The Heart Of The Lonely

CHAPTER 2

Conran was already waiting in his car by the time Brandon arrived on his motorcycle. He was parked in a corner, opposite of a supermarket parking lot.

It took several minutes for him to spot his older friend but as soon as he did, his bike was well-hidden, in a place he deemed safe. He walked towards the aging icy blue Mercury Marquis and opened the door, getting inside.

"Tell me." Brandon said, not wasting time.

He knew that the man sitting beside him would have some more information by now and if they wanted the mission to be successful, they'd need to run a few things by each other before they took action.

"The Lombardi brothers are inside but things are moving fast. The buyers have just arrived." Conrad explained, looking around.

He'd gained weight in the last couple of months, ever since his wife, Crystal and him had been having some marital trouble.

"Damnit, in just 5 minutes, everything could finally be over."

The FBI had been trying to track down the two Italian-born males for a couple of months now and not once had they managed to catch them in the act. They were smart and a step ahead of them.

They had their own methods and even though they were the enemies in the situation, both men had to admit that all of their plans so far had been maliciously thought-through. They had everything down to the nearest centimeter and whether they knew that they were being suspected, they had made it impossible for them to have proper proof of their dealings.

But today, they hoped, it was about to change.

"Do we have a backup team on the way?" Brandon questioned.

"Not until 20 minutes."

It was not the answer he'd hoped for but he knew that if they waited even a couple of more minutes, their opportunity could fall through and nothing could guarantee that they'd have one again.

"Let's have them together." He announced, racking the pistol slide, his grip as firm as steel.

"It's very risky, Bran." He heard his colleague remark.

The frown on his forehead made him look older than he actually was. He was anxious and Brandon knew it. If he had to be honest, he was, too.

But the father of the birthday girl attempted to chase any thought that could clutter his mind and distract him during the operation. His entire focus, after all, needed to be on making sure that nobody got hurt.

His fears, his doubts, nothing mattered. The intention was not to kill the brothers but to put a stop to their trafficking and get them to link the FBI to their headend.

And the sooner that happened, the sooner he'd be back home to the two loves of his life.

"We don't have a choice. You said it yourself, things are moving fast. We need to catch them red-handed." He slammed his hand on the glove compartment, making Conran take it as a hint that he needed to start the car.

The tires screeched, resonating in the mildly empty street. Both men's hearts began to race, the moment they had been waiting for was happening.

Finally.

Brandon trusted his partner with his life and he knew that as long as they were a team, nothing could go wrong, they'd have each other's backs.

Conran, however, was not as convinced as he was. The idea that his snitch could have possibly misinformed him began to creep in. As an agent, it was astonishingly difficult to trust people around him and even though there was hardly ever a way to find out if he'd been lied to until he went and checked for himself, it was still something he had to prepare for.