Page 21 of Lure

“Because you’re going to blame yourself regardless.” As much as he shrugged off the words, it wasn’t that easy.

“People get hurt when I don’t account for the variables. We have a plan for a reason.” Risk assessment. Contingencies. Deployment. We engaged in all of it and we planned out our strategy.

“Absolutely. As much as we try to plan, as much as we build in contingencies, sometimes shit just goes sideways.”

Unacceptable. I shook my head. “Let’s get back to this.” I didn’t want to debate this with him. We would never agree. The last time I’d had a plan go that sideways, Doc had gotten burned and Alphabet lost part of his leg.

Mistakes hurteveryone.

“You thinking again?” Voodoo challenged me and I shot him a bland look. “Good,” he said. “It’s about time. You’re down to me by four points.”

“Bullshit,” I snapped back at him but it was with more laughter than irritation this time.

“Put your money where your mouth is K, let’s do this.”

“Dick.”

“Yep.” He didn’t deny it.

This time, when we clashed, it held a lot more finesse and control. I still ate the mat more than once and I put him down an equal number of times. At the end of another hour, soaked in sweat and stinking of it, I didn’t argue when he called a halt to it.

Instead, I just laid flat on my back to get my breathing under control. The whole exercise worked to sand down all the jagged edges.

“Grabbing a shower, then I’m heading to Grace’s room,” Voodoo told me. I debated calling him on it. The fact he wanted to be in there as much as he felt like he should be was another problem.

Not one he wanted to listen to me on right now.

“You should do the same,” he said. He’d pulled the wraps off his hands, and he was in worse shape than I was from the sweating.

He was also going to have a hell of a black eye. I’d feel bad, but he damn near broke my nose. So I figured that made us even.

“I’ll be fine,” I told him, shoving up from the floor as he headed toward the exit. “And tomorrow…”

I didn’t have to look at him, he’d stopped at those two words.

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow. Explain things to her.” Probably should have done it before now, but we hadn’t had the time.

“Or…” Voodoo elongated that syllable and I turned to find him staring at me. “Wealldiscuss it with her. We alsolistento her and not just give her orders.”

I snorted. “We don’t agree,” I reminded him.

“I know,” Voodoo said with a smile. The faint kind that said he knew he’d already won the argument, but was doing me a solid and not gloating about it. “That’s what will make it so interesting.”

Then he was gone and I took the time to pull the wraps off my own hands. Everything ached. But it ached in a good way. The bruises were mine and I’d damn well earned them. The tightness in my gut was gone, the sick worry that left me unsettled and second guessing everything was also absent.

The job had been simple. Deal with the Rojas operation. They were more a ring than a cartel. The job called for us to eliminate their processing houses and if possible, burn the stashes with it.

More than a warning shot across the bow, the move was designed to hurt them. Mentally, physically, but most importantly, financially. We’d failed on two fronts. We’d have to go back. Unfinished business was not something I planned to leave in our wake.

It wasn’t until I’d gotten up to my own room and stood under the hot spray to wash off the sweat that it hit me what questions we hadn’t asked. What questionIhadn’t asked.

Someone had betrayed us. That meant it could have been the client themselves—hiring us to what? Get taken out? Create a reputation? Improve one? One way or another, the Rojas had been alerted to our arrival. They’d shifted operations, abruptly.They’d also caught us on our way out, sending heavy pursuit and firepower to eliminate us.

A stretch, maybe. But the tenacity in their pursuit didn’t smell like an accident or just stubbornness. The farther we went, the more likely they were going to be the ones led into a massacre—which was exactly what happened.

So why do it?

Because they were following orders.

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