“What are we up against?” he asked, returning his attention back to the screen to assess the situation because he needed to go now.
Carter shrugged. “Just one perp.”
“And a slight one, at that,” Dex remarked, scrubbing his jaw as the camera caught the profile of the person now holding a dog in front of Emily’s kennel.
Shit…he recognized the dog. Princeton…
He wasn’t moving either.
“I’ll be damned, it’s a woman,” Mac muttered.
Holden’s gaze shot back to the feed where the perp’s profile became clear. His buddy was right. It was a woman.
“Hey.” Dex frowned and moved closer. “Doesn’t that look like…”
“Colby?” Disbelief coursed through Holden as he blinked at the familiar blonde’s face on the screen.
“Holy shit,” Carter mumbled. “The waitress who moved here from Houston? The one who is sweet on you, Holden?”
“Don’t think the move here was a coincidence,” Dex said, and the others agreed.
Mac set a hand on Carter’s shoulder. “Do a deep dive on this woman.”
Son-of-a-fuckin’-bitch.
Holden’s chest felt as if it had caved in. “So, this is all my fault again?”
First the guys, then his dog, and now Emily. Bad luck followed him and those he cared about most seemed to pay the price.
Mac straightened from looking over Carter’s shoulder and turned to Holden. “That’s bullshit. This is not your fault.”
Carter frowned. “And what do you mean byagain?”
“That mess of a mission that caused you all to leave Delta,” he said, remembering it like it was yesterday.
“How the hell do you figure that was your fault?” Mac asked, his frown deeper than Carter’s. “It was mine and mine alone.”
Holden shook his head. “No. I knew in my gut that your ex was off. That we were wrong to trust her on that mission, but I didn’t speak up. Just to Dante, but we were both too worried we’d be overstepping boundaries.”
“Hey.” Mac set his hands on Holden’s shoulder and squeezed. “I was the commander. She was my fiancée. It was my fuck-up, not yours. I had my own trepidations that I ignored, so I can guarantee you, even if you and Dante had said something, I still would’ve gone forward with the mission. I put my trust in the wrong person. I wanted to believe there was good in someone who was bad.”
Holden released a breath and a quarter of the weight from his shoulders with it.
“But it all worked out,” Dex said. “Look where you are now.”
Mac nodded. “I put my trust in the right person this time. Someone way too good for me. But I’m holding on to her with both hands.”
“Yeah, well, I found the right person and blew her trust in me,” he scoffed. “And now she’s in danger because of me. So is one of her dogs. I need to go to them.Now.”
Done waiting, Holden strode to his car. They were wasting time. Precious time.
“Carter, get going on that deep dive. Relay info as you get it,” Mac said, hurrying to an SUV, with Dex and Hunter on his heels.
Sinjin jumped in beside Holden. “Colby’s actions are her own,” his buddy said quietly. “You don’t control them, she does.”
Deep down, he knew his friend was right. Didn’t make him feel any less guilty, though.
Holden drove through town as he had nearly an hour earlier, but this time he had a location. He had a perp. He had a mission.
