Authors: Sara Schoen
I followed the letter’s instructions perfectly, losing my tail early on. It almost seemed
too
easy, and that had me on edge. Usually it took a while to lose the person on my trail, but this one disappeared before the end of the first mile. I guess Miguel hadn’t brought his best man to work today; it had to be a new recruit. There was no other way I could have lost them that easily, unless it had been purposeful.
I stopped in my tracks as I started to entertain the thought that they’d let me lose them on purpose. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I fought between going back to ensure I’d truly lost them, or staying here for Demon. I didn’t want anyone to locate me, but I couldn’t risk blowing the whole thing if they were somehow able to track me down. How would they find me? They couldn’t monitor me by ankle bracelet, but I wouldn’t put it past Miguel to somehow microchip me. I’d seen stranger things happen.
“Renegade,” a familiar voice called, breaking me from my thoughts.
I turned and followed Demon’s voice. He made my choice for me. I would stay, praying I had actually lost whoever was assigned to follow me. If not, I knew Demon would be quick to handle any danger. He had already saved my skin twice, after someone had managed to figure out I wasn’t Marco when I first accepted the mission. Two men who knew Marco realized I wasn’t him and attempted to take me out. If it hadn’t been for Demon, I wouldn’t have made it this far. A third time wouldn’t mean anything. It would just be another dead cartel member added to my body count.
“Demon,” I replied as he emerged from behind one of the trees. His weapon of choice, a sword, hung in a sheath on his back. He also kept a gun on him at all times, but he said the noise would attract attention so the first attempt was always made with a sword. I think he just liked carrying a sword around. His gun had a silencer, and with his aim he wouldn’t need to get close to the target. He liked to be face to face with an opponent, not picking them off in the distance unless he needed to. I preferred a gun, quick and efficient, but then again, a sword never ran out of bullets. “Nice to see you again. It’s been a while. Looks like you’ve changed some.”
“A lot happens in about four months,” he said, glancing around cautiously.
His long black hair caught some of the wind, allowing me to see the intense focus his eyes held as he scanned the area. When I last saw him, his hair had been shorter. There were dark circles under his eyes now, and he was noticeably less anxious. Something kept him up at night; I could tell.
“Not followed?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“I may have changed some, but you haven’t changed at all, Renegade.” Demon sighed. He hated when I called him
sir,
even though he was the leader of the team, but he had asked me on multiple different occasions to call him by his code name only. I never listened. “On to the matter at hand,” Demon said. “As you know, we are sending in another person to assist you in this mission—”
“I don’t need another person.”
He raised his eyebrow at me, seeming surprised I had interrupted him and that I didn’t agree with his plan. Despite the fact another person could help move the plan along, they could also cause more problems.
“Whoever you send in isn’t ready for what they have to deal with. They don’t know what it’s like in the cartel. They don’t know how the members operate, what’s going on in the area, how to handle trades, or what I’ve learned in the last year. It will only lead to us getting caught because they won’t know what to expect.”
“Are you done?” Demon asked, appearing bored. When I nodded, he took over the conversation, making sure to hit all my points to explain why I couldn’t fly solo anymore. “We already sent one person in. You saw her when you picked up the note to meet me here. She’s someone from the cartel previously, from Sandtown to be specific.” I wondered who could have been undercover in Sandtown, but couldn’t think of anyone. I did remember a few members going missing. It could be one of them, but at least she would know what to expect. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. “She knows the ins and outs of how they run and she’s doing just fine at gathering what Sharp Shooter wants. She knew where everything would be hidden, and while she is new to the agency, she’s proving herself just fine.”
Relief she knew how to work within the cartel washed over me. I wouldn’t have a dead agent added to my body count. Though, as I thought about it more, I let out a low growl of annoyance. Someone had come in to the cartel, joined the ranks, been around me, maybe even talked to me, and I didn’t notice they were new. There were a lot of new people here because of the Sandtown raid, too many to keep track of, but I should have known. How could I have let her slip through without notice? Was I too distracted with Camden dating my sister, or was she just that good at blending in? I doubted the latter. I needed to get Danielle out of Camden’s sights, because it had already begun to affect my work.
“You also ran into her in the office. She was trying to gather intelligence. I do apologize for her interrupting you, but Camo is new, so there will be some mistakes.” Demon spoke as if he didn’t see the danger one mistake could lead to.
“Is
Camo
who you’re sending in to help me?” I spat the name like an insult, because to me it was. They were telling me that I couldn’t finish this alone anymore, but they were giving me a rookie. I didn’t care if she’d been in the cartel previously, because if she didn’t have the training of an agent, how could I expect her to handle herself? I had no doubt she could handle herself within the cartel, but what if she got caught? Had she been trained to get out on her own, or would I need to step in and blow my cover?
“No, I’m not sending Camo to help you directly. She has a different directive, but you’ve seen her work. She’s the one who dropped off the note for our meeting today. She’s skilled, a little naïve, but she’ll shape up with training. The one who’s coming to help you won’t be joining the cartel. She has a unique way of entering,” Demon explained. He must have noticed my irritation. “I know you think you can do this alone, but we’ve collected enough information to end the cartel. There are just a few more things we need, including the names of their major partners overseas and what they trade. Then, we will be done. With Camo gathering the correct papers, it should be finished shortly.”
“Then why are you sending in the other agent? You’ve already given one rookie a chance. If she gets the information Sharp Shooter wants, then we’re done. You don’t need to risk another agent’s life for this mission.”
“Her mission is one of her specialties…wreaking havoc.” He let a smile spread across his features. The proud gleam in his eyes faded when he realized I wasn’t enjoying this as much as he was. “Trust me, you’ll want her help. She’s good at getting out of sticky situations. Just be careful. She has a rogue agent mentality sometimes.”
“Rouge agent?” I repeated. “So, not only are you sending in another undercover agent, you’re sending in a girl to get close to Camden—which he’ll see right through, by the way—and to top it off she doesn’t even follow orders. I don’t care if you figured out his type and plan to have her date him. He will see through the charade. If he does, I have no idea how she’ll react. Do you really need to risk her life for this?” I didn’t want to deal with rookies, but I mostly couldn’t afford to have more agents die to bring down this cartel. I had seen what it did to Demon previously to lose agents, and from how he spoke about this girl, I knew she meant something to him.
Demon shrugged. “Yeah, she’s new, but she had flying colors on her first mission, which was similar to what I’m having her do this time. While she was on house arrest afterward, because as I said, she has a solo agent mentality when it comes to certain things, she’s spent her time training and is prepared. We will be keeping a close eye on her to make sure she follows orders, and hopefully no one will die this time.” He paused for a moment, as if to collect himself, before he continued. When he did, I noticed a mischievous smile as he spoke. “And, don’t worry, she won’t be dating Camden. She wouldn’t have the patience for it, and then she would kill him before we could do anything about the cartel. She has a different idea, but it’s better if I tell you as little as possible.”
I was about to pressure him for more, but I knew he wouldn’t give it to me. I wanted to know more about her, at least what she looked like so I would know her when I saw her, but Demon liked to keep me in the dark. Something else he said caught my interest, and it didn’t ease my mind. He said hopefully no one would die
this time.
It had been a few months since the raid, but Jax had died, along with a few others, including Ash Crest a few days later. Could she be connected to Ash’s death?
“The Sandtown raid, was that her mission? I was told one of the agents was killed.”
Demon didn’t say anything. Instead, he offered a smile, and I knew it was true. It seemed odd to have a rookie go in for that particular mission, after they’d taken out agents who had been training for years. Someone must have seen a lot of potential in her. I guess they hadn’t anticipated her running off.
“Don’t worry, none of our agents died.” He smiled, as if that was supposed to make me feel better.
“What made her go rogue?” I asked. “What happened that made you put her under house arrest?”
Demon shrugged, but didn’t answer directly. “You’ll have to ask her about that. She loves to tell people the story, ecstatic that no one can look at her like she isn’t good enough anymore, but you’ll want to hear it from her. You would be proud of her,” he said, surprising me. Why would I be proud of her? She put everyone else in danger by running off, and in this case, it would put my sister and me in danger. “Or you’ll be furious,” Demon added, noticing where my thoughts were going when a scowl creased my lips. “Either way, I will let you ask her after the mission is done. I can’t have her getting distracted. She gets sidetracked easily.”
I rolled my eyes at his comment. Rookies caused nothing but trouble. “What about the other one?” I asked, referring to Camo. She was supposedly the one who had caught me looking for files in the office. If I had been aware other agents had come in to do my job, I wouldn’t have run into her. It insulted me that they thought rookies could do a better job. Then again, it had been almost two years, and I’d gotten nowhere. Maybe it would do me some good to have another agent around, as long as she didn’t get caught.
“Camo? Night Stripe picked her up on her last mission,” Demon said.
He spoke of these people as if I knew them. I didn’t know their skills, who they were, and in a mission like this I needed to know if I could trust them. Knowing their names wouldn’t change it, but at least he had dropped the other agent’s name. Maybe I could find out more about Night Stripe if I found Camo again. She kept herself well hidden, and I didn’t know what she looked like. Now I had to worry about two rookies, one who had a habit of disobeying and wreaking havoc, and the other who made me feel as if I was trying to keep track of a shadow. That could be disastrous when all I wanted was to make sure my sister and I got out of this unscathed.
“How is it knowing your sister is dating a cartel member, the heir no less?” Demon asked, pulling me from my thoughts. I was taken aback. I knew he kept a watchful eye over me, but he wouldn’t normally know anything about what Camden did when we were separate. He had to watch me to make sure no one was going to put a gun to my head. He laughed off my quizzical expression before explaining. “Those agents you’re so worried about have been following her for the last few days, and they overheard her talking about it with one of her friends.”
“They’re following her?” I asked in disbelief. I knew Danielle wouldn’t notice, but Camden’s men might, and they’d have something to say about unknown women following Camden’s new girlfriend. Suddenly I had a nagging suspicion on how Night Stripe might have made an entrance for the mission. “Did they set her up with him?”
“Actually, no, they overheard your sister while in a pizza place for lunch. Luckily, Night Stripe is always willing to eat or we may not have gotten that information soon enough to form a new plan. Night Stripe took an interest in the conversation mostly because, according to Spit Fire, Camo wasn’t letting Night Stripe forget about a file she shredded. Now we can work with the time we have to get her into Danielle’s good graces, and ultimately cause a lot of havoc that gets Night Stripe in place for the final take down of this cartel.”
“How is she getting in?”
“The less you know, the better.” Demon chuckled lightly, as if laughing at an inside joke. “But she’ll have a rather painful entry. I call it payback for her not finishing her house arrest and for running off after the Sandtown raid. You’ll be able to figure out who she is pretty quickly, but remember she
can’t
know who you are. Play your part, even in front of her. As I said, she can’t get sidetracked. If she’s worried about you, it’ll cause problems for you both. She looks at every agent in this agency as a member of her family, and she’ll defend her family to the end. So make sure you keep her on track somehow.”
I took a deep breath, easing my nerves once I knew she would protect Danielle as she would any agent in CIRA. It just meant she couldn’t figure out who I was, and I had to keep her focused. “What should I do while I wait for this girl to show up? Camden has me looking for information on myself so he can keep talking to Danielle.”