Forsaken (The Found Book 2) (7 page)

Seth took his first full breath since his dream on the balcony. He gave Nate a grateful smile.

“Why haven’t you called in your team? Why are you working all on your own?” Nate asked Seth.

“I’m not working on my own. There is one person at the DEA I trust, it is my boss’s boss. Somebody on my team is dirty, maybe a couple of someones. On my previous assignment, it went bad, two of my team died, it had to be someone on the inside gave us up. When I went to Greg on this, he wouldn’t believe it of his team. My gut tells me Greg isn’t in on it, but he’s blind. So I went over his head. The commander is watching the team, hopefully he’ll flush out the rotten eggs while I’m gone, but in the meantime he’s the only one who knows my cover, and he’s the only one I’m feeding information.”

“Who’s Greg?” Sierra asked.

“Greg’s the leader of my task force. I went to his boss, Lee Isaacson, he’s the Deputy Director of the DEA.”

“You took a pretty big chance your team wouldn’t find you with the magazine spread on your wedding. It’s how we discovered you.”

“Portia allowed it be published in only two magazines, and she ran it by me. One was a bridal, the other some kind of society magazine in the Miami Sunday paper. We were safe, like my team was going to be reading either one of those.” What’s more Seth still looked at those pictures and didn’t even recognize himself. How had they made him look like some kind of model?

“Wait, are you telling me Annie saw those?” Seth felt his blood run cold. In the entire year he had been with Annie he had never known her to pick up any kind of magazine like that. All of the pictures had been taken at the reception, Portia’s perfect outdoor garden reception. There were six damning pictures in the photo spread, culminating in the final picture of them kissing in the gazebo.

The only way he had been able to act so happy about marrying Portia was to think about the baby he would be able to keep safe. It’s what carried him through the entire day, and then it turned out to be nothing but a lie. Annie wouldn’t have known that, all she would have seen is he was happy that day. It must have burned inside her like acid. Yet still she welcomed him again and again into her dreams.

“Are you asking if she knows you’re married? Yeah, she knows. She’s known since the beginning.” Nate looked at him with compassion. Seth shoved off the bed and yanked open the balcony door, desperately needing the fresh air.

If Annie knew, then his family knew. He had a daughter. His world was spinning out of control.

Stop! Get it together.
He breathed in. His life wasn’t spinning out of control, it was actually coming into focus for the first time since this goddamn assignment started. Somehow through the grace of God his woman still had feelings for him despite his betrayal. He was humbled.

He had a daughter with this woman. He didn’t have to worry he had a child with a criminal psychopath who would endanger or abuse his child. Instead he had a child with someone who would be the best mother he could ever hope for. He really wanted to try to contact Annie this very second but three people were waiting on him, and it was obvious they had a plan in mind. Again, he needed to focus.

Seth turned and found them huddled around a laptop. They broke apart when he came back in. “Do you have some sort of plan?”

“Our plan was to offer our services to you. All of us have worked in the field, but I’m the only one who has done undercover work,” Brice said.

Seth realized he was about to take these people on face value. But then again, he was really relying on Annie’s word, and he trusted her absolutely. The other factor was he knew without a shadow of a doubt Brice was
found
as well. He didn’t know how he knew since he had never met another
found
before, but he knew.

“Aye, you feel it too? It’s the damnedest thing.”

Seth looked into the Scot’s pale gray eyes. “Does this always happen?”

“You’re the fifth
found
I’ve met. Each time there has been a sense of recognition. Kali, Noah and Joe actually remembered one another.”

“What do you mean, remembered one another?”

“They remembered one another from before they came here. You’ll have to let them explain it to you.”

“Who’s Kali? Who’s Joe?”

“Look, we don’t have time for this. We really need to focus on the job,” Sierra interrupted. Seth and Brice looked at the woman and nodded. She was focused on the computer screen in front of her. “Okay, come over here then.”

Seth looked over Sierra’s shoulder and saw a perfect organizational chart of Thiago Labado’s and Luther Vargas’ operations and how they intersected with Benitez Shipping. She had everything figured out, it was amazing. “How do you know all of this?”

“It was easy. Once I made the leap Benitez was doing the shipping for Labado’s drugs and guns, which he had to be, otherwise why would you have married Portia? We knew you were involved with Labado, so it was easy to trace. The only tough part to figure was Vargas.”

Seth watched Sierra’s fingers flew over the keyboard and slide after slide whizzed by showing the players in both organizations. We’ve had you, Portia and Tomas under surveillance for the last two weeks. By the way, Portia is out of her ever loving mind. I couldn’t believe it when she slammed her boat into Ricardo Vargas’ boat. She was lucky his body guards didn’t kill her and her giggly girlfriends’ right on the spot. I guess all those breast implants were worth the money.”

Suddenly pictures and organizational charts of Ricardo Vargas’ family and business were on the monitor. Sierra hadn’t missed any of the players. “We saw Labado’s men planting charges yesterday and today, we knew you wouldn’t be on the premises. But we thought you’d be at the penthouse with Portia and Tomas. How did you manage to get away from your
loving family
?”

“They’re hoping I’ll think I have privacy and autonomy, when in actuality I’m watched even more closely. It’s one of our fun family games.” Seth’s tone was resigned. “I’m impressed you figured out everything about Vargas.”

“Brice sees patterns. Show him one or two pieces of a puzzle, and he can see the whole picture,” Sierra said with a combination of frustration and admiration.

“Watch it wench, or I’ll start trying to figure out the puzzle of Sierra Mathers,” he said as he pulled at a lock of her auburn hair.

“Is this a stronger skill than normal? Do you think it has something to do with being
found
?” Seth asked the Scot.

“Aye.” Seth waited. Brice just looked at him with calm gray eyes.

“Okay, so you saw the pattern, and concluded Vargas was horning in on the action with Benitez, what else did your ‘spidey senses’ tell you?”

“That Vargas is going to grind Labado into so much dust, but not before killing a lot of innocents, and you’re trying to figure out how to stop it.”

“And?”

“Labado is trying to come up with an alternative source of income to make up for the shipments you have shut down,” Brice said, as his finger traced over one of the lines on the organizational charts on Sierra’s computer screen.

“Since he’s been cut off from shipping and selling arms into the US, I’m betting he’s started doing business with Africa,” Nate guessed.

“I would have preferred that.” The night was getting worse. He had stuffed down the thought of the auction, but he the bile was rising. “Labado’s has started a human trafficking ring.”

The three people in the room looked both sick and resigned, which told Seth all he needed to know. They obviously had worked on many different situations in the past.

“How deep is Labado into this?” Nate asked.

“Oh it’s deep, he’s got quite a pipeline.”

“Let me guess, it’s the bitch Leslie Gordon,” Sierra said with disgust. Seth raised an eyebrow in question.

“Something is severely bent about that creepy wench, I could just tell.”

“She’s a full-blown psychopath. This isn’t about a revenue stream, she is enjoying this.” Seth explained what he had seen.

“Let me see if I can track down the modeling agency she is using as a front,” Sierra said and yawned.

“Come on Mathers, we need to call it a night,” Nate said, as pushed down the top of her laptop. “You need to sneak back into your room,” he said turning to Seth.

“I figured out a way to short out the surveillance they have on you, so we can meet again,” Sierra assured him.

“It seems to me this new trafficking angle is perfect. We can use this to work our way in as buyers,” Brice said as Seth walked to the door.

“It looks like I might actually have a team I can trust.” He looked at the three in the room and smiled as he left. He wanted to ask if they were going to be speaking to Annie. To convey some sort of message, but what would he have them say? As he carefully let himself back into his room he realized he felt better and worse. He had to cling to the fact that through everything Annie had not turned away from him, and he had a daughter.

Chapter Seven

If both Noah and Kali were here in her apartment to talk, it couldn’t be good news. Annie hoped she had gotten through to Seth and he met with Brice, Nate and Sierra last night. They hadn’t called. She called Sierra, but only received her voicemail.

Maybe what they wanted to tell her is Seth was in love with his wife and he didn’t want to have anything to do with his old life, and it included Annie and his daughter. Seth obviously thought he was dreaming. Hell, so had she. Noah and Kali were both looking at her with such compassion. She felt her eyes well up.

“No, Annie, no. It’s nothing like you’re thinking. I’m so sorry, I’m not handling this well at all. Kali tried to push herself off the couch and her big husband gently helped her into a standing position so she could come over and hug Annie.

“No, I’m sure Seth cares about you. According to Brice he was torn apart when he realized you knew he was married. He cares, I would bet anything he loves you Annie.” She softened into Kali’s embrace, and then felt the soft kick of one of the babies and laughed.

“See, even baby girl knows Seth loves you.” Kali smiled up at her.

“If that’s not the reason you’re here, what’s wrong?”

“They went in thinking they could extricate Seth fairly easily. Unfortunately there are a lot more variables than they originally anticipated. They don’t know how long this could take. Seth is a big part of this whole operation.”

“Is he in danger?”

Kali threw a look over her shoulder to Noah, who stood behind his petite wife. “You know Seth has always been in danger.”

“I mean even more than before.”

“He has more backup than ever before. I think he is in a better position to come out of this and come home to you and Nell.”

“If it’s what he wants to do. I don’t want to force him into anything he doesn’t want.” Noah wrapped his arm around Kali.

“How long has Seth been visiting you? Because now you know these are actual visits, not just dreams you’ve been having.” It was hard to look into Noah’s brown eyes, but she did it anyway.

“A couple of months after he left, up until last night.”

“I’d say he’s committed then. Wouldn’t you?”

Annie thought about it, and not just about the erotic dreams, but to the day and night when he held her as she gave birth to Nell. He might not have known what was going on, but he knew she needed solace, needed him, and he was there for her. Yes, those were the actions of a man who loved.

Kali and Noah gave her knowing smiles. It was kind of eerie how these
found
were, it was almost like they could read her mind. Then she remembered how Kali had explained she could read emotions.

“So what are the complications? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I told you she would say that,” Kali grinned at Noah.

“No there is nothing you can do to help. Brice, Nate and Sierra are fantastic operatives. They will assist him. They are going to stay in Florida until they can get him the hell out of there,” Noah assured her.

“Did they say why the DEA weren’t able to give his parents any sort of information?”

“Yes they did. Why don’t we all sit.” Nell let out a cry from the other room. “I guess your daughter wants to hear about her Daddy,” Kali said.

Annie frowned. She was worried it was exactly what was going on. Unfortunately Shilah had left with Riley to go grocery shopping, and she didn’t want to leave Nell in her crib when she was upset.

“Hold on, let me get her. I know you were just teasing, but I think Nell comprehends things better than I realized. I don’t want her upset about Seth. Can you be cautious in what you say?” Noah and Kali exchanged a look and they nodded.

Nell was standing, without holding onto the side of her crib looking very proud of herself, when Annie came into her room. She was wearing one of Annie’s favorite sleepers, it was emerald green, with white piping. “Hello Beautiful.”

“Mama,” Nell said, showing off five pearly white teeth.

“Nelly,” Annie answered and laughed when Nell shook her head vehemently. Nell definitely did
not
like the nickname. “Okay, you are my lovely girl, Nell.” Once again she was awarded a beautiful baby smile.

Annie took her into the living room. Kali held out her hands, and Annie deposited her into the woman’s arms. Kali had to lean far back into the couch and shift sideways in order to snuggle with the baby around her pregnant belly. Nell put a gentle hand on Kali’s tummy and grinned.

“Babas.”

“Aren’t you a clever girl?” Noah smiled as he stroked the straight black hair on Nell’s head. “Yes, Kali has babies in her tummy.”

“The other night she recognized a picture of Seth as her daddy. She shouldn’t have been able to do it, but she did.” All three adults watched as Nell snuggled against both Kali and her belly, seeming to gain comfort from the twins and Kali.

“So you’ve never shown her a picture of Seth before?” Noah asked.

“No, it was just too painful,” Annie admitted. “Maybe I should have. Anyway, you know how she plays the guessing game?” They nodded. “The other night, after a vivid dream she was basically saying her dad was making me sad. It was the first time she talked. I showed her a photo with Seth and me. She called him Dada and me Mama.”