Eli shook his head as he watched the two cousins go through all the motions of frisking, vesting, and zip tying the man’s hands before they moved to the elevator. The screen that played the lobby feed, then showed the elevator, then hallway to the conference room where everyone was waiting for Kimble. Liam stepped up and waved a wand-like device in front of the man from head to toe, front and back, looking for any other potential devices that could be used against the team.
“He’s clean,” Liam said to the group, then looked at Kimble. “The ties on your wrists are for everyone’s safety. Go ahead and take a seat.”
“I-I understand,” David said.
“Your arm – do you need medical attention?” Wylie asked.
“I-I’m not certain. Hurts like a son of a bitch, but it’s days’ old now.”
“How about your face?” What happened there?” Luke stepped up to get a closer look. “Nose broken?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it could be. I haven’t really taken the time to assess my injuries. I just ran. I needed to get here,” the older man said.
Luke pulled up a chair right in front of the man and looked him dead in the eye, an interrogation technique he’d mastered to intimidate others into telling him what he wanted. “Get here for what, Kimble?”
“I had nowhere else to go. Nowhere to turn,” he said, emotion getting the better of him. The man dropped his head.
“Let’s see if we can get Mendoza to come down and take a look at him,” Luke said over his shoulder.
Luke leaned in, resting his elbows to his knees. “If you’re looking for room and board, this isn’t The Ritz. What are you doing back in town? And in our building, no less?”
“I got away. I got away from them,” Kimble said. “I’d been visiting family in Mississippi, and I was ambushed. My security detail – I don’t know if any of them made it. I was…I was taken.”
“Family? Can you be more specific? Who do you have in Mississippi?”
The man began to cry. “I don’t know. I don’t know if she got away or…”
“Who, Agent Kimble?” Luke teased the man by throwing out his title, ensuring him they knew exactly who he was.
“My daughter,” he whimpered. “Ivy. She’s been under our protection for years for threats made on my life and my family.”
“Son of a bitch didn’t even acknowledge the Agent bait. Just cruised right through it. He expected us to know that,” Dace said, watching the man through video. “He’s not going to make this easy.”
“No, I imagine not,” Eli agreed. “What the hell is this sniveling? That man is a monster and doesn’t even crack a smile, much less shed a tear. This is insane. Does he expect us to buy this?”
“Maybe he’s interrogating us as much as we are him. He’s a master at this. He has to be in his job. He can play any role he needs to in order to get what he wants. Right now, he’s the victim,” Dace said. “I can’t wait to get in there.”
“Not yet, Dacey,” Carter said. “Let’s see if he gives me anything I can use.”
“Let’s cut to the chase and not waste each other’s time here,” Luke said. “How about you start from the top and get us up to the part where you show up on our front step shot and beaten.”
The man shook his head nervously. “Yes. Yes. Sorry. It’s been a long several days. I’m just…exhausted.”
“Ronan, can you get the man some water and maybe some…nuts?”
Ronan grinned at the insult. “Sure thing.”
“Thank you,” Kimble said when Ronan handed the man a water and bag of nuts from the nearby counter. “I was in Moss Bridge. I had a safe house there for my daughter. She was under twenty-four-hour protection with her own guard. I’ve been working with a team for at least a decade, designed to take down the cartel, piece by piece, and it was working. We were effective for years until the cartel always seemed a step ahead. When my wife died… When my wife died, that was no accident. They found me. Found my family. I did what I could here for as long as I could, but I had to hide her. My daughter was all I had left.
“I actually have the highest clearance there is. Yes, higher than the president, which is funny if you really think about it. Who’s really running the country, right?”
“Right?” Luke was slow to answer.
“I ran the Moss Bridge house, and it’s not a safe house,” Liam added. “Not even at your level. In fact, it was owned by an offshore shell company. You know, a dummy corporation used to hide shit.”
“Oh. Like the cartel uses?” Luke asked sarcastically.
“Exactly, Brother.”
“Look, I know how this may sound. I’m the fucking CIA, after all, but I’m telling you the truth. My work was off the books. I had safe houses everywhere, much as you do. And I would use them and move my daughter often.”
“Did you catch that?” Dace said from the other room, talking into his brothers’ earpieces. “He knows about our safe houses. He’s playing games here with subliminal threats.”
“Who were you running from, Kimble? Who were you hiding your daughter from?”
“I told you, the cartel. Look, I know you took down the biggest threat, Esteban Valdez, years ago. That was my case, and I was glad to see you handled him the way you did, but he was a small piece to a bigger picture.”
“How so?”
“The minute he went down, my job should’ve gotten easier, but it just got harder. Everyone else out there was hungry for his dynasty, the power. Until his daughter stepped in, that is. But then, you already know that too.”
“He’s threatening us,” Dace said into his brothers’ ears. “He knows about Eva, and he’s threatening us. Play it cool.”
“His daughter?” Wylie questioned. Eva was a sensitive subject with him, and he needed to know how much danger she might be in. “How so? She’s just some entitled rich diva. You know something we should know?”
“Not really. Just heard things. Heard she took over Daddy’s business dealings.”
“We only know about his legitimate businesses, and from what I understand, she’s doing a terrible job.”
“That may be so, and I’m honestly glad to hear it. These people are powerful, and there’s been a resurgence out of nowhere. I’m certain that’s who came for us,” Kimble said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. I had teams staged everywhere, and we’d taken down some of the heaviest players. These newer small cells running rogue were just into small stuff and no threat to my family or me. I was in Moss Bridge to collect them, and…”
“Them?” Luke asked.
“My daughter and grandson,” Kimble said.
“Ivy had a kid?”
Kimble smiled wide. “Yes. He’s a bright boy, full of life. It’s been a joy to help raise him.”
“That fucker is toying with you, Luke. Teams everywhere is code for eyes and ears everywhere. He knows I’m listening. He’s using Cash to get me to come in there.”
“That’s great for Ivy and her husband.”