Mastiff Security Offices

Los Angeles, California

 

Andres put his hand through the wall in the men’s restroom, a guttural scream escaping his lips as the pain soothed—slightly—the emotional wreckage that was burning through his chest. If Isaac had been standing in front of him in that moment, he might have torn him apart, limb by limb, with his bare hands.

What had they given Alyssa? Was she going to be okay?

And Gray…there were worse things they could do to her than kill her. He knew what Isaac allowed his men to do with the relatives of people who’d crossed him. He’d listened to so many stories in the month he ran with that gang, he could almost picture it in his mind’s eye. Twelve hours was a long damn time for her to be alone with those monsters!

How the hell had Isaac found out he was behind Tommy Klein’s kidnapping? They’d been careful. He was at the club to prove to the gang that he wasn’t conspiring behind their backs, his disappearance carefully explained to Lobo hours before anything happened. How did Isaac learn his real name? How did he track him down? How did he find Gray and Alyssa at her mother’s house?

Something told him the answer to those questions was closer than he thought. But his mind was a racing pile of shit right now. All he could think about was Gray being violated by those greasy, smelly, slimy…

“Do you know this guy?” Wren demanded the moment Andres walked back into her office, holding up a print of some guy’s mug shot.

“Never seen him before.”

“This is Matteo Perez. He’s a cousin of Isaac’s.”

Andres shook his head. “I don’t know him.”

“He was at the barbeque at my father’s last week,” Robert told him. “Dad thought he and Gray would hit it off.”

Andres’ eyes narrowed. “The cousin of a drug dealer?”

“My father didn’t know that. He thought his name was Matt Peters.”

“Turns out that Matteo Perez got tired of the family business the last time he was arrested and became an informant for the DEA.” Wren tilted her head slightly, reading something on her computer monitor. “He’s slated to testify against one of Varrio Nuevo Estrada’s top lieutenants in a month’s time.”

“If Isaac knew that, he’d have the kid killed.”

Both Wren and Robert nodded in agreement.

“What does any of that have to do with Gray?”

“I think maybe she told him you were working with the Varrio,” Wren said. “And maybe he told someone in the organization. That has to be how they put it all together and figured out who you were.”

“But why would he give Isaac information if he’s slated to betray him in court?”

Wren shrugged.

“Maybe he’s trying to keep Isaac and the others off the scent until after the case is over,” Robert suggested.

“Or his handler was after someone bigger. Maybe they put him up to it.”

“Who’s handling it?”

Wren punched a bunch of keys on her keyboard, studying the screen again for a long few seconds before she read off the name: “Theo Fuller.”

The name wasn’t familiar to Andres. None of it made a lot of sense to him. “Maybe it’s all just one big coincidence,” he said, thinking out loud.

“Seems too perfect to be coincidence,” Wren said.

“We need to figure out how we’re going to get Gray and Alyssa back.”

Wren looked up, caught by the demand in Andres’ voice. “Of course,” she said, rising and moving around the desk. “I’ve already called the guys in. And Stevie Wayne.” She touched Andres’ arm at the flinch that crossed his face. “I know you don’t trust her, but she’s the only operative we have at the moment who is even close to Tommy’s height and weight.”

“You want her to be a decoy?”

“Can you think of a better idea?”

He couldn’t, to be honest. It was actually a brilliant idea.

 

***

 

“We have Tommy,” Andres said into the phone.

“Great,” was Isaac’s response. “We’ll meet in an hour. The same place where you took him from me.”

The phone went dead.

Andres looked at Wren. “Can we be ready in an hour?”

“I guess we’d better be.”

They’d already suspected the club would be the exchange location. Isaac was a creature of habit, and he liked to conduct all business on his own territory to keep interference from other gangs to a minimum. And, despite his power on the street, his territory was fairly small. The club was really the best place for this sort of thing because Isaac had no doubt he could defend it against just about anything they brought to him.

He hadn’t been prepared when they took Tommy. He’d be prepared now.

A dozen operatives were stationed in strategic locations all around the club, each heavily armed and prepared to do whatever it took to get the hostages back alive. They’d all been informed as to the identity of the hostages and had expressed a desire to treat the situation like it was their own family in the line of fire. Andres was grateful for that, but knew that this was going to come down to his own performance and that of Stevie Wayne, the Tommy decoy. She’d have to play the role to perfection or Isaac would figure them out and have his men dispose of Gray and Alyssa before he even set eyes on them.

He was not going to let that happen.

Andres was reassembling his handgun after cleaning it in preparation for this operation. Robert stood off to one side, pacing the length of the room as he ran the plan over and over in his mind. Andres glanced at him from time to time, wondering what it was like for him to have to join those he considered his enemies in order to save what was precious to him. It was a compromise that would break a lesser man. Andres suspected that Robert was thriving on this particular challenge.

“If they don’t bring them out when you pull up? What do we do?”

“I’ll insist they bring them out where I can see them before I pull Tommy out of the van.”

“If he refuses?”

“I don’t think he will.”

“But if he does?”

Andres shoved the magazine into the butt of his gun, the click of it falling into place satisfying. “Then I’ll give the signal anyway.”

“Do you know where he’s keeping them?”

“I have a good guess. Probably the back office of his club.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Andres studied Robert for a long moment. “What are you thinking?”

“We’re leaving too much of this to chance, trusting that Isaac will act like a normal human being. But what if he doesn’t do what we expect? What if he plans on leaving them in the room where he’s got them? What if he plans to have them killed even after he gets this Tommy kid back?”

Andres tilted his head slightly. “What do you suggest?”

“That you let me and one other guy, one of those operatives of yours, go into the building and clear out that back office, make sure he isn’t holding them there.”

“And if he does act as we anticipate?”

“Then we’ve just cleared out the building so that no one can surprise us during the exchange.”

Andres nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” Wren asked as she came into the room. Behind her was a short, skinny guy in low rider jeans and a vintage band tee under a worn jean jacket. His head was covered by a baseball hat, and he was hunched over so that they couldn’t really see his face.

He looked a lot like Tommy Klein. The height was slightly too much on the short side, but the thin legs and the hunched shoulders were perfect.

Andres whistled under his breath. “Impressive.”

Stevie looked up at a touch from Wren, a smile on her lips when she saw the look on Andres’ face.

“Does it work?” she asked.

“Perfectly.”

Her smile widened. “Thanks.”

“This is our decoy?” Robert asked.

“She is.”

Robert walked over, moving around Stevie like he knew what he was looking at. When he came back around to the front again, he sighed. “Were they lovers?”

“What?” Andres and Wren asked at the same time.

“Isaac and the boy she’s pretending to be?” He glanced at Andres. “I’ve heard the rumors about Isaac Perez, the stories that have come into the precinct through his arrested corner boys. Were they lovers?”

“Yeah.”

Robert looked at Stevie. “You need to walk a little more bowlegged. And be careful not to present him with your backside. A lover notices things that someone else might not, you know?”

Stevie nodded, her eyes glued to his lips as he talked.

Robert was good at this. Andres was beginning to wonder if maybe it might not benefit Wren to offer him a job.

It was time to hit the road.

Wren led the backup out the door, watching as they loaded up the vans. Andres pulled her aside and told her Robert’s plan to go into the building to clear that back office. She not only agreed that it was a good idea, but decided to be the one to go with him.

They took off in a rush of squealing tires and slamming doors. Andres leaned against the back of the building as he watched them go, sending up a silent prayer for only the third or fourth time in his life. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and looked at pictures he had on there of Alyssa and Gray. If this didn’t work…if they didn’t make it…

Stevie touched his arm.

“We’ll get them back.”

He looked down at her. “You ever been married? Had kids?”

A sadness that he felt deep in his soul slipped across her face. “Yeah,” she said so softly that he couldn’t hear that monotone that came with being unable to hear her own voice. “I was married right out of high school. We had a baby, but he got sick. The marriage didn’t survive it.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, looking away from him. “We both knew it was just one of those things, a tragedy that could have befallen just about anyone. But we had to blame someone, and there was only each other, you know? I guess we were just too young.”

Andres stepped in front of her so that she could see his lips. “There’s always blame, even when it’s unreasonable. And it’s not just youth. It’s human nature.”

She nodded, tears filling her eyes briefly. “Maybe,” was all she had to say.

Andres leaned back against the wall again, his opinion of Stevie shifting slightly. Everything that mattered to him rested on her performance tonight. At least he knew that she understood what that meant. At least he knew that she’d felt loss, and she’d do what she could to keep him from knowing it, too.

It was enough to ignite a spark of hope.