Page 78 of Blood Revealed

Then I pluck the phone from my pocket and dial Raif.

18.

Raif

“Get out of there, baby.Now,” I order her. “Keep low. Fuck.” I run my hand over my scruffy face. My skin itches because I haven’t had the chance to shave in a few days. There’s the commotion of her moving and heavy breaths. “Good looking out, sweetheart. You did great.” And the shit of it is I don’t know if I’m trying to reassure her or me.

“I’m far enough away now, Raif. Getting on the bike.”

“Can you ride and talk?” I ask.

“Don’t know. But I’m sure that I can’t ride, talk to you,andkeep an eye out for suspicious activity.”

The sooner I get her back in my arms, the better off we’ll both be. Caity’s going to be treating me for an ulcer by the time this ends. “Okay. Sharp eyes, Hannah. I’m not kidding. Check in every hour. Leave a voicemail. I’ll answer when I can, but my phone’ll be on vibrate.”

“Okay.”

“Repeat it so I know you’ve been listening.”

“I call once an hour and leave a voicemail if you don’t pick up. Your phone will be on vibrate.” She rattles off the information in perfect succession. “Love you, Raif.”

“Love you back, baby. Now get safe.”

Hanging up on her knowing we’re so close to getting to each other, yet still so damn far away practically kills.

“What was that about?” Chaos asks.

“We need to scrap the mission today. Go in, do more recon.”

“For fuck’s sake, why?” Hero shouts. “I got a wife who’s going crazy with her sister missing. What am I supposed to tell her?”

This is exactly the kind of shit I don’t need right now. “Look, I know Brin’s knocked up—I don’t wanna put any more stress on her than necessary. But you tell her that she’s got a fucking smart sister with great instincts who saw a dude coming off as shady.”

He’s worried about Hannah. Every man here’s worried about Hannah. But I guarantee nobody’s more worried about my wife than I am.

All those dead bodies at Escalante’s homestead and not one of ’em was Escalante. That man is a cancer and needs to be cut out. He’s regrouping and we’re stalled. Fuck if I know what else to do. Did he fly out to some safehouse compound of his own? How fortified is it?

“We’re gonna have to go after the cartel.” Every brother in hearing distance of my voice whips his head to look at me.

“War with the Anguino Cartel? Are you fucking nuts?” Blue asks, and yeah, I’d think of me as nuts too if I were him. “They got more firepower than we can ever hope to have.”

He’s not lying. But he also doesn’t have an old lady in the crosshairs of this shit. “Listen. I get you, brother. But Blaze fucked us when he turned. Two of our women are directly connected with this shit and if any of you think the rest are safe? You’re fooling yourselves. You don’t think, if Escalante gets the chance, that he’ll go after Elise or Liv or any of the women?”

Blue drops his hands to his hips, staring at the ground, he begins to pace. It’s not cowardice. He’s just adding up the numbers in his head and coming up with Armageddon like the rest of us. We do nothing and the women are vulnerable. We go to war against the cartel, we die, the women are vulnerable. The babies and young kids.

“Might be another way,” Scotch pipes in. “When we helped dissolve the contract between Anguino and the Outcasts, I took that bullet for Anguino. It’s a marker he owes. I’m calling it.”

“Do you really think he’ll honor it when it means going after his own man?” Blue asks.

“He’s any kind of man, then yeah.” Scotch turns away from us, pulling his phone from his back pocket. “It’s not like I have a direct line to Anguino, but I’ll try to get word to him.”

Exactly at the hour mark from when I last talked to Hannah, my phone buzzes. Since there’s nothing much going down right now, not until we can secure the meet with Anguino, I answer it. “Baby,” I say.

“Doing as directed,” she answers.

“It’s good to hear your voice. We’re working on things from our end, but baby, be prepared, yeah?”

“That’s not very reassuring, Raif.”

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