South Los Angeles
11:30 p.m.
Valentine had departed the Garrett’s lovely Victorian home in a historic neighborhood to come straight to an old deserted house that wasn’t worth the cost of the land under it. When Mia asked why, Mike D’Antoni explained the idea of safe houses.
“When Valentine said he’d made arrangements, he must’ve reached out to someone in his old playbook,” Mike said over the team’s com unit. “This could be where he makes his stand.”
Mia didn’t have to ask what that meant.
As she sat next to Faith in a sedan parked two blocks away, Mia grimaced with the pain of a worsening headache. She pressed fingers to her temple, but the pulsing ache had only gotten worse.
“Are you okay?” Faith reached out to her. When Mia felt her touch, a barrage of images blinded her as if Faith had lit a fuse.
“Oh, God. I can’t…see.” A surge of nausea hit Mia. She bent over and willed it to go away.
“Are you having a vision?” Faith knew before she did.
Mia could only nod her head and wait for what would come.
“Black Navigator turned onto the street.” The voice of Mark Halloran. “No headlights. That can’t be good.”
As Mark finished, another voice broke in.
“I’m showing two men approaching on foot from the rear.” Mike’s voice whispered. He’d staked out a spot in a stand of trees behind the safe house. “They aren’t taking any chances of getting him. I’m moving closer.”
“We have company, Mia.” Faith rubbed her back. “Tell me what you see. Don’t think. Just tell me.”
“Blood. Valentine’s blood,” Mia gasped. “What if he dies, Faith? Oh, God. Why did I insist on using him as bait? He could die here, without us getting any closer to the cartel. We have to do something. He can’t die because we did nothing.”
“Honey, that won’t happen. I promise you. Did you hear that, guys? We have to cover Valentine as if he’s one of us.”
“Copy that.”
“Faith, we can do something our guys can’t.” Mia gripped her friend’s hand. “It’s a long shot, but we need the Lotus Circle. If he’s a clairvoyant or a sensitive like his mother, we can warn him. We can let him know we mean him no harm and want to help bring down the cartel.”
“Do you think we can break through his defenses? You said he—”
“I know what I said.” She winced with the mounting agony in her head. “But I’m seeing a dead body, Faith. It could be him. Can I stop a premonition?”
When Faith didn’t answer, Mia stared out the windshield as the black SUV rolled toward Valentine’s safe house.
“He can’t die, Faith. Not like this.”
***
“Stay on Valentine, Mia. I’ll rally the circle,” Faith said. “We’ll boost whatever you do.”
The Psi women of Phoenix had never used the Lotus Circle like a battering ram to break into the mind of a powerful psychic like Valentine. They had enhanced Kat Culhane’s remote viewing gift before, but nothing of this magnitude.
For Mia to become the exposed tip of the spear frightened her.
As she embraced her own vision, Mia projected images to Faith, Kat, Aunt Vivi and other ‘sensitives’ she couldn’t name. She redirected and focused the amplified strength of the Lotus Circle the way a magnifying glass turned the sun into a pinpoint of fire. Instead of feeling alone and afraid of what she saw, Mia sensed the other women around her. Their minds and the power of their gifts shed light into her darkness.
Valentine’s eyes emerged from a murky fog, as if he saw her.
Mia gasped.
“Stay with him, Mia. No matter what you see or feel.” Faith spoke outside the circle from the seat next to her. The echo of her voice jarred Mia into a mental stumble, but she stuck with her vision.
One sound—the low rumble from a myriad of whispers—filled Mia’s head until she heard distinct voices. When she reached the pinnacle of their abundance, Mia redirected the force of their combined powers and became their voice.
Braxton Valentine. The cartel is outside the safe house. Two men on foot behind you. More in an SUV, but you’re not alone. Let us help you.
Sweat seeped from her pores and Mia’s breathing came in escalating pants. With her eyes closed, she gripped her armrest and held tight. Even with the force of the others, she didn’t feel strong enough to break through Valentine’s defenses. She only saw him from a distance, glimpses too far away to be certain she had reached him.
“I can’t do it.” Mia said to Faith. “He’s not letting me in.”
Before she heard anything from Faith, her vision of Valentine changed. He disappeared and left her in darkness. She didn’t sense a hard surface under her and she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. It was as if she only had a mind or a vague awareness that anchored her in isolation.
She couldn’t feel her body.
Even more frightening, she’d lost her link to the others in the Lotus Circle. Her connection had shattered, casting her into a sudden vacuum of silence that caused her ears to pop.
Had she…died? Was this how death felt?
Who are you?
Valentine’s voice filled her head. She remembered how he sounded from the train when he spoke to police.
I’m Mia. I want to help you.
I don’t need your help. If you try this again, I can hurt all of you. Don’t make me hurt you.
From a token of Kat’s remote viewing gift, Mia glimpsed Valentine inside the house and heard a noise coming from behind him. They’re here. She heard his voice one last time before he severed his ties to her.
I lost him. They’re inside the house.
Even as Mia projected those words to the Lotus Circle, she felt Valentine’s overwhelming isolation and the weight of his guilt over Raine’s death. She had only sensed the emotions he left in his wake when he broke off his link to her, but the experience had been profound.
Had she imagined it?
***
Valentine’s eyelids opened to the darkness. He broke off the strange connection he had with the woman from the church—Mia—the one he had seen at Raine’s funeral. If she had intended to help, she picked a lousy time to do it. He didn’t need the distraction, unless that had been her intention.
But something else had triggered his awareness like a harsh slap of primal instinct. Tires on gravel. A loose floorboard creaked. He wasn’t alone. He gripped his weapon and eased his body off the chair. He moved through the shadows, listening for anything out of place. His heart beat steady and slow, a skill he’d honed to remain calm and laser focused in the midst of danger.
Two armed men, using weapons with silencers, crept into the living room where the TV played low.
Valentine remained in the dark and came up behind them with his SIG P226 aimed.
“Looking for me.”
The stillness of the night erupted with the blasts coming from Valentine’s gun.
***
When Mia heard gunfire, she opened her eyes and gasped, unable to catch her breath. Her headache and nausea had returned. Faith sat beside her in the sedan, clutching her own chest as if she were in pain, too.
“What the hell just happened, Faith?”
“I don’t…k-know.” Her friend’s voice cracked.
“Gunfire…from inside the house. We’ve only got minutes before someone calls 911.” Mia heard the sound of her husband Dan’s voice over her ear piece.
She caught movement in the shadows near the house. Dan, Mike, and Mark were moving in to help Valentine—if it wasn’t too late.
Her worry over Brax took a backseat to the fear she had over losing Dan or one of her team. Shit just got real. Mia’s raw emotional state after a vision left her vulnerable to her worst terrors, intensified.
In her vision, someone died.
***
Muzzle flash blinded Valentine, but not before he pumped two into the armed gunman closest to him. As the man collapsed, his partner swung his weapon toward Brax and fired.
Valentine felt the burn of a bullet tearing through the skin of his belly, but he didn’t flinch. He pulled the trigger and put two rounds in the man’s head.
Brax flashed on Raine’s face and remembered how it felt to pick her up and hold her for the last time. He kept his emotions in check when he wanted to scream. Valentine fought the grief that threatened to choke him as he forced his legs to move.
After he turned one of the bodies over to check for ID, he noticed the dead man had a familiar scar on his face, a gash from his eyebrow down to his lip—the man who had tried to kill him with the van outside the church.
No IDs on the body, but the man with the scar had a cell phone on him. Brax stuffed the phone into his pocket. It could be his lifeline to find Mateo De La Cruz.
With his side burning and warm blood soaking his clothes, he headed back for his gear. The rest of the hit squad would be covering the exits. He had another way out, but he had no intention of leaving without sending Mateo a message with the bodies of his men.
No one would be left alive—and Mateo would be next.
***
After midnight
Mia and Faith waited until Dan declared the safe house as ‘cleared.’ They wouldn’t get much time to assess what happened. Police would be on the way if the gunfire had been reported. Mia crept toward the safe house, keeping her eyes on her husband, Dan, as he exited the back door and headed for the culvert.
“Don’t touch anything,” Dan called out to her. “You’re not wearing gloves like we are.”
He signaled for her and Faith to follow him. When Dan stopped near the edge of the ditch, she looked down and fought the urge to gasp.
Dan stood over two dead men.
Mia saw a pool of blood glistening like an oil slick under one of the bodies—the dead body she had seen in her vision. It hadn’t been Valentine after all. The bullet must’ve hit an artery. Mia looked away. She had enough nightmares and didn’t need one more.
Over the team’s com unit, Mark reported what he’d found at the front of the house.
“Dead body on the porch. Two to the heart. I’m heading inside. How many does that make?”
“Five by my count,” Dan answered.
“After he killed the men inside, how did he get out?” Faith asked. “The cartel had the place surrounded, didn’t they?”
Dan shifted his attention toward the house, but didn’t have an answer until Mike gestured.
“There.” Mike D’Antoni pointed to an opened second story window.
“He must’ve shimmied down that oak without them hearing or seeing him,” Mike said. “The guy’s a ghost. I didn’t see him until the muzzle flash when I heard him fire. Glad we hung back. Otherwise he might’ve mistaken us for the enemy. Good call, Dan.”
Dan knew it would’ve been tempting for Mike to race in to help a former CIA operative, but he’d cautioned his team to play it safe. Valentine was a man they needed to respect and give him distance to operate. They didn’t need him as an adversary.
“Valentine didn’t waste any bullets either,” Dan said. “Precision shooting.”
“He’s got skills,” Mike added.
Mark gestured from the back porch and called out to Mike and Dan.
“I found blood inside. It has to be Valentine’s. He’s been hit.”
Mia’s premonition where she sensed Valentine had shed blood had come true, but she wouldn’t get a chance to confirm by seeing it with her own eyes. When she heard police sirens, she knew they couldn’t stay. The LAPD would have questions they wouldn’t want to answer.
“Get pictures of these guys before we head out. Andy can ID them through his facial recognition databases.”
“Roger that,” Mark said.
When Dan gave the order, they headed back to their vehicles, but Mia couldn’t shake her mental encounter with Valentine. Something happened between them that she couldn’t explain.
Worse—she felt a deepening tether of him still inside. What the hell had he done to her?
***
South Los Angeles
2:00 a.m.
Valentine had followed the ravine behind the safe house for as long as he could before he climbed out of the culvert at the sound of traffic and the dregs of jazz music coming from a bar. A late night taco truck smelled of grilled onions and carne asada and his stomach gnashed with hunger, but he kept his head down and hustled for an alley across the street.
As he walked, he pictured Mia’s face, the woman who had tried to break down his mind barriers at the safe house with the help of others. He sensed she wanted to help, but he resented her interference. Brax didn’t need anyone’s help to kill Mateo De La Cruz. He only needed to be close enough to get the job done.
If the woman interfered again, he had the power to make her regret it, but not the will to do it.
Hiding in the shadows of the alley, he watched the drainage ditch until he knew no one had followed him. With his gear bag hoisted over his shoulder, he left the alley and stayed on the move.
Wincing with pain, he kept his chin down and his arm covered the blood that saturated his shirt. The bullet that had grazed his belly still bled. He needed a place to field dress his wound and grab a few hours of sleep. Many city blocks later he spotted a red flickering neon sign for a room vacancy.
Valentine reached into his pocket for cash and peeled off some bills as he entered the office to rent a room. He avoided the clerk’s eyes and didn’t answer his questions until he got a key. Cash had its privileges.
After Brax entered his motel room and locked the door, he placed his gun on the nightstand within reach and set his gear on the floor. From a pocket he pulled out a fresh burner phone and sat on the bed to dial Ian McBride’s number. He had to warn his partner.
It took only two rings for the phone to be answered, but no one spoke. Brax expected Ian to be cautious.
“It’s me. Get out now.” Brax struggled to slow his breathing. “They hit the safe house. They’ll be after you next. You’re not safe.”
Mateo De La Cruz would hit back by taking his revenge on innocent people, like the brutal way the man had killed Raine in front of him. Ian had a son. Valentine didn’t want to think of how it would devastate his partner to know his only son would be in the crosshairs of an infamous and cruel crime boss.
“Are you sure the shooters are connected to the op in Mexico?” Ian asked. “Maybe someone else—”
Ian clung to every hope that Brax had been mistaken.
“No. Trust me.” Brax ran fingers through his hair as sweat trickled down from his temple. “One shooter on the train had a cartel tattoo. These guys are from Mateo. You have to believe me. Do it for your kid.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m safe. I found a motel on Lincolnshire, but from here on, the less you know the better. Just get off grid, Ian. Now.”
Brax ended the call and slowed the heaving of his chest. He had to tend to his wound, hydrate, eat one of the power bars he’d brought, and rest.
He pulled the med kit he’d stashed in his BDUs and stood at the sink, cleaning the bloody gash from the bullet that had carved a trench in his belly. It burned like salt rubbed into a wound, but he staunched the bleeding and bandaged it up.
After he sucked down a bottle of water, he stretched out on the motel bed, but his mind wouldn’t let him rest. He went to the sink to splash water on his face, even though he desperately needed a few hours sleep.
Adrenaline and his instincts kept him wired and on his feet.
When Brax heard the ping of a text message, he reached for his burner phone, but the screen was clear. No message. When he realized the only other operational phone he had was the one he’d taken off the dead man at the safe house, he yanked it from his pants pocket and stared at the message.
He’s at a motel on Lincolnshire. End this
Valentine felt the brutal gut punch of betrayal. Only one person knew his location. Even though the message didn’t ID the sender, he knew it had to be Ian. His partner had sold him out to the cartel to save himself.
He stared at the message for what felt like an eternity before he texted a reply, pretending to be a dead man.
It’s done
Brax stared at the small screen and waited for an answer. After a ping, he read the words that confirmed what he feared.
OK
His partner had sent a cartel hit squad to kill him, first at the safe house and now the motel. ‘End this.’ He couldn’t get those two words from his mind. Brax couldn’t trust anyone now. As he stared down at the wedding band on his finger, the emptiness of his isolation and abject grief closed in on him.
Ian McBride had betrayed him.