Page 29 of Ace

Or is it possible Cora Preston is just that uppity that she wants nothing but the softest of fabric touching her body? I look down at my hand, the roughness on my palm and the web of scars from so many missions and jobs that mark the back.

"She's trouble, isn't she?" Kincaid says when the call connects.

"Of course, she is. Wouldn't be a real case without at least someone thinking they can do a better job than what we're doing," I mutter. "They put three trackers in herpersonal belongings. I don't doubt they tagged her car as well."

"Think we're missing something about the family?"

I pull in a deep breath. This is something I've considered as well.

"Maybe they want to know what they know. Could be a hint that they had something to do with Sadie's disappearance."

"Could also be because the oldest brother is on a very fast track in politics with his eyes on the White House," Kincaid says, always playing the devil's advocate.

"And they want to expose the skeletons in their closet to prevent that from happening?"

"Or have the ability to control him while he's in office with those secrets," Kincaid counters. "Either way, it is odd that they marked her at least three times. Other than the tracker on your car, they didn't do anything else to your stuff."

"I went to her hotel. Swanky as hell. Makes me feel less bad about spending her money to gain access to the spa."

"I didn't know you ever felt guilt," he says with a chuckle, and I can't take offense to it.

Kincaid knew me as a wild twenty-something man who never looked back in life. I was always going forward, unconcerned about the trouble I left in my wake. The cases I've worked these last three decades have sobered me some, made me consider the different directions my life could've gone.

"She's not impressed with the speed of the case," I say, not breathing any life into his accusation.

"They never are. We're running Jane Doe scans across the entire US, but we haven't found anything yet."

"Are we thinking that's the way it's going to go?"

"I think there's a greater possibility of it than her being trafficked," he says, his tone shallow and flat.

I know he has seen as much death and destruction as I have, maybe even more so because his leadership role in Cerberus was alwaysmore hands-on than the one I have with the Agency. It never gets easier, and he's the type of man who won't let this sort of thing harden him, won't let it make him grow cold and unconcerned for the outcome. It's what makes him such a great man, what makes his teams so amazing. He won't allow it for the men and women working under him either. Cerberus is full of compassionate people, and although I've done really good work with the Agency, I've felt the loss of that brotherhood more often than not in the years since I left.

"Murdered?" I hedge.

"Or an OD that the brother is trying to cover up," Kincaid says. "Either way, stay on the spa until we know otherwise."

"Will do," I tell him, ending the call.

The reminder of Cerberus and all that they do hits me in the gut, just like it always has.

It feels selfish to wish I'd made a different choice all those years ago. Although Noah made his own decisions, he followed me from Cerberus. He wanted the same thing we all did, and that was a safer America. We had stars in our eyes and we were riding the high that working for an organization like Cerberus provided. We were going to save the world, and we held our own for years and years.

That was until Noah was sent to Mexico as an undercover. I was left behind here in the States as his handler. Although that day was over thirteen years ago, it seems like yesterday that I pulled him to my chest, clapped him on the back, and made him swear he'd stay safe. It was the last time I ever saw him in person. Had I known what the outcome of that job would be, I would've hog-tied him and kept him from going. Knowing Noah, he wouldn't have changed a thing. He was that dedicated to his work.

Working a mission with a team and going into a compound with your brothers at your back didn't compare to what he was sent to do.

We both knew how fucking dangerous Alejandro Cortez was. We had proof in the line of bodies he left behind in his abandoned compounds as he moved around Mexico at just how quickly he would turn on those who worked for him.

We knew the dangers and chose to infiltrate anyway. The goal was to get as much information as we could in six months. We just needed to discover how his pipeline from Mexico to the US worked. Shutting that down stopped an excessive amount of drugs, gun, and sex trafficking. Cortez dipped his toes in anything and everything that made money for the cartel, and he didn't care whose toes he stepped on to put another dollar in his pocket.

Noah worked the daughter angle. I remember joking with him about how big of an ask it was to spend time with the gorgeous drug princess, but then the calls became fewer. He was close but couldn't get close enough. Cortez was paranoid and didn't trust easily. Six months turned into a year, with Noah vowing he was only a month away from being in the inner circle. He just knew he could get there.

Noah wasn't even the one to tell me about his marriage to Cortez's daughter, but I had access to the photos. He didn't look like a man undercover. He looked like a man in love. I knew better. I knew he was in deep, but at the heart of it, he was still ICE, and he was still on our side, no matter how it looked to everyone else.

It didn't stop the whispers that ran rampant through ICE. It didn't stop the meetings I was called into so I could discuss my rogue agent.

A year turned into three, with infrequent calls, but he fed us information. We were able to get the drop on several houses in the US that were processing the goods they were trafficking, but he was never capable of giving us the direct pipeline.

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