Cut and Run 7 - Touch and Geaux

SAS?”
    “I was. I see he’s told you the story.”
    Zane was silent. This really was the man Ty had been talking about. The man he’d been involved with in the service, the man he’d shot. He was handsome and charismatic, exactly the type Ty would be drawn to. Zane could see that much. That, and he carried a gun.
    Zane wanted to question him further, but doing so would reveal how much he already knew. He wanted Liam to keep talking.
    “No matter. I’ve always said the past is the past for a reason, yeah? Although it does occasionally come back to bite you in the arse. Do you remember a man named Antonio de la Vega?” Liam asked, his blue eyes narrowing.
    Zane’s breath caught. “Name’s familiar. Zorro, right?”
    “Oh come now, Zane, don’t be coy with me. We’re all friends here. We can share.”
    “Friends don’t tie friends up.”
    “Oh, you’ve got the wrong sort of friends then,” Liam purred. He laughed, a surprisingly warm, pleasant sound. “I quite like you. You’re fun. Listen, Ty’s already called me once so he knows I have you. I’m not going to harm you, I promise. And I keep my promises, unlike some of us. But I need to lay some groundwork before I call him back, so do me a favor and indulge me. Antonio de la Vega?”
    Zane gritted his teeth, but he supposed he didn’t have much to lose. “I heard he was dead.”
    “That doesn’t answer my question. Nor is it news.”
    Zane groaned. “I remember him. Head of the Vega cartel, out of the Republic of Colombia. Feeds into the larger set of Gulf cartels.”
    “Excellent. He is indeed very dead. You were one of the FBI agents to infiltrate them. The last one left alive, to be exact. You lot almost took him down, from what I understand. Quite a nice body of work.” He paused to glance down the long line of Zane’s body.
    “Eyes are up here,” Zane grunted.
    Liam was smirking when he looked back at Zane’s face. “There’s a bit of a price on your head.” He paused, waiting for a response. When Zane merely stared at him, he nodded. “When that plane crashed with Antonio de la Vega in it, his brother took over. You remember his brother?”
    Zane did. Antonio de la Vega had been smart and controlled, stingy and almost surgical with his use of violence. He’d lived by a certain code of loyalty and honor. He hadn’t been a bad man to work for, and illegalities aside, Zane had quite liked the man. He’d been saddened when he’d heard of his death. But the younger de la Vega was a different animal altogether. He had a temper. Zane nodded curtly.
    “Well. He believes the FBI agent who helped destroy part of his operation is the very same agent who killed his brother. He’s out for blood.”
    “I didn’t kill Antonio.”
    “We know.”
    “We? You went from SAS to being a cartel henchman?”
    “No, darling, I went from SAS to NIA.”
    Zane rested his aching head on the cold floor. It seemed that what Ty had told him was at least partially true. “NIA.”
    “Your very own National Intelligence Agency.”
    “I know what it fucking stands for. What are they doing involved with this?”
    “They’re not.”
    Zane closed his eyes. “You’re freelancing.”
    “Hmm. Juan Carlos de la Vega was contacted earlier this week and told the FBI agent who killed his brother would be here in New Orleans this weekend.”
    “By who?”
    “Whom.” Liam shrugged, pursing his lips. “I was merely contracted to take care of it.”
    That got Zane’s attention, and fast. He raised his head. “I told you, I didn’t kill his brother.”
    “No. But Tyler did.” Liam nodded condescendingly. “Don’t look surprised. It’s what he does, Zane.”
    “So, what, you’re here to kill him for a paycheck?”
    Liam quirked an eyebrow. “Does this low opinion of me come from Tyler, or from my actions, I wonder?”
    Zane could only assume that was a rhetorical question, since he could feel where the blood had caked on the back of his head.
    “I didn’t know who my target was until I got here, so you can stow the attitude. I can only stall for so long, however. When the job doesn’t get done, more will come. And you know what will happen then.”
    Zane clenched his jaw and nodded.
    “Now, you’re a smart boy, so I assume you’ve already detected the real problem. For you, that is. It’s not that someone wants to kill Ty.”
    “That seems like a real problem to me.”
    Liam waved that off. “As you like. The real issue, of course,