child, and she had no doubt that he knew that. He could kill Perez a thousand times over and even the score, but that wouldn’t fill the void in his life where his beloved wife and child used to be. And living with that cruel reality had to leave him feeling damned empty inside, no matter what happened in the next few minutes.
Her gut instinct told her Kinkaid might think that dying there would be easier than living with the aftermath of what had happened, when he had no one else left to blame.
She prayed she was wrong.
Chapter 17
Garrett had tried to assign Kinkaid the back of the house since he was wounded and not in the best of shape, but Jackson refused. He wanted to be first one through the door and nearest Perez.
With Dr. Hernandez inside, Garrett had monitored his thermal imager to check his movements within the walls of his residence. The person in the back of the house had moved but was still there. Whoever was there was either hiding or had been confined to a room. Either way, no one could be ignored. And after the doctor entered the house, he went straight for the front room. The movements on the imager gave them more intel to plan their strategy.
“You cover the back. When you’re in place, we’ll make our move,” Garrett told her. “With the doctor working on Perez, Guerrero will be distracted. Since we don’t know the layout, picking the lock might buy us time to get in tight and take them by surprise.”
“When you get inside, let me know,” Alexa said as she put on her com unit. “I’ll secure the rear of the house after I hear from you.”
“Kinkaid and I will focus on the three in the front. Guerrero is the one to watch. He’ll be armed and nervous. If we hit them hard, this could be over fast.”
“Guerrero doesn’t strike me as someone who’d risk his life for Perez,” Kinkaid said. “If it comes down to him or his boss, I’d bet money he’d give Perez up once he knows they’re not getting out of this. We just have to convince him that he’s not important to us. We’re not cops. We won’t arrest him or turn him over.”
“Yeah, good point. Talking him down will be your job,” Garrett said. “Anything else?”
Kinkaid and Garrett looked ready to go, but Alexa had something on her mind and she had to bring it up now, for Kinkaid’s sake.
“Once we get Perez, what then?” she asked. She shifted her gaze between the two men, but when neither of them said anything, she pressed. “I mean, if he doesn’t put up a fight, is this an execution . . . or do we have another plan?”
Given what she did for a living, Alexa found it more than a little ironic that she’d suddenly become the voice of reason when it came to morality. The Sentinels were a covert vigilante organization. Their operations were about doling out justice without the red tape of the court system and jurisdictions. When they went after a target, they had proof of the crime to justify their actions, and they usually confronted criminal organizations who were clearly in the wrong, but working for the Sentinels required her to have an adaptable moral code.
She believed in what they did, or she never would have joined the group and sacrificed having a normal life for one mired in secrecy. But this operation had been Kinkaid’s vendetta. And even though she completely understood Jackson’s motivation, if he murdered Perez in cold blood, would that trigger an even deeper slide into desolation for Kinkaid?
She didn’t care about a man like Perez. The man was a total waste of skin. He was a known drug dealer and head of a brutal cartel. Assaulting his hacienda outside Guadalajara had been easier because they knew the man had Kinkaid as a hostage, and they had proof of that. And Perez’s men had fought back, but here, that might not be the case. If the cartel boss gave himself up, would they still execute him?
When Kinkaid was the first to speak, she thought she knew what he would say, but she would’ve been wrong. Jackson surprised her.
“I have to see this through, but I can take it from here if you can’t stomach what’ll happen in there.” Kinkaid gave them a way out if they wanted it.
“And as far as I’m concerned, Garrett, the slate is clean,” Jackson said. “You don’t owe me anything anymore . . . if you ever did. What happened wasn’t your fault. It’s taken me years to see that. And killing Perez won’t bring my wife and little girl back, but I have to see this through. I destroyed Perez’s cartel before, and he only rebuilt it. He’ll do it again, and I can’t let that happen. I can’t stomach the thought of that man thriving from all this, but I won’t blame either of you if you decide this isn’t for you.”
“If Perez gives himself up, what do you see happening?” This time Garrett asked the question. And only Kinkaid could answer it.
It took Jackson a long moment to think about what he would say, but eventually he did. And he did it as he looked Garrett square in the eye.
“I trust you. Both of you. I just want Perez brought to justice. Whatever happens, you make the call, Garrett. I can live with that.”
Kinkaid sounded as if he wanted to play nice. And Alexa hoped he meant it. If he did, there was hope for him yet. He might have a future if he lived through this. But a part of her remembered the ruthlessness in his beautiful fierce eyes that she’d seen in Cuba and how haunted he’d been when he finally told her about his wife and baby girl. Pain like that didn’t just fade away. It lasted a lifetime.
People change. And she wanted to believe Jackson had, too, but the paranoid part of her wasn’t so sure.
She could also see why Kinkaid would trust Garrett to finish this. Leaving the decision up to him didn’t mean Perez would walk. Garrett was the head of the Sentinels for a reason. He knew how to make the tough calls, and he’d killed plenty in the name of justice, but maybe Kinkaid would say anything to stay on the team and face Perez one last time to play judge, jury, and executioner.
Without knowing what was in Kinkaid’s head, Alexa had to make one last-ditch effort to reach him.
“I hear what you’re saying,” she told Jackson, looking him in the eye. “And I want to believe you can put this behind you when this is all over, Jackson. But revenge never lives up to its hype. Obsessing over it like you’ve been doing can make you an addict who never knows when to quit.”
When he had a hard time meeting her gaze, she reached for his arm. “Will you know when it’s time to let go?”
Jackson never answered her. He stared back with his battered face, a reminder how much he’d already been through, but he never said another word. She tried reading something into his silence but came up empty. It was time to go. And whatever would happen between Kinkaid and Perez lay ahead of them.
Alexa wasn’t sure why Jackson had handed Perez’s fate over to Garrett and had used the word “trust” to do it, but given the expression on her boss’s face, he hadn’t missed that point either.
Garrett only nodded, and said, “Let’s move out.”
In the study near the front door, Ramon Guerrero looked out the front curtain one last time as he aimed his weapon at Dr. Hernandez. The neighborhood was quiet this time of day, but Ramon knew the importance of being careful. He’d picked the doctor’s library to hide his boss because it had two entrances. One door was off the foyer, and the other led to a vacant guest bedroom in another wing of the house. The study was a pass-through. After the doctor had come into the house, he’d accosted him in the foyer and escorted him to where Perez was. He’d locked both doors and secured the room.
Now Ramon had his weapon pointed at the doctor’s head as he told him what would happen.
“We have your wife locked in a room. If this man lives, you’ll see her again. You understand?”
“Yes. Just don’t hurt her. I’m here. I’ll do what I can.” The doctor reached for the leather bag he’d brought with him before Ramon stopped him.
“Hold it.”
Guerrero grabbed the bag while he kept his gun on the man. He searched the contents to make sure the doctor didn’t have a weapon hidden in his medical supplies. When he didn’t find anything suspicious, he threw the leather case onto a coffee table.
