Ari couldn’t get a lock on Heath’s location, and my guess was his phone was off. I grabbed the stack of call records and scanned the list. Plenty of numbers I didn’t recognize. Burner phones. Throwaways. The kind that CIs would most likely use . . . or possibly cartel connections.

“Can you get any info on these two numbers he called regularly?”

Ari’s fingers flew over the keys. “I can try.”

Within minutes, she’d identified the point of purchase of the burner phones as a small town on the Texas-Mexico border.

Her jaw clenched. “I really don’t like this. Not at all.”

I leaned over her and rested my chin on her head. “I don’t either, Ari. But he wouldn’t be the first cop to make a bad decision and have it go a lot further than he thought.”

We both knew I was talking about my dad. Even now, I wondered what the hell he had to do with this.

Why would Heath drag out the investigation? There was one other possibility . . .

“Heath could have been keeping my dad from getting arrested so he didn’t talk. He had to know that if Dad got arrested, the cartel would assume he’d roll over, and then they’d take him out. Maybe your brother was protecting him by not closing the case.”

I wanted to believe it. It could make sense. Maybe this was Heath’s way of trying to protect a man he considered a second father.

Ari turned around, hope lighting her gray eyes. “I hope that’s true. I really, really hope it is.”

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

“Keep digging,” I told her. With a kiss to the top of her head, I stepped away. “I’m going to take this.”

“Okay.”

I fished my phone from my pocket to find it was my brother Rome calling. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Why the fuck am I seeing the name Hennessy coming up in cartel chatter? I just got off the phone with my computer geeks, and they said they caught a couple mentions of the family name. It sure as hell isn’t because of me this time.”

“What chatter?” I’d stayed out of Rome’s business before because I didn’t want to know what he was doing down in Central and South America, but if he could help me in any way now, I needed to know.

“We listen. We monitor. We gather intel. After walking into enough situations blind, we decided we had to step it up. Now we watch for key phrases and all identifiable names.”

“Got it. So, what the fuck was the chatter about?”

“You’re on the radar, and I want to know why.”

“We’ve got a situation here.”

Ari’s gaze searched my face as I turned around.

“Does it have something to do with Dad?” Rome asked.

“Maybe. We’re still piecing it together. But we do know that Carlos Alberto Moreno Herrera is involved somehow.”

Rome went quiet. “Do you have any clue who the fuck you’re dealing with? That family is way above your pay grade, brother.”

“I don’t have a pay grade anymore, brother.”

Rome made a sound of disgust. “You know what I mean. That family is bad news. Brutal. Ruthless. They’ll send you a friggin’ head in a box—”

“Yeah, got one of those this morning.”

Ari turned away, and I reached out to grasp her hand.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Rome shouted.

“I wish I were.”

“And you didn’t call me? You think you’re equipped to handle this shit by yourself?”

“Heath was supposed to be handling it. He was working with the Feds to take Carlos out. Now he’s in the wind, and two of Ari’s employees are dead.”

“Shit. They’ve upped their ante. Let me start working on my end to see if I can tell what’s going on. You need to lay low. I’m not ready to come home for another fucking funeral. Tell me everything you know, and I’ll get my people on it.”

I laid it out. Every detail we knew and suspected, from the beginning. When I was done, my brother was quiet for a long moment.

“This shit is fucked. My world makes a lot more sense, if you ask me. None of us pretend to be good. We’re all in it for the money, which is what I’m guessing both Sampson and Dad were in it for.”

“You don’t know that.” The protest was automatic, even though from what Mom said, he was right about Dad’s motives.

“You might be older than me, but that doesn’t make you smarter. You’ve always believed that everyone should have a code of honor like you. News flash—they don’t. Everyone’s in it for themselves. That’s how the world works. I’ll get back to you when I have something. Try not to get dead.”

My brother hung up before I could tell him to fuck off.

“Who was that?” Ari asked.

“Rome. Apparently, my little brother knows a hell of a lot more about the cartel than we do. He’s working on his end. Now we need Heath.”

Ari shook her head. “I can’t trace him. He’s gone. I don’t know what else to do.”

“What about Carlos?”

“Nothing. He hasn’t used the number I have for him since he called and texted me.”

“He has to have another. Or he just uses burner phones and swaps them out constantly.”

“I can locate those. The numbers that were on Heath’s phone records . . . if you think that maybe—”

“At this point, it’s worth a shot.”

I needed to get out there and find him. I didn’t want to leave Ari alone, but without anyone on the streets looking, we weren’t going to find Heath. Shit, even that was a long shot. With the heat this was drawing, I wasn’t about to ask anyone else to step into the line of fire.

My phone vibrated before I could figure it out.

Rome. Again.

“You forget something?”

“No, I’m just really fucking good. One of the G6s that’s part of the Herrera family fleet filed a flight plan with New Orleans as a destination. If I were you, I’d get my ass to Lakefront Airport and get this fucker as soon as he hits the tarmac.”

“I’m on it.”

I pulled the phone away from my ear to hang up, but Rome’s voice came through. “Make sure to bring the big guns. Guaranteed they’re coming in hot.”

“Done.”

I hung up, and Ari stood.

“What’s going on?”

“Your ex-boyfriend is on his way here.”