A Covert Affair (Deadly Ops #5)(25)
“Maybe the reason is that he’s clean.” Nieto’s voice was dry.
“You believe he is?”
“No. He’s definitely into smuggling. But the slave trade?” Nieto shrugged. “Nothing should surprise me anymore, but I never would have pegged him for being that dirty.”
“He’s not our only suspect. We’ve got a wide net, but Mercado is in the top five. I want to either eliminate him or bring him down.” And they had the perfect way to do it. If Amelia Rios could get into Mercado’s house, it would be simple for his team to hack the info they needed.
Nieto’s frown deepened. “I don’t like asking my man to lie.”
“Even to save lives?” That was something Wesley didn’t have a problem with.
Nieto’s jaw clenched as he looked away and out the window. The complex was brightly lit, with palm trees lining the sidewalk they’d just pulled up to. Wesley didn’t think Nieto was seeing anything, though.
Finally Nieto turned back to him. “I’ll tell Sinclair that he’s going to get a call from Amelia Rios and that he’ll confirm what she’s been told. I’m going to tell him your guys are FBI, so I’m the only one knowingly lying, not him. And I’m going to go meet him now, alone, and order him not to dig deeper into your guys. It’ll piss him off, but he’ll follow orders for the time being. He could recognize you and I don’t want him to put it together that you’re NSA.”
Wesley was silent for a moment. Most civilians wouldn’t know who he was unless they searched his name or paid attention to the news. A cop would have a greater chance of actually recognizing his face, especially after the Westwood bombing. He’d tried to stay out of the media, but some things were unavoidable. “Okay. Don’t lie to me, Nieto. I’ll find out.”
The captain just gave him a hard stare before getting out of the vehicle.
Wesley allowed himself to relax as Nieto headed up to Sinclair’s place. After working with the captain on the terrorist attack in Miami, he had a good feel for the man. He was going to trust his gut that Nieto would help them out with this and be discreet. With so many innocent women’s lives on the line, Wesley was almost certain Nieto would come through for him because in spite of the dregs of humanity he’d dealt with as a cop over the years, he still cared about the innocent and he loved his city.
Amelia smoothed a nervous hand down her body-hugging black-and-teal dress as she stepped out of the walk-in fridge. It was a little dressier than she normally wore to her restaurants, but she wasn’t staying on today to help out and supervise.
No, she’d apparently lost her mind, because she’d agreed to help the FBI starting today. Nathan, Cade, and a couple of computer geeks had met at her house early this morning—thankfully giving her a few hours to sleep, then meet with her attorney to go over the contract for her fee, and to contact Sinclair. Phase one, as they’d called the first step in their operation, seemed like a risk to her, but she’d find out soon enough. As soon as Nathan picked her up.
Nathan Ortiz. It didn’t matter that she’d touched him, held him, been so damn tempted to kiss him; it still felt surreal that he was back in her life—however temporarily—and working for the government. Well, the government part didn’t exactly surprise her. He’d always been such a straight arrow—unlike her. She’d figured he’d go into some sort of law enforcement if he didn’t stay in the Corps. She wanted to ask him why he’d gotten out of the Marines and so many other things.
He hadn’t been at his grandmother’s funeral, though his parents had been. They hadn’t known who Amelia was and she’d kept it that way. She’d simply told part of the truth; that she’d been an old neighbor of Benita’s. For some reason Benita and her daughter, Nathan’s mom, had a falling-out and while he’d been allowed to visit his abuela, his parents never had. Nathan had wanted to introduce her to his parents so many times, but Amelia had always said no. She’d never felt good enough back then. His parents had been respected members of the community and her mom had been a prostitute. It had been too shameful, too embarrassing to even contemplate meeting them. What if they’d found out about her mom and then forbade Nathan to see her?
And now it was too late to ever meet them. She’d read in the paper that they’d died a couple of years ago in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. She’d thought about going to the funeral, but it had been in Tallahassee, where they’d moved to almost as soon as Nathan had joined the Corps. Though the real reason she hadn’t gone was that she was too afraid to see Nathan. If he’d brought someone with him, a wife . . . just no. She’d liked living in her bubble of not knowing much about what he’d done since she broke things off. Now that bubble was popped, and she wanted to know everything.
“Eat,” Manuel, one of her full-time cooks, said, handing her a small plate with two empanadas de verde con queso on it.
Blinking, she took the plate and wondered how long she’d been staring off into space like a complete maniac. The doors to the fridge and walk-in freezer were in the hallway off the main hub of the kitchen, but her surroundings crashed into her, the steady hum of the early-afternoon servers and cooks loud enough that she shouldn’t have been able to zone out. “Thank you.”
“You look like you need some comfort food.” In his fifties, Manuel and his wife had been working with Amelia for years. “Everything okay?”