Free Hard to Come By by Laura Kaye Page B

dickhead are in the college parking lot, waiting just for you . Marz sniggered.
    Rot in hell , was the sum total of his response.
    Chuckling, Marz walked out to the street and found a spot in the shadows to wait. Leave it to fucking Beckett Murda to kill his erection and make him laugh in one fell swoop.
    Now the question was how much did he share about what’d happened with Emilie? Or the fact that he’d made plans to see her again?

Chapter 7
    G imme the rundown,” Marz said once he and Beckett were on the highway back to Baltimore.
    Beckett’s icy blue eyes flashed toward him, then away again. “Thirty bricks of heroin. Eighteen semiautomatics. And twenty grand in cash. We replaced it all with fake stand-ins to make it look undisturbed.”
    “Jesus,” Marz bit out as he scrubbed his hands over his face. Once again, that did not square with the woman he’d spent a big chunk of the day and night with. “What does it mean?” he asked. “For argument’s sake, let’s say Manny Garza stashed it there for safekeeping. That amount of product is the kind of thing a big-time distributor would have.”
    “Like Church,” Beckett said.
    “Exactly. So is Garza freelancing or hiding assets until the shit stops hitting the fan in Churchland?” Marzdidn’t too closely examine his motivation for wanting Manny to have been the Garza sibling responsible for the stash. Not that he really had to. Damn it all to hell.
    “Million-dollar question,” Beckett said.
    Marz crossed his arms. “Yeah.”
    Beckett stared straight out the windshield. “Well, as soon as we get back and briefed, the team’s raiding Garza’s address tonight. So maybe we’ll be able to just ask him.”
    “Fuckin’ A,” Marz said, although the little bit of conflict slinking through his brain revealed that he’d gone and gotten all involved . And wasn’t that a smack in the ass. Even if Garza was a dangerous, corrupt, drug-dealing mercenary, he was still Emilie’s big brother. The way she talked about the importance and meaning of her family, Marz had no doubt that taking Manny down would tear Emilie up. And he hated that for her.
    “How ’bout you? Learn anything?” Beckett asked after a while.
    Oh, that could be answered so many different ways. Marz sighed. “I thought I’d learned that Emilie Garza was squeaky clean. Not a thing about her read suspicious all day. I didn’t get access to her cell, but I did learn she’s having a big family get-together at her house on Saturday,” Marz said, his thoughts churning.
    “Built in chance to grab Garza if we don’t manage it sooner.”
    “Let’s hope we do.” For lots of reasons. Not only didn’t they have all week to nab him, not with Church looking for them, too, but no way did Marz want to bring a shit storm down on the heads of a bunch of innocent civilians. No way did he want to do that to Emilie.
    The rest of the trip back to the Rixeys’ Hard Inkbuilding was quiet, and Marz was glad for it. Glad to have the time and space to put his house in order before they were back in the thick of it again.
    When they returned to the sprawling red-brick warehouse that had been their temporary home for the past week and a half, most of the group was hanging around mission HQ—also known as Marz’s computer station—and waiting for them in the gym. Nick and Becca, former teammate Shane McCallan and his girl, Sara Dean; and Easy and Sara’s younger sister, Jenna, all stood in a circle talking.
    Marz’s gaze scanned the group. Blond-haired Becca was Charlie’s older sister, Nick Rixey’s new girlfriend and, mostly important, an ER nurse. Between her and Shane, who’d been trained as their intelligence officer and a backup medic for their A-team, their ragtag group had enough medical expertise in-house to deal with all but the most critical cases. Damn reassuring on a night like tonight, when they might encounter just about anything.
    Next to Shane stood Easy, being his usual reserved self