Chapter Seventeen

 

 

Rowan Stewart paused a moment to tug on the bottom of her suit blazer and smooth her hands down the front of her matching pencil skirt before knocking on the closed office door. Malcolm might be here. His text early this morning had come as a complete shock.

Something important has come up at work. Can you make an early meeting at HQ this morning?

It was the first time she’d heard from him in almost a year, since the day she’d put an end to their budding relationship.

Doing that had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done, and seeing him again wouldn’t be much easier, no matter what he might think to the contrary. She’d hated hurting him, but there’d been no other option. Better to end things early on than later, when it would have been even more painful. Hopefully by now he could admit that they were just too different to make a relationship possible.

A tall, well-muscled man with a strawberry-blond buzz cut and an intense aquamarine gaze opened the door. “Ms. Stewart?” He radiated an authority she instantly recognized as former military.

“Yes.”

His expression warmed slightly. “I’m Commander Jared Taggart,” he said, offering his hand. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

She shook with him. His hand was huge, his grip firm, but not overbearing. Handshakes, eye contact and body language told her so much about a person. This man was tough, but not a bully. She was more than familiar with the latter. “My pleasure. Nice to meet you.”

“You as well. Come on in.”

She stepped inside, her heart jolting when her gaze landed on Malcolm, seated in a chair opposite his commander’s desk. He was every bit as fit as he’d been the last time she’d seen him, wearing cargo pants and a black T-shirt that molded to his muscular torso.

He was pure, latent power curled up deceptively in that chair, like a resting panther. A few days’ worth of black scruff covered his jaw, cheeks and upper lip, accentuating his luscious mouth. His skin was a beautiful deep brown, his eyes a few shades darker, like melted dark chocolate. They pinned her in place for a moment, unreadable, the penetrating intensity of them making her stomach flutter.

No fluttering. You’re an Assistant U.S. Attorney, for Christ’s sake, and you’re here in an official capacity. Get it together. “Malcolm,” she said politely, giving him a nod that was a little stiff because her neck muscles were so tense.

“Rowan.” His deep, dark voice slid over her like rich, molten chocolate over ice cream. Not good for her, but tempting as hell. Exactly like the man.

Trying her best to pretend he had no effect on her, she took the chair next to his and faced Taggart as he seated himself behind his desk. “So the woman in question is here somewhere?” she asked.

“She’s in the boardroom right now with her attorney and some other agents. She’s refused to talk anymore to us about her situation without someone from your office being present.”

“And what does she want from me?”

“To find out what deal the government can offer her.” He leaned forward, resting his thick forearms on the surface of the desk, the muscles in his shoulders and chest bunching with the movement. “She showed up this morning with her lawyer right as the building opened and marched in here demanding to see me. Says she’s got intel we need about the Veneno cartel. This is off the record, but one of my guys is in Maui and we just learned last night that the cartel has reissued a bounty on his head. They’re looking for him there, already gunned down his cousin, and took shots at my agent. If this woman knows anything about the current situation or insider information about the cartel, I need to know it fast. You get what I’m saying?”

“Yes. Can I see her now?”

Taggart shared a look with Malcolm for a moment, then nodded. “Right this way.”

She followed him down the hall and up an elevator to the top floor, where the conference room was located. With every step she was conscious of Malcolm behind her, a silent, magnetic presence that was impossible to ignore. Was he still angry with her for breaking things off? Surely now he could see she’d done them both a favor by ending things when she had.

At the conference room, two middle-aged male agents stood flanking the door. “She won’t talk,” one of them said to Taggart. “Hopefully you can get something out of her.”

“We’ll take it from here.” Taggart pushed open the door for her.

A slender woman somewhere in her mid or late-twenties sat at one end of the long table, dressed in jeans and an expensive-looking top, her long, chocolate-brown curls drawn back from her face in a sophisticated knot. Her makeup was classy and flawless, and Rowan noted the trademark red soles on her stilettos. Louboutins.

Whoever this woman was, she was polished and had money. Her middle-aged male attorney sat beside her, dressed in a business suit.

Rowan walked up to them with a professional smile in place. “I’m Rowan Stewart, with the U.S. Attorney’s office.”

They shook her hand, the woman’s gaze darting suspiciously to Taggart and Freeman, who stood behind Rowan. “Hi.” She didn’t offer her name.

Rowan sat two chairs down from her while Taggart and Freeman sat on the opposite side of the table. “How can I help you, Miss…”

“My client needs protection,” the lawyer said.

She focused on him. “Protection from what?”

The lawyer nodded at the woman, who then answered. “From people within the Veneno cartel. You give me and my mother protection, and I’ll tell you everything I know.” Her English was flawless, but spoken with a marked Spanish accent.

“Your mother?”

The woman nodded, swung her gaze to Taggart. “Can you do that?”

“Are you talking WITSEC?”

“I don’t…I’m not sure.” She glanced at her lawyer uncertainly.

“That’s handled by the U.S. Marshal Service, not us. And whether or not they’d be willing to take you into the program will depend on who you are and whether you have anything useful to give us. So who are you?”

She set her jaw, her blue-gray eyes flashing with annoyance. “I’m Oceane Nieto.”

Stunned silence met her words.

Surprised, Rowan glanced at Taggart and Malcolm for some guidance. The name meant something to them, because they were both staring at Oceane intently now.

“As in, Manny Nieto?” Taggart said.

Rowan didn’t know that name either, but clearly something big was going on here.

Oceane’s chin came up, quiet defiance written on her face. “He’s my father.”

Taggart sat back, never breaking eye contact with her. “Why are you here?”

“I told you, I need—”

“Why would you need protection if Manny’s your father?”

She lowered her gaze, swallowed. “Because it’s not safe for us at home now. It’s not safe for us anywhere.”

Taggart stared at her. “Is that right.”

A flash of anger crossed her face. “Would I have fled to the States, risked coming here to your headquarters otherwise? Given who my father is?”

Taggart crossed his arms over his chest, his expression hard. “Keep talking.”

Oceane flicked a glance at Rowan before facing him again. “He can’t protect us now.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I…” She cleared her throat, drew a deep breath. “I was unaware of the full extent of my father’s true business until a week ago.”

Taggart’s expression said he didn’t believe a single word of that. “Uh huh.”

“I didn’t,” she insisted. “My parents made sure to keep me removed from all of that my whole life. I lived with my mother near Veracruz, rarely even saw my father. As far as I knew he was a businessman involved with a few shady dealings, but never anything on this scale. Never with that kind of violent criminal association.” She shifted in her seat, swallowed. “Then last week, everything changed. My mother came to me in the middle of the night, terrified. Your agency arrested someone within the…organization a few weeks ago, a lieutenant named—”

“Ruiz,” Taggart said.

“Yes. It created a power vacuum, and my family was sucked into it. I didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. Our personal security barely got us out of our house alive. A rival member attacked. There were…” She swallowed, drew in a breath. “People were killed. My mother finally told me everything while we were on the run, and we decided to escape here.”

“So your father doesn’t know where you are?”

“He will by now. We flew to Dallas and then connected here to Virginia late last night.” She looked at Rowan. “I found a lawyer and came here to ask for your help.”

“As Commander Taggart said, that will depend on a number of things,” Rowan told her.

“Wait,” Malcolm said, bringing everyone’s eyes to him. He stared at Oceane, his expression full of suspicion. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“You’re twenty-four, and yet you claim to know nothing about his involvement with the cartel your whole life?”

Oceane huffed out an irritated breath, her cheeks flushing. “I realize how that must sound to you, but it’s the truth. I’d heard stories when I was younger. Then rumors, back when I was at college. But I never believed them. Never believed my father was capable of those things. Not the man I knew. My father is…he’s a complicated man, and so was our relationship. I never lived with him. I didn’t see him much or spend a lot of time with him over the years because he was always traveling.”

“You mean living with his wife and moving around from place to place to avoid any assassination attempts,” Taggart put in.

She dropped her gaze again. “Most likely.” She seemed to gather her strength a moment, then raised her chin and squared her shoulders, meeting Taggart’s gaze head on, and Rowan had to give her points, because his stare was intimidating as hell. “In light of everything that’s happened, I can’t go home, and I can no longer afford to be ignorant. My mother and I have no involvement with my father’s business. We want to start a new life away from all of that. So I’m willing to give you whatever information I have in exchange for protection.”

Rowan glanced at Taggart in astonishment. That was a hell of an offer, tossed right in their laps. Oceane seemed really damn naïve for someone in her mid-twenties. Did she realize what she was doing? Her so-called lawyer had been useless so far.

Taggart studied Oceane in silence for a long moment, then sat up straight. “You got any ID on you, Miss Nieto? Passport? Driver’s license?”

She flushed, shook her head. “Not legal ones,” she admitted.

“Figured not,” he murmured, his tone dripping sarcasm. “This meeting is over until I can verify who you are.”

Oceane’s brave front faltered. A sheen of tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back and answered. “Go ahead and check.”

“Oh, I will,” he said, getting to his feet and pulling out his phone. “I’m going outside to make a call,” he said to Malcolm. “Keep her in that chair and don’t let her out of your sight until I get back.”

 

****

 

For over thirty minutes Malcolm stayed silent in his seat, listening carefully as Rowan talked with Ms. Nieto and her lawyer.

This was crazy.

He wasn’t sure how much of her story he could swallow. Her body language and reactions rang true enough. But Manny Nieto’s daughter fleeing a life of luxury in Mexico and running straight to DEA headquarters for protection? And willing to give them insider info against her father in exchange for it?

Excuse him if he was skeptical.

As for Rowan, she was cool and sophisticated as ever in that tailored skirt suit that hugged every line of her trim curves, her silky black hair pulled up into an elegant twist. It was hard as hell to sit here across from her and ignore his awareness of her. He thought he’d shut all his feelings off for her a long time ago, but apparently not. The sight of her still made him ache deep inside, yet she’d barely reacted at all when she’d walked into Taggart’s office and seen him sitting there.

It drove him crazy to think she’d just moved on and gotten over him so fast when he couldn’t do the same with her. Did she ever think about him now? Did she ever regret walking away? Wish she’d given them more of a chance?

The conference room door opened. They all looked over as Taggart strode back into the room.

The team commander took the seat beside Mal and faced Rowan. “So what have I missed?”

Rowan set her pen down and faced him with the cool professionalism that had been drilled into her since she was a little girl. “I’ve advised Ms. Nieto about the legal ramifications regarding her situation,” she said in her southern belle Georgia accent. “She would like protection in exchange for information, but is still undecided about whether WITSEC is a good choice for her and her mother.” She looked at Ms. Nieto for clarification.

“I don’t want to be separated from my mother,” the woman said. “We’re really close and she needs me more than ever. I’ve left her in a secure location with our private security members who we know are loyal to us. I don’t trust anyone else.”

Well then WITSEC wasn’t going to be an option, was it? Malcolm felt obligated to educate her a little. “Given who you are, and what you’re proposing, WITSEC is the only way you would both be protected.”

Those blue-gray eyes flashed to his. “I can’t be separated from my mother.”

“If you want to be safe, then you’ll have to be.” Sorry, but there it was.

Taggart folded his arms. “But all that aside,” he said to the woman, “you’re willing to give us intel on your father and his inner circle, in exchange for asylum and protection for you and your mother. Have I got that right?”

She swallowed hard. “Y-yes.” She whispered it and lowered her gaze, almost as if she was ashamed. Or possibly scared. Mal didn’t blame her if it was the latter. The Venenos had a reputation for carrying out hideous killings on those who crossed them.

“Why?” Taggart pressed.

She lifted her gaze from the table to meet his. “Because I love my mother, and I want her to be safe. And because if all the things I’ve heard about my father are true, then…” She drew a deep breath. “Then I want to stop him from doing any more.”

Mal barely kept from raising his eyebrows in surprise. That was noble of her, but a hell of a risk to take considering what she was offering.

“You think your father will just let the two of you go?” Taggart asked.

At that, she paled. “He might have done or ordered terrible things, but he would never harm us.” She sounded certain of that. “His rivals would, though. They’d use us to get to him in an instant.”

Taggart looked unconvinced. “You don’t think he’d come after you even if you were helping us target him?”

She didn’t respond to that. Taggart opened his mouth to say something else, but his phone rang. He checked the screen and stood. “She’s here.”

“Who?” Mal asked.

“Insider source.” He crossed the room. The door opened just before he got there.

Hamilton walked in, held the door and looked over his shoulder at someone. A woman with jaw-length dark brown hair stepped inside the room and stopped, her wary gaze surveying the room.

It took Mal a few moments to realize who it was.

The change in her was startling, but then, the last time he’d seen her she’d been huddled beneath a blanket in the back of an ambulance when they’d raided Ruiz’s hideout near Biloxi. She wore a scarf wrapped around her neck, even though it was humid and in the low eighties outside. Probably to hide the scarring where the slave collar they’d locked around her throat had dug into her skin.

Her anxious gaze flicked to Hamilton and stopped. The moment it did, her vigilant posture relaxed, and she walked over to stand at his side.

“This is Victoria Gomez,” Hamilton announced as he took her elbow, standing like a sentinel beside her. His gaze zeroed in on Ms. Nieto at the far end of the table.

Victoria stared at the other woman with an almost hostile intensity, her body eerily still.

“Do you recognize her?” Hamilton asked her in low voice.

Victoria nodded, never looking away from her. “Oceane. Manny Nieto’s illegitimate daughter.”

Mal’s gaze shot to Ms. Nieto in the tense pause that followed the verbal bombshell. Her cheeks flushed, and she seemed to bristle at the illegitimate tag. “My parents never married,” she allowed, eyes narrowed. “But I am his daughter. His only child.” She said it with an almost defiant pride, as if it should carry some sort of weight with everyone in the room.

Obviously, she had no fucking clue who she was talking to. Mal mentally shook his head at her.

Victoria’s laugh was bitter. “Aren’t you a lucky girl.”

Ms. Nieto’s bravado faded. She shifted her gaze to Hamilton for a moment, then back to Victoria. “Do I…know you?”

Victoria’s dark gaze was icy. “No. But I know all about you. And I’ve seen pictures of you.”

Mal watched Ms. Nieto carefully as she frowned and glanced at Taggart. She seemed truly bewildered.

“Ms. Gomez was taken hostage by Ruiz’s men and held captive for several weeks. While there she had the misfortune of becoming well acquainted with them and your father’s men, against her will.”

At those damning words, shock and horror filled her face. Mal was pretty damn good at reading people. Her reaction was either real, or she was the best damn actor he’d seen.

Her gaze swung back to Victoria, stricken, her face pale. “I’m sorry. Truly.”

Victoria stared at her for another long moment, then looked away, dismissing her. “What else can I help you with?” she asked Taggart, her voice surprisingly strong. The woman might appear fragile and have wounded doe eyes, but there was a backbone of steel inside her. One that the Venenos would regret ever fucking with.

“Ruiz’s capture caused a predictable power struggle within the cartel,” Taggart answered. “Our sources are saying that Nieto’s taken his place as lieutenant. El Escorpion’s apparently given his blessing. We’re trying to find out who Nieto’s main players are. His most trusted insiders. One of them’s reinstated a bounty on one of our team members, over in Maui. The threat is serious. Somebody killed our agent’s cousin last night in front of him. We can’t be certain he wasn’t the intended target. Any names come to mind?”

Victoria thought about it for a second, then started listing off names. She’d been prisoner to those animals for several weeks, chained to the floor in a rotting shed out back of the property while they used and tortured her.

Mal didn’t know the details of what they’d done to her during that time, but he could guess well enough, and judging from the physical damage she’d sustained, none of it was pretty. Her captors had intended to sell her into a human trafficking ring in southeast Asia, never thinking she would escape.

Except she had. And now every single thing they’d talked about so carelessly in front of their “slave” would come back to haunt them.

Sometimes—but not often enough—karma was a fucking awesome thing to behold.

He wrote each name down as she listed them, compiling a list to begin checking the moment he got out of this meeting. He was anxious to move on this, find out anything that might help out Maka. And the sooner he left the room, the sooner he wouldn’t have to look at Rowan and be reminded of all he couldn’t have.

“But I’ll bet the guy you’re looking for is Juan Montoya,” Victoria finished, her voice ringing with hatred. “He runs most of Nieto’s crew.”

Ms. Nieto gasped.

Mal jerked his gaze to her.

She was even paler now, eyes full of horror. “That’s…that’s my father’s best friend,” she said in a shaky voice. “He’s my godfather.”

“Well he’s also one of our top ten most wanted North American cartel members,” Taggart muttered, before turning to Mal. “Bring that list to my office. We need to call Maka right away and bring him up to speed on all this.”