Alpha One (Shadow Agents #1)(27)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“Do I have a choice in this?”

Her words stopped him cold, and in that instant…

Logan realized that some things were more important than following orders.

“Yes.” He kept his voice calm with an effort. “You do. If you want me to take you out of Mississippi, to get you as far from Guerrero and his goons as I can, you say the word.”

Her lips parted.

“If you want to stay here, to stand off against him and make him become the hunted, then we’ll do that. It’s your life. You make the choice.” He’d back her up, even if he had to go alone, without the other EOD agents riding shotgun.

So Logan waited.

Her hand rose. Touched the small bandage on the back of her neck. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running.”

Logan knew people who had spent years running. That life—it stunk. Always looking over your shoulder, never letting your guard down.

But there was something else she needed to understand before she made her choice. “Mercer’s worried we have a leak at the EOD. That if we tried to take you to another secret location…” It wouldn’t be secret. “Guerrero shouldn’t have found us so quickly. Shouldn’t have known the things he did.”

So Mercer was saying that hiding wasn’t an option. No, that hiding with the EOD wasn’t an option.

Logan was pretty sure he could make Juliana disappear just fine on his own.

He could see the struggle on Juliana’s face. Safety…where did it lie?

With me. If she’d just trust him again.

“No hiding.” Juliana gave a slow nod. “That’s not…that’s not the way I want to live. I don’t want to be afraid, every day, that he’s coming after me.”

Did she even realize how strong she truly was?

“I want to go after him. I want Guerrero to fear. He took away so much.” She swallowed and exhaled slowly. “It’s time for me to take away from him.”

Damn straight.

“Let him think I have the evidence. Let him think we’re tearing his life apart.” Her words came stronger now. “And then let’s destroy him.”

“We will.” A vow.

* * *

DIEGO STARED AT THE MAN before him. A man who sat, bound, with his arms and legs tied to a chair. A black bag covered his head and the fool was screaming at the top of his lungs.

Did he actually think help would come?

Diego sighed. “Why were you getting ready to leave town, Mr. McLintock?” Because he had been. Diego had sent a man to follow McLintock months ago. Back when he’d first realized that the senator was holding back.

The senator had to trust someone. Someone had been there to help with all the deals.

The someone who’d just stopped screaming.

“I—I was just going to visit my mother. She—she lives in Florida.”

It was the wrong response. Ben McLintock should have been asking why he was being held. Demanding to know who’d taken him.

Not rushing to answer with a pat response.

“After all that happened with the senator, I—I needed to get away.”

Still wrong.

Diego nodded to his men. The bag wasn’t needed any longer.

One man stepped forward and yanked it from McLintock’s head. McLintock’s gaze flew around the small room, then locked on Diego.

“You know who I am,” Diego said as he stared right back at the other man.

McLintock gave a small nod.

“That will make things easier.” Diego lifted his hand and gave a little two-fingered wave. His man, Mario, knew what that signal meant.

A knife was immediately shoved into McLintock’s shoulder.

The senator’s aide screamed.

Diego dropped his hand. “You were working for the senator.” The authorities had to know that, too. So he’d had to be so careful when he made his move on this man. But lucky for him, McLintock had been the one to escape from the guards that the government had put on him.

His man had been driving the taxi that picked up McLintock.

“I—I don’t know what—”

Sighing, Diego lifted two fingers.

“No!” McLintock said. Mario paused and Diego cocked a brow. “I—I was… I just delivered packages for him, okay? I didn’t even know what was in them, not until the feds came in and started asking all their questions.” Blood soaked his fancy shirt. “Then Aaron offered me money to keep quiet.”

Sure, as if Diego believed that was the way things had gone down. This man had known about the deals. Probably from day one. He’d been taking money, stashing it away just like James had.

But James hadn’t escaped. Neither would McLintock.

“Where’s the evidence?”

“I don’t know. I swear!”

Diego gave his two-fingered wave. The knife sank into McLintock’s left shoulder this time. More screams. More blood.

“I’ll ask again.”

“I don’t know!”

The knife sank into his left thigh.

“I need that evidence…”

“J-James said he was giving it…to his daughter…s-safekeeping…”

The knife sank into his right thigh.

“I don’t know anything else!”

He could almost believe him.

“Please…let me go…”

Was the many crying now? How pitiful. “I will,” Diego promised him. What would be the point in keeping him? A few more moments, and he’d know if McLintock had any more secrets to tell. After that…

He could go free.

“Tell me, what do you know about the bomb in the cemetery?”

McLintock flinched. “Nothing!”

“Lies just make the pain last longer.” He knew exactly how to get to this one. Pain. McLintock howled when Mario went to work on him again.

“I didn’t set it! I didn’t!” McLintock was definitely crying now.

He also sounded honest. Pity. McLintock had been one of the few with open access to the senator’s house and to his car. But if it hadn’t been McLintock, then that did narrow down his pool of suspects.

Diego nodded to Mario. “You know what to do.”

A muscle flexed in Mario’s jaw.

“Y-you’re gonna let me go, right?” McLintock was soaked in blood and straining against his bonds. “You’ll let me go?”

“Of course.” Diego turned away. “Once I’m sure you don’t have any other secrets to tell…”

Fear tightened McLintock’s face.

“So perhaps you’d better keep talking,” Diego advised, “or else Mario will keep cutting.”