reached out to move the material away, revealing a huge tat of a winged horse covering the man’s chest. There was only one guy he knew with ink like that.
Crap.
“That’s Lawrence Stewart,” Mike said quietly as he got to his feet.
“He was a confidential informant for the Dallas PD and DEA for years. Still is, I think—or was, I guess. I haven’t seen him in a while.
” He looked at Wayne. “You might want to talk to someone at headquarters and let them know he’s been murdered.
If he was still a CI, one of their other operations might have been compromised. ”
Wayne’s face was grim as he let out a heavy sigh. “I’m on it.”
Fifteen minutes later, the CSI techs started processing the scene, and Mike had just finished giving his third recounting of what had happened in the warehouse during the raid, this time to a pair of detectives.
He wasn’t so sure his statement was very lucid, but in his defense, he had good reason to be rattled.
He took a deep breath, trying to organize his thoughts, hoping to get his head back on straight, when Xander walked back into the room, a mix of confusion and concern on his face.
“Um, there’s a woman standing outside the crime scene tape who insists she needs to talk to you,” Xander said.
Mike frowned. “Who is she?”
“She says she’s your fiancée.”