The Revenge (The Insiders Trilogy #3)(71)

I didn’t.

I walked right past, texting Matt.

Kash: Fly back. Chrissy Hayes is alive. Your father and sister need you.

My phone buzzed a second later.

Matt: WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?

Kash: Bailey will fill you in. Come back. I have to circle the wagons, don’t have time for more .

That was it. He was texting me back, but I ignored his calls. What I said was true. I’d lost Bright and Wilson from my pocket. They were looking at me as an adversary, trying to find charges against me, and, well, they’d have a fight on their hands. I hadn’t intended on adopting the mantra that if I went down, they’d go down, but since they were flying around me, I was taking that mantra on now.

Game on.

“Hello?”

“I need you to pull up anything and everything on my two FBI assets.”

“Not to incriminate you, I’m assuming.”

“Correct.”

If they took payments from me, guarantee there was a whole closet of other payments, other bribes, other times they had looked the other way. They looked the other way when Bailey was first brought in, and they did it without blinking. There was a pattern, one they’d been doing for a long time, and there was a trail. There was always a trail.

“You don’t want your girl to look into it?”

I paused, just briefly, as I considered it. “No.” Bailey needed to be as clear from this as possible. “They said she left a trail when she found them. I need to know if she did.”

“She didn’t.”

My hand tightened on the phone. “Are you sure?”

“She left one system open, the neighbor’s, but that was it. And I only know it was your girl because you told me what was going on. I’ll look, but I didn’t see anything they could trail back to her.”

“They found the house.”

He was silent on his end.

I could read between the lines. I doubted they would’ve found the house on their own, not as fast as they did. That meant something happened. They had followed — He interrupted my thoughts. “They might’ve put an alert on your location, figuring you’d hunker down and have her look.”

“They can do that?”

“They can do almost anything, but if she erased her trail…”

“Could they still have it?”

He was silent again. A long second. “I don’t know.”

Fuck.

“Can you break in? See whether they have anything on her?”

“They’re saying they do?”

“Yeah.” I hated that word. I hated that admission.

“I’ll look, but once I do, they’ll trail it back to me. Our own location will be exposed.”

I couldn’t risk Bailey.

“Start packing up. Do it remote, if you can,” I responded, still walking down the hallway to our room.

“On it.”

I ended the call as I got to the room, and going inside, I saw Bailey hadn’t moved. Her eyes were big. She was clutching her knees to her chest. I cursed, seeing how pale she was.

“What’s happened?”

I checked the clock. I was figuring I had one hour, if even that.

“Feds found the house. They called; they’re trying to pull me in. My guess is you’ll be getting a call from them to notify you that your mother is alive this afternoon.”

“Wait. What?” She scrambled off the bed, following me as I went into the bathroom.

I stripped, turning the shower on and stepping underneath.

Bailey waited, just outside the shower door. “What’s going on, Kash?”

I stepped under the spray, my eyes finding and holding hers. “I’m in trouble.”

She drew in a breath, but she didn’t waver. She didn’t look away. She knew the risks we’d both taken the night before .

“What can I do?” she asked.

Relax.

Sleep.

Rest.

Smile.

Laugh.

Comfort her father.

Be herself.

“Nothing. Stay here, and wait for my call.”

She nodded.

My chest was tight. I didn’t know what was in store for me, if anything would even happen, and I needed one more touch. One more taste.

As she turned to go and change, I caught her hand. I pulled her in, my hand sliding behind her neck, and tugged her into my chest. My arms went around her. Her hands slid around my back, raising up, and she held me right back.

We both savored this time.

I loved this woman, but I didn’t have time to say the words.

We didn’t talk.

Moving to the bed, I held Bailey, and fifty-three minutes, twelve seconds later, the call came through.

Feds were at the gate.





FORTY-SIX

Kash


Bright was pissed.

Her eyes were flat, her mouth just as flat, and if she could grind up acorns and spit them out like chew, she would’ve. I wasn’t being brought into their questioning station with handcuffs or zip ties around my wrists. I was being brought in with two federal agents as my “guides,” two agents not Bright or Wilson, and as a “courtesy.”

Their words, not mine.

Which meant they didn’t have what they claimed they had, or they wanted to use me still. I was willing to bet money they’d be circling the conversation of me helping them bring my grandfather in.