Page 69 of Heartless

“The guards change shift at midnight. We go in at one thirty, take them down, and get them out of the way. Then we’ll set the devices.”

Hawke nodded. The goal was to cause no loss of life. Guarding warehouses filled with narcotics that killed and destroyed people’s lives wasn’t legal or admirable, but their primary mission was to destroy the Gonzalez cartel once and for all. These men would be interrogated. Once they’d given all the intel they could, most, if not all, would be released. Yeah, they’d likely go on to commit other illegal activities. Leopards rarely changed their spots, but that would be on them. The priority was to destroy the cartel, period.

“Where’s the holding facility for the guards?”

“Two miles down the road. We’ll have a van there. We’ll get them in, and Kate’s people will drive them away.”

“How much time does that leave us?”

She was silent for a few seconds and then said quietly, “Liam and I have done several practice runs. With no impediments, we set eight charges and made it to the safe zone. Our longest time was seven minutes, thirty-seven seconds.”

Hawke raised a brow. “No impediments?”

“Your leg.”

“Will be fine.”

“You were limping the other day.”

“And now I’m not. I’ll be fine.” He didn’t bother to explain to her that he’d been limping because her mother had kicked the shit out of him when he’d captured her. Underestimating Iris Gates had never been a smart thing. Even as a prisoner, she had been deadly.

Giving him a searching look, Olivia apparently saw the resolve in his gaze, because she went on, “Once the charges go off, the response time for an emergency crew is approximately five minutes.”

“That’s impressive.”

“That’s the Gonzalez influence.”

Only it wasn’t, not really. The more he knew about this shadow organization, the more he realized that those under its dominion controlled nothing. It might be called the Gonzalez cartel, but the people who were supposedly in charge were puppets, dancing to the tune of their invisible but powerful masters.

“We go in three days. Correct?”

“Yes. That give you enough time to create your charges and set everything up?”

“Yes. Liam and I already have everything ready. I’ll just need to double-check the connections once they’re in place.”

“I’ve got to leave, but I’ll be back the day before.”

“Where are you going?”

“Personal business.”

She jerked as if he’d slapped her in the face. He hadn’t meant to be short with her, but neither did he want to have to explain. She wouldn’t understand. Hell, he didn’t understand it either.

Backing away from him, she said, “Have a good trip.”

“Livvy…”

“No.” She held up her hand to stop him. “You don’t owe me any explanations. What you do on your own time is your business. Forget I asked.”

Instead of doing the smart thing and leaving, he took three steps forward and stopped, only inches from touching her. Looking down at her pale, composed face, he could see the hurt she was trying to hide. And it broke something inside him. He loved this precious, beautiful woman more than life, and he had hurt her so badly.

“How did we get here, Livvy?” He touched her then, unable to stop himself. His fingers gently brushed her cheek, then her trembling lip. “How the hell did we let this happen?”

“We lost our way, Nic,” she said softly. “We got careless. Took what we had for granted.”

“When I was gone all those months on the job, I would go to bed every night, wondering what you were doing, where you were, what was going on.”

“And I would wonder the same thing.” She shook her head. “Those weeks and months of not hearing from you… I knew you were deep cover, and you were doing good work, but it just wore me down. That separation created a divide we never saw coming.”

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