Page 32 of Reclaiming Izabel

“Not giving her space.” Especially with that damn architect sniffing at her heels.

“Somehow, I’m not surprised,” the other man drawled. “Underneath your perceived betrayal, she’ll realize that you made the best and most logical decision for the both of you.”

I emitted a bitter laugh. “She’s also come to her senses that I’m a bad bet.”

“Stop whining.”

“Fuck you.”

A few seconds of testosterone-charged air hung between us.

Until Viktor’s brow shot up. “You good?”

“Yeah...” Surprisingly, using him as a sounding board to release my frustration was very helpful.

“Good. Because I ain’t talking about feelings.” Viktor moved past me to walk back to the conference table.

“You started it,” I muttered.

A brief chuckle escaped Viktor’s lips. “Just wanted you to know that Carter is available to you.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Out of our task force, only Edmunds and Brick returned to the East Coast. The rest of the men disbanded to retire or pursue other things. Though most of our team were handpicked because of skill set, each one had a personal stake whether to avenge our fallen brothers or to end Youssef Hamza. At this stage, we were more dependent on spy craft to determine the leak of operational information that compromised the JSOC mission. Their deaths had scored my soul and bringing all the people responsible to justice was the only way the scar wouldn’t blister and bleed.

Viktor grabbed the glass display controller and clicked several times to show a list of numbers and several overlapping circles, which I interpreted as cell phone triangulation.

“We recovered a list of cell phone numbers from Hamza’s files,” Viktor said. “Most of them are burners and scattered around Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, but we’ve shut down most of those cells over the past three years.” He clicked and changed the screen to what looked like a map of the eastern seaboard centering on Virginia. “With the list of numbers from Hamza’s files, we were able to isolate these cell phone clouds. Tim’s algorithm along with archived data from the NSA plotted two clouds over DC and Virginia Beach at around the timeframe of the joint Fire Team and Delta Force mission.”

“Are you saying we had a blatant breach of operational security?” Brick asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Viktor clipped, magnifying the cell phone clouds. “The one over DC was active two hours before that mission. Someone was feeding Hamza real-time information.”

Curses erupted between Brick and Edmunds, but my attention zeroed in on a particular spot on the display.

“That date over the VA Beach cloud…that was four days before we shipped out,” I speculated.

Viktor nodded grimly. “Multiple transmissions between Hamza and that number have been confirmed on the days leading to your team’s deployment and we’ve identified who was at the location.”

The look on the task force chief twisted a knot of apprehension in my gut. “You have a name?”

It was more a statement than a question.

Again, Viktor nodded. “Guardians are keeping an eye on him, but we received a ninety-nine percent confirmation from Tim’s app this morning.”

“Do we know where he is?”

“We’re ready to bring him in.”

“Great!” I sprang from the chair, a devil of a purpose driving my actions. “Let’s smoke the motherfucker.”

“You’re sitting this one out.”

“What the fuck, Baran?” I growled, but the other man’s expression sent my thoughts into a wild trajectory, a path my brain did its best to reject, but the truth was written all over Viktor’s face.

Slowly, I approached the area where Viktor stood, and picked up the display controller from the table and clicked. Anger and betrayal burned a hole in my chest.

---