Chapter 24
Olivia
I had everyone on standby. Several officers from the precinct. Sheriff Barnes himself. I had my boss on a video conference call as I stood behind the S.W.A.T. vehicle that was poised and ready to go at the back entrance of the neighborhood. The second Colt had texted me with those details, two things flew through my mind. We were about to get this son of a bitch, and he really was someone I could trust.
But, I was nervous about him and his club hunkering down around the property.
Part of me smiled. Part of me felt good, having them there just in case things got dirty. But none of their protection had been sanctioned. Hell, I hadn’t even passed on the detail to the Sheriff. I told my boss about the deal I made with Colt. Their names as well as the names of the Blood Thugs stayed out of it so long as we got Diego. Aaron wasn’t happy. Again. But, if we got Diego alive and I brought him in, I figured my boss could overlook it. I kept my promise to Colt like he kept his promise to me, and then the two of us could…
Well, we’d figure it out.
Maybe.
Colt didn’t have a specific address, but it didn’t take us long to narrow down the house the meeting would be at. It was the rumored house the Blood Thugs met at. Owned by the head of the gang, who went only by the name of Rocker. I mean, the damn deed to the house was signed by Rocker. No last name. No birth date. It was the deed to a house that had obviously been passed down in a family. Places like Redding always loosened the restrictions on things like that when it came to passing property and its ownership down into a family.
And when we had the house pinpointed, we set up shop.
There was a concealed S.W.A.T. van at the back entrance to the neighborhood. There were two cops set to walk with dogs in regular clothes up and down the sidewalk. Dogs that were groomed to attack at a moment’s notice. We had surveillance set up and we were able to plant a few devices in the house itself once it cleared out during a nice little lunch hour.
After three hours, we were all set up.
Now, I had to get a message out to Colt without anyone seeing me.
If the Black Hornets snuck in now, they’d be seen. And it would be hard for me to save their asses if Sheriff Barnes or S.W.A.T. caught them. I was left alone in the surveillance van and I turned everything off long enough to get a text message out to him.
House is covered by us. Surveillance has been set. If you guys make a move, we’re gonna know. Be careful.
I knew that telling him not to come wouldn’t do any good. I knew men like him as well as his club didn’t listen well. Or at all, for that matter. So, the only thing I could do was warn him. Everything was shut down for a total of fifteen seconds so I could send the message, then I brought everything back up just before a couple of the officers made their way back into the van.
Then, it was time to wait.
All was quiet in the neighborhood. We saw some of the Blood Thugs coming and going. And it didn’t look as if they had spotted any of us. They all had red and yellow bandanas that were obviously their signature. Some hung out of the back pockets of the members’ jeans and others had them wrapped around their head. They were a Latino gang. And I figured that was why Diego had scoped them out. After all, heritage was a powerful motivator with stuff like this. Diego already had something in common with them simply because of what they all looked like.
My mind wafted back to the brief phone conversation I had with Colt after plans had first been laid to stake out the house.
“Colt, we’re bringing in everyone. The officers. The Sheriff. S.W.A.T. I can’t protect you if they find you guys on the ground,” I said.
“Trust me, you sorely underestimate us,” he said.
“I’m not sure I do. This is massive. There will be surveillance. Cameras. Officers walking up and down the block with dogs. You name it. If you guys make a move, we’re going to know.”
“And again, that’s fine. You made me a promise that our names would stay out of it.”
“But, that doesn’t give you the right to do something stupid,” I whispered harshly.
“We will hang back unless something goes wrong. And I’ve seen shit go very wrong with stuff like this. If things go wrong, we’ll be poised to take Diego out.”
“No, Colt. No. Absolutely not. I forbid it,” I said. “We need him alive.”
“And we are trying to make that happen. But if he gets away, we are finishing this. I let you play your hand, and now you have to let us play ours.”
I bit down onto the inside of my cheek as I leaned back into my office chair.
“Why the hell is there so much hatred for this Diego guy from your club?” I asked.
The silence on the phone was deafening, and for a second, I thought he had hung up.
“If I tell you, you have to promise me you won’t try to stop us,” Colt said.
I heard the pain in his voice. The anger. The frustration.
“I promise,” I said.
“There are people that have forcefully been involved with the cartel that have become family to our club. Jace’s girl, Leti? She was forced to run drugs for them over the border. She came to us for help, in the hopes that she could save the life of her brother they were holding over her head. Only, when we confronted Sebastian, her handler? We figured out her brother had been killed months ago.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
“And Maverick’s girl? Gabby? She was groomed to do undercover work for the cartel. Tried to infiltrate us before the two of them sparked something. We tried to get her out of the life, and in exchange she fed us information we needed to help in our endeavor to protect her. Only, her father spun out of control, taped up her sisters, stuffed them in rooms, and held her mother at gunpoint. All in an effort to get Gabby to cough up the intel she had on us.”
“Let me guess. Her father worked for the cartel.”
“Her father is the man that controls the West Coast’s end of this shit show bargain,” he said.
“Wait, her father is Alejandro?” I asked.
“So, you’ve heard of him.”
“The station has a few notes on him, yes.”
“Well, guess who both of those assholes always talk to?” he asked.
That one conversation after finally establishing trust was why I wasn’t stopping them from coming in. Hunkering down. From positioning themselves to take out that son of a bitch. The Black Hornets lived by a code. Harm no woman and no child in the process. They took on clients. Actual clients. Protected them and used their skills in order to make sure things came out well on the other end. It was a gray area, yes. But one that never stepped into the realm of darkness.
I admired something like that. My father was part of something like that.
I understood now why the club was so invested. I now understood why they wanted Diego gone. Or, at the very least, off the streets. My only hope was that we could arrest him and haul him in for questioning before their trigger fingers got itchy.
Because however good Colt thought his club was, I knew the army of men I had ready to come down on this house was much better.
Night began to fall and I actively kept an eye out in the shadows. Looking for any sign of movement. Any sign of the guys. I kept checking in with the S.W.A.T. van at the entrance of the neighborhood. I kept radioing the Sheriff, who was posted at the main entrance of the neighborhood. One hour before the meeting. Thirty minutes. Fifteen. Five.
And still, none of us had detected any sort of movement that would have signaled to us that someone else was there.
“Uncanny,” I whispered.
“What was that?” an officer asked.
“I said, ‘where are they?’.”
“Well, hopefully this car pulling up is them,” he said.
I took a look at the television screens coming to life in the surveillance van. I sat there with a headphone held to my ear and my eyes trained on the screen. Three bodyguards, armed to the nines, slipped out of the car. And then, Diego emerged. I had to bury my laughter. The snicker that I felt bubbling up the back of my throat. For all this preparation work, he was the scrawniest, smallest little man I’d ever seen in my life. Tattoos up and down his arms to try and prove how tough he was. A grill in his mouth that boasted of diamonds and real gold.
The man looked like an idiot.
“Didn’t realize we were arresting a small child today,” the officer said.
I buried my giggle and shook my head.
“You’re bad,” I said.
“You know you were thinking it, Agent Banks.”
“What’s your name, officer?” I asked.
“People call me Rudy.”
“Well, Rudy. Try to keep your jokes to yourself. If we laugh, we might miss something,” I said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I leaned into his side. “But it was a great joke.”
He smiled at me, and then the two of us went back to listening. Watching. Recording. We heard Diego rattle off something in Spanish before clapping hands with who we figured was Rocker. And it was almost too good that the man named Rocker was sitting in a fucking rocking chair. I couldn’t contain myself. I put my hand over my mouth and tried to suppress my laughing. Rudy kicked up beside me and the two of us tried to suppress our giggles, but the more we tried, the more we failed. Tears welled in our eyes as we took deep breaths. The entire thing was the most ridiculous display of dominance I’d ever seen in my life.
Then, Diego said the magic words.
“I’ve come to offer you a deal, Rocker. One that will make you and your Blood Thugs very rich.”
“Stay alert,” I murmured.
“Recording is still going,” Rudy said.
“I’ve heard word on the street about you. I’m interested in hearing what you want,” Rocker said.
“Good. Because it’s very simple. I have product that needs peddling, and you are in a neighborhood of interest. I supply the product, I take sixty percent of the cut, and the rest you get to keep for yourselves,” Diego said.
“You get forty percent,” Rocker said.
“This isn’t a negotiation,” Diego said.
“It’s become one now. Your cut is forty percent, and we’ll come get the product from you. Consider it a fee for convenience,” Rocker said.
“Come on. Come on. Pull the gun. Do it,” I whispered.
And of course, Diego’s weapon went flying straight into Rocker’s face.
“Please tell me you’re getting this,” I said.
“Every single bit of it,” Rudy said.
“Sixty percent, and we supply the product. If you don’t like the deal, I think I have a bullet in the chamber that would rest easily against your skull,” Diego said.
Rocker held up his hands. “Fine. It’s a deal. But, my men expect to start working now. You got some product with you?”
“I do. It’s in the trunk of my car. Why don’t you go get it and bring it in for me?” Diego asked.
“Men are such idiots,” I murmured.
“S.W.A.T. team in place?” Rudy asked.
“Copy that,” Sheriff Barnes said.
“Rocker’s about to leave the house. That’ll leave only Diego and his goons in the house,” Rudy said.
“What a great chain of events. When Rocker’s clear, have S.W.A.T. descend onto the house,” Sheriff Barnes said.
“You get all that, Captain?” I asked.
“We go on your command, Agent Banks,” the S.W.A.T. captain said.
We watched the house like a hawk. Diego led Rocker to the front door with his gun, and we watched Rocker emerge onto the porch. Diego stood there at the door, with his goons looming behind him. We watched the trunk of the car pop open. We waited until Rocker was bent over in the trunk.
“Go, Captain! Go!” I exclaimed.
In that moment, all hell broke loose. The S.W.A.T. team raced the porch, pushing Diego back into the house. I heard them yelling and calling out commands as I hopped out of the van. I kept my eyes peeled for the guys. For any sign of movement that let me know they were there and about to do something stupid. But as the night grew thicker, it became harder for me to see through the shadows of the neighborhood.
“Get behind me!” Sheriff Barnes exclaimed.
He pulled Rocker out of the trunk and tossed him behind the car as the sheriff hunkered down. He aimed his weapon at the front door and all of us took our stances. Ready to pepper the house with bullets if things got rough. I watched S.W.A.T. tussle around for a little while. My heart slammed against my chest as I kept my weapon drawn and my eyes peeled. I could have sworn I saw some sort of movement on the roof, but I forced myself to keep my eyes forward.
If that was the Black Hornets, I didn’t want to give away that someone was there.
In the end, there were no gunshots. No blood was shed and no lives were lost. We had them completely outnumbered. Diego came out in handcuffs, pushed around by the S.W.A.T. Captain as the rest of his men fussed with the goons that were tied up with zip ties. I holstered my gun and walked up to Diego. Our eyes met as I took him from the S.W.A.T. Captain and hauled him over to the sheriff’s car.
“This isn’t over, gringa,” Diego hissed.
“Save it for someone who cares,” I said as I opened the door.
He bucked against me, his head attempting to slam into my nose. I wrapped my arm around his neck and bent him down to the ground, flexing around his windpipe. I heard him gasping. I felt everyone’s eyes on me. If I had to choke the life out of this fucker myself just to get him in the backseat of that cruiser, I would.
“I know who your father was,” he choked out.
My eyes narrowed as I squeezed his neck harder.
“And I know you’ve been hanging with a Black Hornet,” he wheezed.
My heart slammed against my chest. Diego finally buckled to his knees and I let go of his throat. I fisted his shirt and picked up the scrawny little thing he was, then tossed him into the cruiser like a trash bag. I slammed the door and heard it lock automatically, then turned around and looked at all of the men staring at me. There were grins on their faces. A couple of them clapped. I shook my head and looked over at the three goons being forced into the backend of the concealed S.W.A.T. van.
But, in the back of my mind, I panicked.
How the hell did Diego know all of that stuff about me? Where the hell had he been getting his information?
No one knew who my father was. I had made sure of it. As soon as he went to prison I changed my last name to my grandmother’s maiden name. To put as much separation between me and my father as possible, so no one could claim I had biases.
A slight knot of fear gripped my stomach as I headed back to the surveillance van.
What else did Diego know?